The patent (number 20130125161) details a method for dishing out awards and achievements to people who watch content, whether it’s adverts, TV shows or entire series.

As well as verifying what was watched, Microsoft will also be able track who was watching using its motion-sensing Kinect camera. Kinect will also be able to tell whether requested viewer actions were performed.

“For example, the viewer may display a product that is imaged by a camera, and the computing system may identify the product. In another example, the viewer simply being present, as detected by the sensor, may constitute an action taken.”

“Television viewing tends to be a passive experience for a viewer, without many opportunities for the viewer to engage or have interactive experiences with the presented content,” write inventors Tim Herby, Antonio Fontan and Chris Welden in the patent application.

“To increase interactive viewing and encourage a user to watch one or more particular items of video content, awards and achievements may be tied to those items of video content… By tying the awards and achievements to particular items of video or advertising content, viewers may be encouraged to increase their viewership of the content, thus increasing advertising opportunities.”