EA issues patent for Apex Legends Ping to other developers – Games – News

EA makes five patented accessibility related technologies available to other developers. This includes the Ping system from Apex Legends and options for people with color blindness.

in the so-called Patent pledge EA agrees not to take any action against developers who use technologies from the five patents listed above. These are patents relating to options or features in games that can assist players with disabilities. EA hopes other developers will adopt approaches to make games more inclusive.

The most famous technology released by the publisher is the Ping system from Apex Legends. Players can communicate with it through audio and visual commands and cues, all input from a console. According to EA, this helps people with disabilities who have difficulty communicating. The US Patent Office issued Patent granted to EA under the title A context-aware communication system in video games.

Another patent issued by EA focuses on a technical solution to color blindness. Its source code is Released via Github. The other three patents also relate to making games more accessible to gamers with vision problems, and are already widely used in EA games from the FIFA and Madden NFL franchises, according to EA. It includes techniques that detect and adjust colors, brightness, and contrast to improve the visibility of colors of similar brightness.