I'm probably way off here but when you mentioned the "ring" thing, I couldn't help thinking of the "Planet Ring" online games that Sega gave away with Official Dreamcast Mag (here in UK at least). I remember seeing it sold commercially with a mic too. It was a set of 4 online games from what I can recall (I never made the effort to play it online at the time) that was held together in the Planet ring hub.
Maybe these new marks could be some sort of extension of that principle?
Bookmarks