Video games and accessibility.

Albus_Scope

• Did you know there’s over 2.8 billion gamers in the world?

• Who have generated over £142 billion in 2021 alone?

• From that 2.8 billion, over 20% of those gamers are disabled

• Plus an estimated 92% of people with impairments play video games. 

  So why have game developers only just started making games more accessible? 40% of disabled gamers have bought games they’ve been unable to play!

  According to a 2020 Scope survey, 66% of gamers said they face issues or barriers related to gaming. Mostly due to affordability of adaptive technology, often for sound or controller sensitivity. 

From the Scope survey, it's clear that disabled gamers are highly engaged across platforms, especially on Discord. They often view gaming as their primary hobby. So disabled gamers are now becoming a recognised key demographic and some studios are finally noticing.

 In the design phase, game studios focus on Accessibility in Game Design. It divides into four categories: motor, cognitive, vision, hearing. Each category offers various accessibility options like control remapping, subtitles, and difficulty scaling. You can skip game sections for easier access. They'll make the game disability-friendly from scratch.

  Let’s take XBOX as a good example. The Xbox store offers tags for disabled-friendly functions like subtitles. They also include high-resolution modes for better accessibility. When you buy a game with subtitles, they are adjustable. High contrast text options are available as well. The vetting system ensures quality.  It’s a huge step toward transparency for buyers. 

  The Last of Us 2 by Naughty Dog in 2020 rocked the gaming world. It offered 60 accessibility choices for players. These options catered to various needs like fine motor skills and hearing. The game also introduced features for low-vision and blind gamers. It was a significant step forward in inclusive gaming. It even had a selection of presets for various conditions to streamline it all with one click. They won a Game Award for Innovation in Accessibility. It's still considered one of the most accessible games ever.

Since then, many studios are becoming more accessible. For example, Larian Studios, who created Baldur’s Gate 3 in 2023, pledged the same.. Whilst most of the improvements aren’t too groundbreaking, their choice to make a minimap inaccessible to anyone is certainly odd.   But even in further patches to the game, they continued to roll out important accessibility options (including a game mode for people who are scared of spiders) so the game is, in theory, available to anyone that wants to get lost in its rich story.   Lastly, I wanted to leave you with a great website that reviews games so you can find out if their accessibility options will suit your style. 

 Are you a disabled gamer?  Have you struggled with gaming?  Are there any technologies you're using to help with your games? Are there any other parts you'd like me to cover in more depth? Let me know. 

xAlbusx 

66Mustang

I don’t struggle physically with playing video games but I often struggle psychologically. Although I am very heartened to see progress being made for the former, the latter seemingly still doesn’t matter.

I find certain types of violence really trigger my obsessive morbid thoughts. I like games where you can “turn down” how explicit the violence is. I can cope with cartoon violence and do really enjoy lots of the shooting games but the violence in some of them is too detailed now.

I know the answer may be "well, don't play them then!" but imagine saying that to a physically disabled person?

My anxiety is also triggered by really explicit sexual content. I am not asexual but I just don’t see the appeal of watching other people have sex and doing so actually triggers my anxiety. I remember buying Assassin’s Creed about 10 years ago because it looked amazing but the introduction involved sort of porn content so I just turned it off and never played it again. For this reason I can sort of join the 40% who have purchased a game that they’ve been unable to play!

Albus_Scope

Oh I totally get you there, I like games where you can skip sections of cutscenes, so you can get rid of the sexy-times, but not miss any potential important plot points. 
 The addition of downplaying gore in games seems to be getting better which is great to see. Though I'm not sure about having gore as a paid DLC. Yes I'm looking at you Total Warhammer 2! 

66Mustang

I didn't know paying to up the gore was a thing!  

As an aside, I presume it must be quite a challenging task designing games that are playable for people with disabilities, because you need to make them playable for everyone, without making it a viable tactic for able-bodied (and -minded) players to exploit these features i.e. if they make the game easier in some way!

Albus_Scope

I think thinking about accessibility from day one helps to streamline the game dev process, so things can be added in options, or even simply changing the difficulty. It's the beauty of modern games, they don't have to be really challenging if you don't want them to be. I know sometimes I'll tur things down to easy, just so I can play a beautiful story.

Zimba

I believe there is only one or two games that have been adapted for partially sighted people where you can now make the text bigger to read correct me if I’m wrong. 

Albus_Scope

Oh there's lots of games now that will do that @Zimba and also have high resolution modes, so characters are much easier to see.  They're created especially for partially sighted people.  

Zimba

@Albus_Scope Yes, we have one of those games and it does help, it would be good if they had a zoom in on games for when you have to search for items. They need to also tone down the amount of flash imagery more also. 

Albus_Scope

I often check to see if games have the object highlight option.  Many more RPGs have them now, it makes things a tonne simpler!

Ada

Well I try to read through most things on here. But this has gone straight over my head lol. I think your all fabulous 

Albus_Scope

Haha, not a worry @Ada, not everyone is into gaming and that's totally ok.  

Biblioklept

I love how many games are now subtitled and you can choose the size of them!! I don't have issues with hearing or sight but I use subtitles for everything and sometimes they are just SO TINYYYYYY it drives me mad. 

It's great accessibility is becoming more prominent in the gaming world!