EA Files Patent Which Could Improve Server Stability for FIFA

A new patent has been approved for EA which could potentially improve online connections for some of the studio's games.

A patent called "Providing video game content to an online connected game" was first filed by EA back in 2020. However, it was recently approved. According to the patent, the technology relies in machine learning to monitor a "request rate of requests to provide video game content."

What this means for EA's servers is that they'll be able to monitor requests sent by players and determine the probability of the server being able to carry out the requests. EA would essentially be able to monitor the state of servers for games like FIFA or Battlefield in real-time, running tests on them while they're still in use.

"Machine learning models may improve the quality of provided video game content as measured using one or more of objective content quality measures, assessments and feedback from video game players," the patent reads.

"Examples of video game content that may be provided include, but are not limited to, speech audio; player character choice recommendations; game mode recommendations; the location of entities, e.g. objects, characters and resources, within a video game environment; music; non-player character behaviour; character animations; and video game terrain. The content provided by machine learning models may also be dynamic facilitating varied player experiences, e.g. every playthrough of a video game may be different."

The patent did also outline some of the drawbacks to using such a technology: "machine learning models may use significantly more computational resources, e.g. memory, processing resource, and storage space, than other methods of providing video game content, e.g. providing static or scripted content."

"As the provisioning and utilization of computational resources takes time, the time taken to provide video game content in response to a request, e.g. the video game content provision latency, may also be increased relative to other methods of providing video game content."

Instability with online game servers is somthing that most players are familiar with in some form. For companies to be able to spot the issues before they get out of hand would no doubt improve the experience for many players.