Tbf, it only makes good business sense to try and patent everything you can. Either to hold it as a unique selling point over competitors or to license to others.
I think the real problem here is the concepts of patents in general.
I'm okay with patents in general, just not software patents, and other patents should be much shorter.
The original point was to encourage sharing of ideas in exchange for protection while you bring it to market. But it's mostly just weaponized at this point.
I'm thinking something like 5 years for most patents, with a one time extension of you can prove you need more time to bring it to market or establish first mover advantage (so 5 years from release or from expiry, whichever happens first).
Parents are needed to incentivize people to share non-obvious manufacturing processes, so eventually they become public knowledge. It gets ridiculous and goes completely against the original purpose of patents when it applies to end-user features that are trivia to reproduce once you see them, like software parents.
Patents are a joke. In the medical products field, it's just as worst. I worked on an ICU bed and we couldn't use electronics brakes because a company patented the electronic brakes for hospital bed.
I'm surprised something like this was even allowed to be patented. That's a super broad category. I thought you could only patent actual systems and not the theory on how that system works
So reading this, the patent isn't for an accessibility option to reduce the amount of dialogue by somethin like a necessity level but by in dialogue allowing you to pick an arbitrary option of say "get to the point" which is a lot worse than I was hoping
Didn't the most recent Bubsy game already have this? It's a "verbosity" slider. Annoying that they're patenting the idea.
That being said, I can't play a lot of Sony games cause the NPCs never shut the hell up. They spoil puzzles before you can even see them and constantly tell you where to go. No trust in the player, whatsoever.