Since the advent of 3D gaming, developers have long struggled with camera placement. The combination of a player controlling a character in a 3D space and having to adjust the camera has been causing problems for decades now, even in games that are generally considered some of the best out there. Game publisher Electronic Arts recognizes that this is still a problem and has recently filed a patent that looks to address the issue.

Electronic Arts has filed a patent that it hopes will allow it to find an alternative way to controlling characters in video games, including camera movement. In the patent, EA uses first-person shooter games as an example. It explains that FPS games typically have the player controlling the character with one analog stick, and then using the other analog stick to move the camera around. This means that both of the player's thumbs are occupied at once, limiting what else they can do in the game at that time.

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EA believes that this limitation can reduce the player's enjoyment. And with games like EA's Battlefield series, for example, the goal would usually be to maximize enjoyment so players keep playing the game and don't hop to competing titles. EA's patent describes a situation where players would control the in-game camera, which would populate a "movement control interface" with selections based on what the camera is seeing. Players could then select the point of interest that they want and then the character would move there automatically.

To put it another way, if one was playing the new Battlefield game, they might see a building, a street, or a vehicle in the distance. Instead of physically moving their character to these locations, players would be able to press a button that would make the character walk to that location automatically. In this example, the building, the street, and the vehicle could be labeled with the X, Y, and B button on an Xbox controller, respectively, and so players could tap X to go to the building, B to go to the street, and Y to go to the vehicle.

Now, it should be stressed that there are many video game patents filed regularly that describe features or technology that never actually makes it into any video games. The specific technology described here seems like it would potentially have a limited audience, as part of the fun in a video game is directly controlling a character and moving them around the game world. But that doesn't mean something like this wouldn't have some practical use.

Something that comes to mind would be using this idea to make video games more accessible for people with disabilities. As products like the Xbox Adaptive Controller have shown, there are most certainly ways that game developers and publishers can make life easier for games with disabilities. Someone might have no problem controlling the camera in a game, but may struggle to control both the camera and their character at the same time, so something like this patent would potentially solve that issue.

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Source: USPTO