What is it about?

We are interested in 1. What accessibility settings do people with disabilities use in digital games? and 2. What accessibility settings would make games more accessible for players with disabilities? To find the answer to these questions we did a survey of players with disabilities, in total 93 answers were analyzed. To answer the questions, the findings suggests that people with disabilities use different accessibility settings which are mostly related to controlling the game, language, gameplay, visuals, audio, and adaptive devices. Yet, these same options are mentioned as also wished for settings to improve game accessibility. It seems that already existing accessibility settings are useful and should be added to all games to make them more accessible.

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Why is it important?

Many gamers have disabilities. Anyone can experience a limitation to their ability for example as they age. There are, however, not enough studies focused on disabled players and how to design games for them. We are just at the beginning of making games truly accessible for all. This study starts a discussion about game accessibility and especially accessibility options which can make the game experience better and more accessible for everyone.

Perspectives

I hope that this article will make both developers and players think about accessibility in digital games even more. I hope that all the settings that were listed by disabled players could be one day found in all games.

Pauliina Baltzar
Tampere University

Read the Original

This page is a summary of: Popular Accessibility Settings in Digital Games, November 2022, ACM (Association for Computing Machinery),
DOI: 10.1145/3569219.3569335.
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