EA issued cross save patent in 2019

After hearing about cross play coming to Apex, I wanted to see if cross save was going to be implemented as well. In the past I had read the interview with Eurogamer where they say cross save would be impossible, but no more details were provided in that interview. It's been over a year since then, maybe there have been some changes.

In 09/06/2019, RespawnFirst wrote an article about cross-save and cross-progression between Origin and Steam. Great, sounds promising! So I looked into the patent itself. It was filed in 04/25/2017, and issued on 09/05/2019. What claims does it make?

Each player is assigned a value when accessing a game. Baked into that value are measurements such as virtual currency bought or sold, time logged into the online game, or number of friends. Now here's the important part: there is a system and a method in place that identifies the player on the first platform and the player on the second platform. So the system and method both say that they will compare the values of the player, and will "unite a first user's [player's] account in the online game across multiple online platforms…wherein the first user [player] can access the online game through the first online platform or the second online platform."

Now just because they filed a patent does not mean that it is a feature that will come. Patents expire in about 20 years, so between now and 2037 we may have cross-save support…

I encourage you to take a look at the patent. You'll likely find something that I've missed; I skimmed until I got to the most relevant parts and admittedly some of the legalese has bamboozled me.