EA is now offering 38 accessibility patents for free to all developers

by Danny Craig · 12/6/24, 12:00 PM
EA is now offering 38 accessibility patents for free to all developers
Electronic Arts

EA has now added another 23 patents to its "patent pledge," giving any development studio access to a total of 38 patents focused on accessibility.

The details:

  • EA announced the patent pledge back in 2021, which resulted in the publisher releasing five of its patents to the public, all of which focused on improving accessibility in games. The pledge allows any developer to use the included patents without paying any fees or risking legal action.

  • Since the start of the pledge, EA has added 15 patents, which has now increased to 38 with the recent addition of another 23. The new patents cover technologies for accurate speech recognition, expressive and personalized speech generation, easy activation of speech assistants, and a system that "tunes the background soundtrack of the game" to match the player's emotion.

  • EA has also released an open-source Unreal Engine 5 plugin that allows for in-engine use of the company's photosensitivity analysis technology, which was also open-sourced last year. The tech collects and analyzes video data, such as cutscenes and animations, to detect potential photosensitivity issues and alerts the user to make visual adjustments as needed.

  • The publisher hopes that the patent pledge will enable more developers to make their games accessible while requiring fewer resources to implement the technology. “EA is a community driven entertainment company,” the company wrote in its announcement. “We want players and fans from all communities to be able to experience the joy of gaming and to reduce barriers so that we can all play, create, watch and connect. The accessibility patent pledge is an extension of this philosophy, as we believe that when it comes to play, a rising tide lifts all boats.”

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