4 minute read

Ramps in buildings, braille in informative text, audio cues in pedestrian crossings, are some of the examples we can find nowadays in our cities. Their purpose is to allow access to something, disregarding the ability of whoever is using it. It’s a design focused on accessibility that, nowadays, we even forget it’s actually a thing 1 2.

Despite accessibility being planned out in most of our infrastructures, when looking at the gaming sphere, we can see it’s still very much in its infancy, as we can see in the highly acclaimed RPG Elden Ring, the recently released Final Fantasy VII REBIRTH and in the very much expected Dead Island 2, to name a few. Most don’t understand what it implies; in other cases, some don’t know how to tackle it. Now, more than ever, discussing accessibility isn’t just a necessity, it’s an urgent matter.

design of a woman in a wheelchair that can't go up the building because there is no ramp
Image by vectorjuice

This becomes increasingly obvious when 1.3 billion people worldwide have a disability, with the number growing due to “an increase in noncommunicable diseases and people living longer” 3. With the population ever growing and people with disabilities growing as well, where 3.4 billion are already gamers 4, it makes sense that we need more accessible games. It’s not just a moral standpoint - it’s an economically crucial decision as well. When making accessible games, we also broaden our player base.

This is not a standalone statement. In a recent interview with GamesIndustry, Ines Robin from Space Ape Games, agrees that “The more a product is accessible, the larger the customer base” 5. In another article in GamesIndustry, Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End is given as an example, where a third of its players used an accessibility feature (in this case, the single stick control) 6. Back in 2021, Naughty Dog celebrated the 5th anniversary of the game showing that, out of the 37 million players, 9.5 used an accessibility option 7. The recent arachnophobia option in Lethal Company has been a hit on the players as well, with some even commenting that they are finally able to play the game now 8.

adaptive controller, a white, rectangle controller by xbox
Image by Xbox

Disabled people are not the only ones that benefit from more accessible games. A few of these features have become so commonplace in gaming that they are now being called “quality of life”, such as subtitles or button remapping, and when they are not present, gamers feel like something is amiss. David Tisserand, Ubisoft’s Accessibility Director shared in 2019 on a Twitter thread that 95% of players left the subtitles on in Assassin’s Creed Origin, and it wasn’t the only Ubisoft game with these numbers. 9. The phrase “when everybody plays, we all win” is great PR “feels good” language that doesn’t amount to much of anything, less serve as factual evidence. Affected groups win in getting more accessible games and the studios win in getting a bigger player base 10.

We can see this in other industries as well. Take literature, for example, with audiobooks . It’s an easier way to read books for some people nowadays, but it started off as an accessibility option for blind readers. Audiobooks are selling now more than ever, and the trends show us that this market will keep on growing 11. Blind people are the ones that benefit the most, but the market grew to non disabled people as well.

access controller by playstation, a round controller with several buttons and a joystick
Image by PlayStation

Accessibility in gaming might not be the easiest for some, either due to lack of knowledge or resources, but the industry is activaly working on it in creating more tools, either with more accessibility consultants on hands and even on the engines level 11. We can also see “big players” taking interest, with Xbox, EA, Ubisoft, Santa Monica Studio and Naughty Dog to name a few. It’s a clear sign on how important accessible games are, not only for current and future gamers, but also to the studios as well. As mentioned before, more players lead to more sales.

There is a lot of ground to cover, now more than ever, but the positive income is apparent. We just need to work more and better at it 12 13.

  1. Sapega, Marissa, The History of Digital Accessibility and Why it Matters, TPGI, 20 March 2020, https://www.tpgi.com/the-history-of-digital-accessibility-and-why-it-matters/ . Accessed 14 August 2024 ↩

  2. WBDG Accessible Committee, History of Accessible Facility Design, https://wbdg.org/design-objectives/accessible/history-accessible-facility-design . Accessed 14 August 2024 ↩

  3. World Health Organization, March 2023, Disability, https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/disability-and-health. Accessed 14 August 2024 ↩

  4. Statistica, 2021, Number of video gamers worldwide in 2021, by region, https://www.statista.com/statistics/293304/number-video-gamers/ . Accessed 14 August 2024 ↩

  5. Sutcliffe, Chris, GamesIndustry, April 2024, How accessible are game engines, and how much is still to be done?, https://www.gamesindustry.biz/how-accessible-are-game-engines-and-how-much-is-still-to-be-done. Accessed 14 August 2024 ↩

  6. Burns, Natalie & Chiasson, Améliane, GamesIndustry, February 2024, Empowering play for all: The path to true accessibility in games, https://www.gamesindustry.biz/empowering-play-for-all-the-path-to-true-accessibility-in-games. Accessed 14 August 2024 ↩

  7. @NaughtyDog. “To celebrate the 5th anniversary of Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End’s release, we want to thank the players who joined us and Nathan Drake in this wild rise. Remember to play with the lemur! #SicParvisMagna”, _Twitter, 10 May 2021, 4:26 p.m., https://x.com/Naughty_Dog/status/1391776743569039360 ↩

  8. Reddit Lethal Company, 2024, Thoughts on arachnophobia mode?, https://www.reddit.com/r/lethalcompany/comments/18er7m0/thoughts_on_arachnophobia_mode/. Accessed 14 August 2024 ↩

  9. @TisserandDavid. “Incoming thread about data on subtitles usage in Ubisoft games. After the 2018 edition: “~60% of Assassin’s Creed Origins players turned ON the subtitles”, Twitter, 25 June 2019, 6:23 p.m., https://x.com/TisserandDavid/status/1143570437173104643. ↩

  10. Waller, Cam. 3 January 2022, Accessibility.com, The State of Accessibility in Gaming in 2022, https://www.accessibility.com/blog/the-state-of-accessibility-in-gaming-in-2021 . Accessed 14 August 2024 ↩

  11. Thoet, Alison, A short history of the audiobook, 20 years after the first portable digital audio device, PBS News, November 2017, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/a-short-history-of-the-audiobook-20-years-after-the-first-portable-digital-audio-device. Accessed 14 August 2024 ↩ ↩2

  12. Preece, Aaron. American Foundation for the Blind, An Introduction to Video Game Accessibility, https://www.afb.org/aw/summer2023/introduction-to-video-game-accessibility. Accessed 14 August 2024 ↩

  13. Soyer, Hannah. World Institute on Disability, A Guide to Video Game Accessibility, https://wid.org/a-guide-to-video-game-accessibility/. Accessed 14 August 2024 ↩

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