From today, the Video Game company Electronic Arts offers its accessibility patents for other developers and studies to use them for free.
In this way, it takes a historic step to encourage inclusiveness in the world of videogames allowing us to develop new tools and features from its technology.
It is concrete, the assignment of the North American giant consists of five patents used in some of its most successful franchises such as Apex Legends, The Sims 4 and FIFA, all focused on make video games to players with visual, auditory and cognitive disabilities.
In this way, developers of both Indie Titles and Triple A, they will be able to use these tools without fear that EA executes actions for infringing any of the patents yielded.
One of these technologies, that of the ping system used in the Apex Legends video game, is very recent, so much that it has been issued this day by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
This system allows communication between players without the need for voice chat, making the title more accessible for people with auditory, visual, cognitive or speech difficulties and, in addition, reducing the toxicity during the game.
In this way, players can give precise information to their teammates by pressing a button, intuitively, easy and accessible.
Through command, you can mark the location of an enemy, an area to attack, point out to defend or monitor.
Three of the five patents are related to the treatment of color and adaptation of the chromatic range to users with red-green daltonism and deutenopia.
This image processing technology, used in titles such as FIFA and Madden NFL automatically modifies brightness, contrast and colors to improve the visibility of colors and adapt it to the visual difficulties of the player, to improve the interaction with the title.
In this way, releasing this patent, aims to promote the inclusiveness of future video games of other developers, calling collaboration within the industry.
The source code is located in GitHub to facilitate developers include these EA tools directly on their games, saving costs and fostering that new technology is adapted or developed based on the code.
The last of the patents is centered on players with hearing problems.
Allowing each player to modify or adapt the music and sounds of the videogame based on their auditory preferences, adjusting to the limitations they may have.
It is no coincidence that Battlefield has been one of the most inclusive videogames in terms of accessibility of all types of players.
Allowing modifying the frontal display screen elements (HUD), where the information of the game and the player is displayed, in addition to offering custom chromatic configurations.
The company has also launched other initiatives as an accessibility portal in which players can know the characteristics of each videogame to adapt to profiles with visual, auditory or cognitive difficulties, as well as exposing suggestions for improvement.
“Our accessibility team takes a long time committed to the elimination of barriers within our video games, but we realize that, to promote a significant change, we need to work together as an industry to make it better for our players,” says Chris Bruzzo,
Executive Vice President of Positive, Commercial and Marketing Game of EA, in the statement announcing the assignment.
Also encourage other companies to follow their steps and make their own assignments, giving priority to accessibility for all.
“We appreciate the collaboration with others on how to advance the industry together,” he adds.
In the future, the company announces that this assignment will be accompanied by more, focused on accessibility technologies, making them open source.
