Handicapped WoW player applauds Blizzard

You guys have read about the couple who met through WoW and eventually got married, right? Well now, we have yet another tearjerking WoW story that’ll give you that warm fuzzy feeling inside. (Awww….)

Over at the WoW forums, a user by the name of Awemane posted an inspiring story about how his unique condition has prevented him from playing video games. Here’s what Awemane had to say:

I…am 32 years old and suffer from “Spinal Muscular Atrophy Type II” (Illlness that resembles “Muscular Dystrophy ” and is progressive in nature) and am on a respirator. In the past I could play almost any video game with no problem and was actually quite good at it… However, in time my illness progressed and I began to lose motor control of my arms as my muscles became weaker and weaker and my body slowly started to deform itself.

Needless to say, Awemane started having problems just gripping the controller, working the buttons and joystick, which led him to avoid console games altogether. Now, you guys might be thinking, “riiiight, and a keyboard is much easier to use?!” But see, Awemane plays WoW using just the mouse/track ball, which works much to his advantage as his hand is now severely deformed, and so is the rest of his body, forcing him to play using only one hand.

Awemane is in awe of how handicap-friendly Blizzard designed WoW, with customizable controls and a window mode which allows him to use an onscreen keyboard to type. For all this, Awemane says, “Blizzard… Thank you for making your game accessible to us disabled players! Please keep up the trend with all your future games.” Awwww….now wasn’t that touching? No “nerf this” or “overpowered that” comments, just plain gratitude and appreciation for what Blizzard is doing for their users.

Perhaps more dev companies should be looking into making their games more handicap friendly too. Even though handicapped players make up a very small percentage of gamers, they are still nonetheless consumers whose needs ought to be attended to. We applaud Blizzard as well for making one disabled person’s life a lot better through WoW. It’s stories like this that contradict all the bad rep that video games have been getting. How ’bout you, do YOU have a touching WoW story?

Via WoW Forums

You guys have read about the couple who met through WoW and eventually got married, right? Well now, we have yet another tearjerking WoW story that’ll give you that warm fuzzy feeling inside. (Awww….)

Over at the WoW forums, a user by the name of Awemane posted an inspiring story about how his unique condition has prevented him from playing video games. Here’s what Awemane had to say:

I…am 32 years old and suffer from “Spinal Muscular Atrophy Type II” (Illlness that resembles “Muscular Dystrophy ” and is progressive in nature) and am on a respirator. In the past I could play almost any video game with no problem and was actually quite good at it… However, in time my illness progressed and I began to lose motor control of my arms as my muscles became weaker and weaker and my body slowly started to deform itself.

Needless to say, Awemane started having problems just gripping the controller, working the buttons and joystick, which led him to avoid console games altogether. Now, you guys might be thinking, “riiiight, and a keyboard is much easier to use?!” But see, Awemane plays WoW using just the mouse/track ball, which works much to his advantage as his hand is now severely deformed, and so is the rest of his body, forcing him to play using only one hand.

Awemane is in awe of how handicap-friendly Blizzard designed WoW, with customizable controls and a window mode which allows him to use an onscreen keyboard to type. For all this, Awemane says, “Blizzard… Thank you for making your game accessible to us disabled players! Please keep up the trend with all your future games.” Awwww….now wasn’t that touching? No “nerf this” or “overpowered that” comments, just plain gratitude and appreciation for what Blizzard is doing for their users.

Perhaps more dev companies should be looking into making their games more handicap friendly too. Even though handicapped players make up a very small percentage of gamers, they are still nonetheless consumers whose needs ought to be attended to. We applaud Blizzard as well for making one disabled person’s life a lot better through WoW. It’s stories like this that contradict all the bad rep that video games have been getting. How ’bout you, do YOU have a touching WoW story?

Via WoW Forums