EA adds more tech patents to its accessibility program

Electronic Arts is expanding its accessibility program with 23 additional tech patents that other companies and developers can freely use without being slapped with an infringement lawsuit. The expansion more than doubles the total number of patents that EA has opened up since launching the pledge in 2021, and includes generation and recognition tools for speech and audio.

“We believe that games should be accessible to everyone and our industry-leading teams are always looking for new ways to make this a reality,” Kerry Hopkins, SVP of Global Affairs at EA, said in a press release. “By making this technology available to others, we continue to work to enhance accessibility and inclusivity for players around the world by removing unintended barriers to access.”

Some examples of open tech patents include systems that can improve speech recognition, generate expressive speech audio from text data, and generate speech that mimics a player’s voice based on minimal sample speech data. One system uses machine learning to make a player’s voice sound older, while another “infers a player’s emotion while playing a video game” and automatically adjusts the game’s background music to best suit their emotional state.

EA says these patents could be used to improve gaming experiences for players with speech disorders or who struggle with verbally expressing themselves, helping them to communicate in a way that better represents their age, emotion, language, and speaking style. Alongside this announcement, EA is also releasing a Unreal Engine 5 plugin that enables in-engine use of IRIS — EA’s photosensitivity analysis tech — to help game developers identify frames that could impact photosensitive players.