About the EA Apex Legends patent for the ping system… remember that EA has patented some of the mechanics from Spore and The Sims such as the Sporepedia concept and the Sim body sliders in The Sims 4 where you can drag parts on their body to reshape them in the creator.

Both appear to be not leased for free like the Apex Legends patent and as a result games are affected. Spiritual successors such as Elysian Eclipse and Life by You have to skirt around the patents - the latter is visibly shown to have regular style sliders where they’re located on a menu, and the developer for the former game complains about having to dodge the patents too.

In other words Electronic Arts isn’t fully innocent. But Nintendo and Electronic Arts can get some favor from us by doing the same thing EA did with Apex Legends patents for the patents registered for The Legend of Zelda, Spore, and The Sims. Nintendo might be able to blow this away if they do this, unlike WB’s patents with the Nemesis system, which is still commonly complained about.