Disability History Month is the perfect time to celebrate the disabled gamer community and their accomplishments in the gaming industry.
In the past five years, the whole industry has grown to become a more inclusive space, by recognising that accessibility is crucial. Most game developers now design accessibility settings using the expertise of accessibility consultants. Disabled gamers now have a foundation to create change through voicing their experiences, and there are multiple disabled pioneers working in game design.
In the past, accessibility was Alien Isolation: Amanda Ripley alone in the dark being stalked by an apex predator. In games, no one can hear you scream. Presently, accessibility is Far Cry 6. You’re Dani Rojas with a plethora of weapons, awesome amigos and guerrilla ingenuity, all helping to create your own unique playstyle to take down Anton Castillo.
This year, disability equality charity Scope created a report regarding accessibility in gaming, to learn about the barriers faced by disabled gamers.
When the report was published, Molly White, the co-lead of the co-production group from Scope, gave a statement regarding Scope’s work to improve accessible gaming and level-up fundraising events, “In a world full of barriers, gaming opens a new, exciting world of possibilities,” White said. “But two-thirds of disabled gamers have experienced barriers to gaming, whether through poor accessibility, lack of representation, or negative attitudes from other gamers. Scope believes everyone should be able to enjoy the benefits of gaming. That’s why we’ve published our Accessibility in Gaming report – to shine a light on the most common barriers faced by disabled gamers and discuss what changes they want to see.”
Sightless Kombat, a gamer without sight and an influential streamer and accessibility specialist added: “It’s great to see more accessibility research being conducted, and the information being publicly available, as it’s not just useful for consultants, but everyone else as well to know what the situation is in the industry. As for co-production, it’s been amazing to work on an event like this with so many other accessibility professionals and more companies, charities or otherwise, should really consider how accessibility can be implemented not just in their products and events, but in the design processes of those things too.”
The findings in the report are extremely interesting so I thought I would share my thoughts.
There are 14.1 million disabled people in the UK, a hefty portion of the UK’s consumer base. The purchasing power of disabled people (The Purple Pound) is massively overlooked. How overlooked? £274 billion, according to the report.
The findings of this report discovered that 66 percent of disabled gamers say that they face barriers when gaming. The biggest barrier is the affordability of suitable adapted controllers (22 percent), inaccessible consoles (18 percent), knowledge or time to set up assistive technology (23 percent) and inaccessible games (17 percent).