Patent ID: 8585504

Claim:
A gaming network comprising: a plurality of gaming machines, each one of the gaming machines being arranged to run a game client process and a promotional client process; a game server that is remote to the gaming machines, the game server being arranged to run a plurality of separate game server processes, the game client process of each of the gaming machines is arranged to communicate with a unique one of the game server processes, via a communication network, such that each of the gaming machines receives an individual game service, the game client of each of the gaming machines being further arranged to communicate event data, via the communication network, resulting through play of an individual game on the respective one of the gaming machines to a common data storage module that is remote to the gaming machines for storage; and a promotional server configured to evaluate the event data stored in the common data storage module and predefined trigger data in order to determine whether to initiate a shared game service such that upon determining that the shared gaming service is to be initiated the promotional server communicates with the promotional clients, via the communication network, for selected ones of the gaming machines in order to implement the shared gaming services; and wherein the shared gaming service includes play of a shared game in which the plurality of gaming machines participate, the play of the shared game being conducted substantially simultaneously with play of each individual game on each of the respective plurality of gaming machines.