EA’s New Tech Patents Boost Game Accessibility

EA’s New Tech Patents Boost Game Accessibility

Electronic Arts is significantly expanding its accessibility initiative. They’ve released 23 additional tech patents for free use by other companies and developers. This more than doubles the number of open-source patents since EA’s 2021 pledge.

Enhanced Accessibility Features

These patents include tools for speech generation and recognition. Examples of the open-sourced technology include:

• Systems improving speech recognition.
• Generating expressive speech audio from text.
• Creating speech mimicking a player’s voice from minimal samples.
• A system using machine learning to make a player’s voice sound older.
• Technology that infers a player’s emotion and adjusts in-game music accordingly.

EA states these patents can improve gaming for players with speech disorders or communication difficulties. The technology helps players communicate in a way that better reflects their age, emotion, language, and speaking style.

Additionally, EA is releasing an Unreal Engine 5 plugin for IRIS, their photosensitivity analysis tech. This helps developers identify potentially problematic frames for photosensitive players.