Patent ID: 8280960

Claim:
A game system comprising: plural communication groups, each having been allocated different communication paths from one another and each including plural game terminals sharing the communication path allocated to the respective communication groups; and a server device that forms a player group of game terminals which will play a multiple-player game in a unit of a group by selecting, from among the plural game terminals of the plural communication groups, one game terminal as a parent node requiring a larger amount of bandwidth during a game and at least two game terminals as child nodes each requiring a smaller amount of bandwidth, each of the plural game terminals of the plural communication groups comprising: an inputter that receives an instruction input by a player; a grouping request transmitter that generates, upon a predetermined instruction being input via the inputter, a grouping request for requesting the forming of the player group and that transmits the grouping request to the server device; a player group data receiver that receives player group data indicating the configuration of the player group; and a controller that determines, on the basis of the player group data, whether the game terminal has been selected as a parent node and that controls communication during the game based on a result of the determination; the grouping request transmitter comprising: an entitlement determiner that determines, upon receiving the predetermined instruction, whether the game terminal can exercise entitlement to function as a parent node; and a generator that generates, in a case in which the entitlement determiner has determined that the exercise of the entitlement is possible, the grouping request containing ability data indicating that the game terminal has an ability to be selected as a parent node and that otherwise generates the grouping request not containing the ability data; the server device comprising: an ability detector that detects whether the grouping request contains the ability data upon receiving the grouping request; a selector that selects, as a parent node, a game terminal from among game terminals having transmitted the grouping request containing the ability data and that selects at least two game terminals as child nodes from among game terminals having transmitted the grouping requests other than the one game terminal selected as the parent node; and a player group data transmitter that transmits, to each of the game terminals configuring the player group grouped through the selection by the selector, the player group data of the player group.