Patent ID: 8465369

Claim:
A game system that executes a network game in which, while players who are respectively operating competing terminals including at least two terminal devices are competing against each other via a communications network, a spectator operating a spectating terminal including at least one terminal device can spectate a mid-competition game status via the communications network, the game system comprising: a substitution management portion that, when a mid-competition player requests to substitute that player's game operations to the spectator, performs management of a substitution process in which the terminal device of that player is set as a spectating terminal, and the terminal device of the spectator is set as the competing terminal, wherein the spectator who has been substituted for that player by the substitution management portion executes the game operations of that player by operating the terminal device of the spectator, wherein the at least one terminal device included in the spectating terminal is connected together with and serially to any of the competing terminals respectively by a peer to peer connection in which direct data exchanges are performed among the terminal devices, wherein the game system further comprises a spectator management portion that, when a person desiring to spectate while specifying a competing terminal, connects the terminal device of the person desiring to spectate as a spectating terminal to a series that is serially connected to the specified competing terminal, wherein the substitution management portion performs management of the substitution process so that, with respect to a mid-competition player, only spectators of terminal devices in the series that is serially connected to the competing terminal of that player are permitted to perform substitution, and wherein the substitution management portion, when having received from the terminal device of the mid-competition player a substitution request command for substitution of that player's game operations to the spectator, sends changed opponent information to the terminal device of the player who is competing with the player who has requested the substitution, the changed opponent information indicating that the opponent has changed from the competitor to a spectator and sends changed peer to peer connection information to the terminal device of the player who has requested the substitution and to terminal devices which are peer to peer connected to that terminal device, the change connection information indicating that the peer to peer connection has changed, and thereby setting the terminal device of the spectator as the competing terminal.