Making Accessible Games
Insights from the industry
For players with disabilities, video game accessibility is incredibly important for a several reasons. Not least because video games are an significant element of popular culture and being able to play these games enables players with disabilities to be included in the activity, as well as any surrounding discourse.
With this in mind, developers are increasingly seeking means in which to make their games more and more accessible, to make sure that everyone can play. Some of these developers are finding more success than others and this article focuses in on some critical tips that might help any studio make their own games a little bit more accessible too.
Have a Designated Accessibility Person in Your Studio
When I speak to developers about their process in making a game more accessible, the studios that are more successful tend to have someone designated to be ‘in charge’ of thinking about accessibility. That doesn’t mean that it’s not the responsibility of the rest of the team too, but having someone that anyone on your team can go to with their ideas on game accessibility helps create a clear pathway for those thoughts.
Additionally, many developers without a clearly designated ‘accessibility’ person spoke about how they were often worried about discussing accessibility because they would always need to argue a case for why it would benefit the game. Having a designated person or people, helps make it clear that your studio wants to make increasingly accessible games, and encourages open discourse around that area, which feeds into making accessible games.
Start Thinking About Accessibility Early
Despite good intentions, many studios don’t think about accessibility until quite late in development, sometimes near the end of production. This can create problems, as at this stage the budget for the game is mostly spent, and making adjustments incurs a very high cost because it often involves changing numerous systems.
The studios with more success generally speak about thinking about accessibility from their earliest stages of development. When they’re thinking about what kind of game their game is going to be, they’re also thinking about what it’s going to be like to play, and what types of accommodations they typically make to make the game more accessible.
Go Beyond the Low Hanging Fruit
When you have conversations with developers about accessibility it’s often the case that they talk about how they’re making their game more accessible, with much of the emphasis on common accessibility implementations like colour blindness, and subtitles — the low hanging fruit. These tend to be the accessibility options that are easier to think about, everyone knows what subtitles are, and given that 8% of males have some form of colour blindness, most tech companies have colour blindness represented by one or more members of staff within studio.
While options like subtitles and colour blind modes are fantastic to have, it’s important to go further than that. Many players with cognitive, motor, or sensory disabilities require additional options in order to play comfortably. There’s a whole list of potential accessibility options over at the Game Accessibility Guidelines website that are worth consideration. I recommend checking these over while also trying to think about any additional means in which your game could be more accommodating.
One of the developers I spoke to talked about how their studio intended to run an accessibility themed game jam, where each game would have to tackle some accessibility need with its design. Incorporating accessibility into your idea generation processes can be a great way of ensuring your studio is both thinking about accessibility early, and reaching further than those low hanging fruit.
Don’t Be Afraid to Seek Help
The #a11y community of twitter is an open and friendly bunch and if you’re experiencing difficulty understanding how your game could be more accessible, it’s well worth looking at this community for help. Ian Hamillton’s Game Accessibility Guidelines can be an invaluable tool in looking at how to approach improving the accessibility of your game, while a number of people within the #a11y community also work as consultants for studios looking to make their games more accessible.
There are also many additional public resources available that could help studios make their games more accessible. The game accessibility conference featured some fantastic talks from studios working to make their games more accessible from all over the world, as well as members of the #a11y community.
Understand Your Audience
My final point is perhaps the most fundamental — understanding your audience and how they experience your product is at the heart of any user centered design, and game accessibility is no different. You can’t reliably make a game more accessible without thinking about the people you’re making it more accessible for, and the best means in which to do that is to put your game in front of them.
Conducting user tests with players with disabilities can provide phenomenal insight into how your game is being experienced by players, and data generated from these play sessions can generate actionable insights into how your game can be designed in a way that’s more accessible. Conducting these types of tests can be challenging, but charities like AbleGamers work with game developers to help them understand the experiences that players with disabilities have with their games.
As a final thought, it’s easy for developers to consider game accessibility as something that they can simply add-on to the game. However, hopefully this article demonstrates some means in which the most successful studios are working towards making their games accessible at a strategic level. By thinking about accessibility early, incorporating player feedback, designating people and processes within your studio that always consider accessibility and going beyond the low hanging fruit, you can aspire to make a game that more people can play.
Jozef Kulik is a Games User Research consultant and IGGI PhD Researcher in the area of Game Accessibility.
