by: Shaniah Taylor

According to the Entertainment Software Association, 61% of people in the U.S. play video games at least once a week. Gaming is everywhere and has become one of the most consumed forms of media in the world, but not everyone interacts with games the same way. According to 3PlayMedia, as of 2022, at least 46 million gamers in the U.S. have a disability. That is a huge portion of the community, highlighting why accessibility is so important in gaming. It is no longer a niche concern that companies can happily ignore. It is a necessity to have accessibility in games and these features can provide a better experience for everyone. Whether you study games, you are a casual gamer or rarely play games at all, advocating for accessibility in gaming is important not just for the community but for society.

What does accessibility mean in terms of gaming? Well, this is something I was able to discuss at the University of North Carolina Greensboro (UNCG) “Accessibility in Games” round table discussion on February 27 as part of their Accessible Game Jam –hosted by Sophie Priest, Assistant Director for Esports Innovation at UNCG, Dr. John Borchert, Director of the Network for the Cultural Study of Videogaming at UNCG and Evan Moore, Instructor of Record. What I learned is that accessibility in gaming ensures anyone can play a game, no matter their ability level. One of the first questions we discussed at the event was “What makes a game accessible?”. We discussed features like closed captioning, color blindness modes and dyslexia-friendly fonts– the list goes on. One of the most important conclusions we came to was that accessing your settings before gameplay should be an industry standard. Furthermore, these settings should allow players to customize almost every feature of their gameplay.

Now, for people with physical disabilities, not being able to adjust settings before starting a game could mean they cannot play the game at all. Someone missing an arm may rely on input mapping or macros to virtually “press” buttons that other gamers could easily. When a

game starts with an unskippable cutscene or mandatory tutorial, it can lock some players out, leaving them with no choice but to return it or find workarounds.

If a lack of accessibility can lose companies potential profit, why is accessibility not industry standard? Well, for small studios it is about budget and resources. If you are making a game solo or with a very small team, it may not seem worth the effort to add all these settings to your game for a smaller player base. Adding more features – or fixing ones you realize are a problem– can cost a lot if you are paying someone to do it. However, the internet is free, if you need to learn how to add a feature into your game, the most it could cost you is time. What I find odd is that larger companies use this same excuse despite having many more resources and much more money. Anyone who has bought a triple-A game recently knows that unfinished games on release are the new norm. Companies push their employees to release games as cheaply and quickly as possible. This is how you end up with titles like Cyberpunk 2077, which was not fully playable until over a year after launch and had multiple cases reported of people suffering seizures from certain scenes. Gamers have inadvertently given these companies the green light to release broken, unfinished and sometimes harmful games because they know a lot of players will buy them anyway. With this mindset, it is clear why larger companies overlook accessibility features before release. To a lot of these companies, accessibility is a nice-to-have feature, not a necessity. Until it is the standard, they will not have proof that adding accessibility is worth the cost of implementing it.

This brings us to another question raised by the discussion leaders: “What games have successfully implemented accessibility?” There are many games still making progress, but very few get it first try. Despite The Sims 4’s attempts to make their game accessible, one person at UNCG’s event discussed how it is still hard for them to play because of the inability to increase the font size. It is an issue that only players on PC can fix by using mods created by other players. In fact, a lot of games only become accessible after the community steps in, whether that be through mods or demanding action. However, one example stood out to all of us as it did

not rely on community fixes, it was accessible from launch and was mainstream: The Last of Us Part II. This game is fully playable by blind or low-vision gamers, due to its sound design and NaughtyDog’s commitment to accessibility. As Can I Play That? – a site that reviews games based on accessibility – said in their review of the game for blind players: “Whilst no game is perfect, especially in terms of accessibility for gamers without sight, The Last of Us 2 is a testament to what can be achieved when accessibility is considered from the ground up.”

If you are not affected, it is easy to not see accessibility in gaming as your concern, but I would ask you to look at the numbers again: 61% of the U.S. population plays video games, almost the same amount as adults who read at least one book in a year. And that 61% is split almost evenly between men and women, and is spread closely among different races, sexualities, lifestyles and ages. Gaming is a very expressive medium that allows people to learn about and interact with new ideas. If we want a more tolerant and knowledgeable society, we have to ensure everyone has access to ALL forms of media. Just like braille and audiobooks make reading accessible for the blind, closed captions make movies available to the deaf and streaming makes music available to people regardless of economic standing– video games should be available to everyone too.