Patent ID: 7711847

Claim:
A method of managing users in a multi-user network game environment, the method comprising: establishing access to the multi-user network game environment at an authentication server; establishing access to application level information relating to one or more multi-user network games being executed at one or more user devices, wherein access is established at a lobby server; designating one of the one or more user devices as a multi-user network game leader; sending an invitation to at least one of the one or more user devices to join a game community created by the leader; maintaining information identifying the game community, the game leader, and the one or more user devices that have responded to the invitation to join the game community created by the leader, wherein the maintained information may be used to facilitate future game interactions; and maintaining a ladder ranking of multi-user network game users based on user performance data from participation in the multi-user network game, the user performance data including a plurality of statistics, at least one of the plurality of statistics defined by a particular multi-user network game and not constituting a culmination of points or order of finish from game play, wherein game participants are each associated with the game community and participate in the multi-user network game through communications with an application server, and wherein the ladder ranking includes a list of the game participants organized in accordance with a performance based metric, and the organization of the game participants in the ladder ranking varies in accordance with future multi-user network game performances of the game participants in the game community.