Electronic Arts Announces More Accessibility Patents Join Patent Pledge Commitment
Redwood City-based Electronic Arts (EA) announced on Wednesday the addition of eight new patents to its ongoing Patent Pledge for Accessibility. The additions bring the total number of patents to 46, and coincides with the 5-year anniversary of the Pledge.
“Through the Pledge, we share our accessibility-centered technology with the wider industry so that together we can meet the needs of our diverse gaming community,” EA says of the Patent Pledge. “It covers some of our most innovative technologies designed to break down barriers for players with disabilities. This includes those with vision, hearing, speaking or cognitive conditions. Better yet, all this IP has been shared royalty-free, which means you won’t need to pay royalties or license fees to use it.”
According to EA, there are four foundational technologies covered in the aforementioned eight new patents. The technologies are: (1) intent-based models for select actions; (2) expressive speech audio generation; (3) robust speech audio generation; and (4) speech prosody audio generation. In particular, the intent-based model technology is the underpinning for the Grapple Assist feature in EA Sports UFC.
Elsewhere, the company also noted enhancements to its open-source Fonttik accessibility tool. There are “new colorblindness simulation filters to the existing text size and contrast analysis technology,” according to Electronic Arts.
EA said today marks “another advancement in [the company’s] mission to inspire the world to play through a commitment to making video games accessible to everyone.”
“Our aim over the past five years has been to create more accessible gameplay experiences for everyone, no matter how or where they play, and open up video games to as wide an audience as possible,” Kerry Hopkins, EA’s head of global affairs, said in a statement. “The accessibility patent pledge is a valuable, whole-industry resource with royalty-free solutions for various use cases, including speech recognition and generation, photosensitivity analysis, and color blindness adjustments. We are proud to enable developers to reach more players with these technologies.”
