Making Games Accessible To The Disabled

Many of us are pretty lucky that we have no problem playing games. That’s because those “many of us” have unimpaired eyesight and hearing, and (at the very least) we have no problems holding the game controller, right? Spare a thought for those of us who have an impairment, a disability or handicap, however, one which prevents the player from truly enjoying the game. After all, how can a color-blind gamer enjoy a “Red vs. Blue” team FPS (like Halo) if he can’t tell who’s Red and who’s Blue? And how can a gamer use the voice-activated feature of a game, if he has no voice to begin with?

This was the subject of a lecture at Microsoft‘s Gamefest 2006, reproduced with permission at Gamasutra. The aim of the lecture was to bring to the gaming industry what already has been brought to other technologies that have become important in everyday life: the accesible-to-the-handicapped option. The games industry, the lecturer argues, has not given as much thought to making their games playable by the color-blind, or the hard of hearing, or the mobility-impaired, perhaps because they think it’s not worth the retrun on their investment, or because there isn’t a big-enough audience to make developing accessible games worthwile.

But they should. Research studying computer users has concluded that 57% of computer users would benefit from accessibility options for the disabled – and that number is projected to grow. And consider this: retailers, airlines, and other services have been sued and boycotted for lack of accessibility (which, by the way, is considered as bigoted discrimination under the law). If only to sidestep that legal issue – and reach out to a much wider audience that wants to enjoy these games – the industry should look forward to designing accessibility features to their current and future titles.

There already are certain features that make games more accessible. Many games have subtitle options, though it usually is used for spoken dialogue only. Certain games cater to color-blind people by changing the game’s color-palette to help the player identify differently-colored objects, or “overlay” special and differently-shaped icons to differentiate different objects in the game world. The latter especially helps gamers with severe color-blindness who can’t identify any color except shades of gray.

The industry can go further than that, however. For starters, subtitle options can also include the full closed-caption option so the hearing-impaired can both enjoy and survive a game with a rich audio environment. Game controls can be adjusted for the mobility-impaired, so that they can use analog sticks and pressure-sensitive buttons just as well as a non-impaired gamer would. Most important of all, the industry needs to include disabled people among their game testers, so that they can evaluate a title’ws accessibility to the impaired.

Hey, we’re all gamers, right? We all have the right to enjoy a game to its fullest.

Many of us are pretty lucky that we have no problem playing games. That’s because those “many of us” have unimpaired eyesight and hearing, and (at the very least) we have no problems holding the game controller, right? Spare a thought for those of us who have an impairment, a disability or handicap, however, one which prevents the player from truly enjoying the game. After all, how can a color-blind gamer enjoy a “Red vs. Blue” team FPS (like Halo) if he can’t tell who’s Red and who’s Blue? And how can a gamer use the voice-activated feature of a game, if he has no voice to begin with?

This was the subject of a lecture at Microsoft‘s Gamefest 2006, reproduced with permission at Gamasutra. The aim of the lecture was to bring to the gaming industry what already has been brought to other technologies that have become important in everyday life: the accesible-to-the-handicapped option. The games industry, the lecturer argues, has not given as much thought to making their games playable by the color-blind, or the hard of hearing, or the mobility-impaired, perhaps because they think it’s not worth the retrun on their investment, or because there isn’t a big-enough audience to make developing accessible games worthwile.

But they should. Research studying computer users has concluded that 57% of computer users would benefit from accessibility options for the disabled – and that number is projected to grow. And consider this: retailers, airlines, and other services have been sued and boycotted for lack of accessibility (which, by the way, is considered as bigoted discrimination under the law). If only to sidestep that legal issue – and reach out to a much wider audience that wants to enjoy these games – the industry should look forward to designing accessibility features to their current and future titles.

There already are certain features that make games more accessible. Many games have subtitle options, though it usually is used for spoken dialogue only. Certain games cater to color-blind people by changing the game’s color-palette to help the player identify differently-colored objects, or “overlay” special and differently-shaped icons to differentiate different objects in the game world. The latter especially helps gamers with severe color-blindness who can’t identify any color except shades of gray.

The industry can go further than that, however. For starters, subtitle options can also include the full closed-caption option so the hearing-impaired can both enjoy and survive a game with a rich audio environment. Game controls can be adjusted for the mobility-impaired, so that they can use analog sticks and pressure-sensitive buttons just as well as a non-impaired gamer would. Most important of all, the industry needs to include disabled people among their game testers, so that they can evaluate a title’ws accessibility to the impaired.

Hey, we’re all gamers, right? We all have the right to enjoy a game to its fullest.