Improving Game Accessibility

Gamasutra wrote an article on the accessibility of games for people with a disability. They concluded that the market has great potential with anywhere from 10% to 20% more sold games if games were more accessible.

For most gamers, the process of setting up a game and starting to play is pretty straight forward: install the game, skim over the instructions, and start playing. Unfortunately, people with disabilities find this process considerably harder.
 
The difficulty starts at the store. A disabled purchaser has no idea if a game is accessible to them or not. There are no ratings on the box that will indicate if the game is closed-captioned or supports alternative input devices. In many cases, game ratings in the popular media do not address the accessibility issue, so for many purchasers, buying a game is very much a gamble.
 
After the game is installed, the player needs to often customize the settings to support their system and adaptive hardware. This is often not addressed in the documentation and most help desks have little experience dealing with these problems.
 
Once in the game, further problems can occur. The difficulty level may not be controllable, making it impossible for a person with mobility problems to play. Vital information may be given in cut scenes without closed captioning, making it impossible for deaf players to succeed in the game. There are three main reasons for providing accessible games. The first one is economic. By not providing accessibility in games, the game industry is losing out on a potentially larger audience for its games. With anywhere from 10 to 20% of the population considered disabled in one form or another, this could be a fairly significant increase in the market for a given game.
 
More importantly, there is a moral issue involved. A person who has a disability should have equal access to the same services and entertainment as others in the population. This is why we have closed captioning on TV shows and movie theaters will have closed-captioned showings of movies. In the same vein, why can’t we have games that are accessible to those with disabilities? This becomes a quality of life issue.
 
Finally, there could be legal issues involved. Some countries already have legislation in place mandating equal access to all. In the US, Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act requires the use of accessible technology within the government. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) provides for equal access in many areas. Other countries have similar types of legislation. Note that many of these laws are covering access to services. How long do you think it will be until someone decides a multiplayer online game is a service? With the scrutiny games have been receiving from various quarters, sooner or later someone will start looking into the accessibility issue from a legal point of view.
 
Read full article on Gamasutra.com