EA always receives flack forĀ games and practises but they have recently been working on making games more accessible to those of you with disabilities or medical issues.
The company announced that their patented accessibility system is now free for everyone to use in their video games, marking a big step forward in helping gamers with various disabilities enjoy and benefit from video games, more so than they had in the past.
Accessibility options
These medical issues or disabilities apply to those with various vision, hearing, speaking or cognitive issues. The shared EA accessibility patents are as follows and the company says more will be added in the future:
- Contextually Aware Communications Systems in Video Games (Patent No. US 11,097,189), which includes Apex Legendsā widely praised Ping System.
- Systems and Methods for Automated Image Processing for Images with Similar Luminosities (Patent No. US 10,118,097 and CN 107694092), which helps address colour vision deficiencies.
- Contrast Ratio Detection and Rendering System (Patent No. US 10,878,540), which covers a system that automatically detects and updates subpart contrast rations ā again, helping with visibility.
- Personalised Real-Time Audio Generation Based on User Physiological Response (Patent No. US 10,790,919), which covers technology that plays personalised music based on a userās hearing issues. While patented, this has not yet been developed by EA.
EAās executive vice president of Positive Play Chris Bruzzo
We want to encourage this, we want to be bringing others along. Itās like āHereās some technology that weāve invented, and has value in the world ā what have you got?ā Letās contribute and [freely] licence these innovations to each other to the greater good of players everywhere.
Itās reported that 15% of the global population has some disability that would impair their ability to play our games the way others can. So itās a pretty big and important area for us to consider.Ā
But then you get to the next level of accessibility which is āWell, what about everyone else who maybe doesnāt have as direct a disability or something thatās holding them back, but in general are feeling that games arenāt accessible?Ā
I think thatās the biggest question, and to be honest I donāt think our work will ever be done as an industry in that, but there are some very important things that are happening now.