Electronic Arts has filed a patent to integrate player voices into video games. The idea is to be able to create an avatar speaking like you, or even to lend your voice to a non-player character.
The world of video game is not immune to a phenomenon affecting the new technology sector. Regularly, manufacturers will file patents for concepts or ideas more or less eccentric. The goal is not necessarily to produce a finished product. Rather, take the lead and protect yourself in case a competitor wants to release something similar one day. This summer, for example, Sony imagined a system so that 100 people could play at the same time on a cinema screen. Electronic Arts proposed that a video game adjust its difficulty automatically, based on your skills as a player.
The American company is precisely at the origin of another patent filed in 2020, but recently made public. It summarizes itself as follows: “a computer-implemented method for generating vocal sounds in a video game is proposed. The method includes entering input data that represents voice content into a synthesis module. Said like that, we don’t necessarily understand where he’s coming from. Yet it is simple, it is a system for making a game character speak with your own voice.
This technology would allow you to create a video game avatar speaking with your voice
You are used to create your own avatar in many games. The customization options are more or less developed, and when it comes time to choose a voice, you are limited by the pre-recorded proposals. The technology envisaged by Electronic Arts would make it possible to record yourself so that the hero speaks like you. We assume that it would be necessary to use a microphone to read several texts on the screen and that a artificial intelligence would take care of synthesize our voice for the relevant dialogues.
Not sure that the system is systematically adopted, especially when you play a named character with a recognizable voice (Batman for example). On the other hand, it would surely reinforce the immersion if we play an anonymous person. In absolute terms, our voice could be attributed to a antagonist or more generally to a non-player character.
Source: USPTO