Video games are hugely popular. There are over 3 billion active gamers worldwide. Those stats, combined with the fact that 1 in 6 people worldwide has some kind of disability, means that significant barriers in accessibility had to be overcome as more and more people turned to video gaming as a hobby. During the Covid-19 pandemic, which saw record profits for the industry, the popularity skyrocketed, which led to more people with disabilities gaming.
So how has the industry accommodated people with visual disabilities, such as low vision, blindness, and problems with muscle control? Are the changes well received, and what steps have they taken to ensure gaming is accessible to all?
Early gaming
Accessibility options in early gaming were limited and often priced high. Nintendo, one of the top sellers of video games, had a hands-free controller option. Still, it took a lot of work and was very expensive to buy, making it unattainable in most cases. Until recently, game developers were unlikely to include accessibility features, resulting in consumers creating their own workarounds. This made the companies feel like it was the consumer’s responsibility to find accessibility in their games instead of the other way around.
The International Game Developers Association (IGDA) helped put out a comprehensive list of guidelines for accessibility in gaming. However, until recently, these efforts were largely ignored by the major developers, putting all the pressure on smaller developers. The guidelines are constantly evolving and updating, and, in recent years, have begun to be taken more seriously as the big-name developers put accessibility in their games at the forefront.
Change in gaming
In the past five years, there has been a trend towards improving accessibility. In addition to more developers with disabilities designing games, the major developers themselves are also listening to the wants and needs of gamers and including accessibility in the games they release. There are more options than ever before: from features a user can change for color blindness to filters for users with low vision.
Sony's game The Last of Us is a good example of this change becoming more mainstream.
The game is so popular it’s become a top-viewed HBO show. Fortunately, Sony made accessibility a priority even before the game exploded onto the scene. Before a player even reaches the main menu, they have several accessibility options to toggle through to ensure gameplay is suited for their needs. This is a far cry from video games of just five or ten years ago when just having subtitles was considered huge.
Of course, there’s still a long way to go in gaming and everyday life. Many games have no accessibility features at all. Jesse Anderson, a gamer with vision disabilities, says he avoids “most Japanese RPGs and similar games because of the large amount of text in these titles—not just story and dialog, but all the menus for combat, character, and item management.” Those aren’t the only games missing key accessibility features by far – just because many games make accessibility a priority doesn’t mean all do. It’s important not to get lost in the progress of the games with features.
Why is this important?
Because gaming is so popular, it can serve as a “canary in the coal mine” of what’s important to American (and global) consumers. Gaming leaks into everyday life, like school: many classes, especially virtual ones, employ games to enhance learning. Discord, an online chat forum that has exploded in popularity since the COVID-19 pandemic, started as a gaming-exclusive web chat experience that bled into other aspects of pop culture.
The accessibility of something so many people partake in shows how much people value accessibility in their everyday lives, even if they do not need the accessibility features themselves. For a long time, the only voices calling for changes in accessibility needs were those of disability rights advocates, but recently, new voices have joined them. This was notable, especially during the rise in work-from-home during the pandemic. What was once a difficult accommodation became a standard arrangement, and once people realized how much it helped people, they began to campaign for it to stick around.
The same has happened with video games – and it doesn’t look like the trend is stopping there. Your business could benefit greatly from monitoring what is happening with such a large industry and making changes to create more accessibility. Making changes to increase accessibility in your field can put you ahead of the curve and make you a pioneer.
Conclusion
The video game industry is growing rapidly, and so is the demand for visual accessibility in those games. With the demand, many developers are rising to the challenge while others need to meet it. You can learn from the successes and failures of the industry by making sure your business and website are fully accessible, and you are meeting the wants and needs of your customers before they even ask, just by watching the trends play out.
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