Disabled people and computer games

The forgotten demographic?

This topic hits home for me and I’ll tell you why.

My dad takes quite an interest in nearly everything I do. And I feel quite lucky because of that. However the problem I have is that I will tell him about certain games that he should play but I normally always forget…

He has Cerebral Palsy, which in his case means he has limited dexterity in the right side of his body. Because of this he cannot use a standard xbox controller for a start! And any game that requires 2 hands is out. The good news he can obviously use a mouse very well (more accurate than most!) with his left hand. So games with mouse control only are fine. But how many games are there that are mouse control only? Not many I can tell you that much!

So, this is a subject that is quite rarely taken into consideration. And it’s an awful realisation that many disabilities are not accounted for in most games.

I’m not saying that the chaps at epic should rebuild the unreal engine to dumb down the visuals or that any action game should be re-written to abandon the WASD control system. However there are plenty of games out there that need to remember mouse control only systems should be a solid option and not an afterthought.

Lets look at some of the other disabilities that directly affect gaming:

• Loss of Limbs
  • Some games require a number of keys to be pressed in sequence these days, and if you can’t do it, playing that game can be difficult.
• Colour Blindness
  • Most match-3 and casual game creators cottoned on quite quickly about the colour-based matching. However other game genres seem to have ignored this (green/red laser beams just for example?)
• Deafness
  • I’m surprised that sound is still used to signify events on it’s own in some games these days! There should always, always be subtitles as an option.
• Reading difficulties
  • If there’s lots of text to read it should require the user to decide when the “page turn” happens. Just because the voice over moves onto the next section shouldn’t determine this.

One of the great things about the Wii (argh, did I mention a console?) is that you can play a heck of a lot with just one hand. Nintendo have always tended to have more accessible games and it’s something the PC needs to catch up with!

There are a number of things that developers can do to improve this situation if they choose to. Events that are sound driven can be removed, or at least subtitled. Two handed quick time events should be removed or at least have a one handed version for the lowest difficulty level. But most of all they should be tested by people with a disability, since in a lot of cases a very small change to make the game more accessible could make a huge difference for a lot of people!

So what about now?

Where can people with disabilities go to find out about games that they will have no difficulty playing? Luckily there are a few websites out there where this is the top priority.

http://www.game-accessibility.com/ - A game information site that covers most disability classifications. This has been the best site I’ve seen on this subject and supplies absolutely tons of information and game links. A must visit!

http://www.gamesfortheblind.com/ - Where Robert Betz has written a series of popular style games specifically for blind people. This includes battleships, yahtzee and blackjack.

http://www.deafgamers.com/ - Caters for people who are deaf giving a classification for each review they do. The ratings are marked A to E, A rated games giving the best support for deaf people with subtitles, etc…

So, what does the future hold here?

We’re always going to have games on the PC that have complicated control mechanisms, huge amounts of detail on screen and sounds indicating events. However there will always be some developers who go the extra mile to make their game more accessible for people with disabilities.

I just wish they’d build a “driving” controller with a left handed gear-stick for my dad!