|
 Features
Making Video Games Accessible: Business Justifications and Design Considerations
 Why is Accessibility Important?
There are both social and financial reasons why game developers should think about making their products accessible.
For children and young adults who have disabilities that range from mild to severe, video games can offer a number of benefits. Researchers at the Wheeling Jesuit University recently discovered that playing sports games or fighting games helps distract children and young adults suffering from chronic pain (The Edmonton Journal, Feb 13th 2006). Furthermore, video games have been proven to help children facing surgery more effectively-and with fewer side effects-than tranquilizers (The Associated Press, Dec 19th 2004). Games are even being used for cancer treatment; exercise, vitally important to recovery after chemotherapy, has been encouraged through the use of games such as Dance Dance Revolution(c) when children refuse to participate in other forms of physical activity.
In addition, allowing people with impairments (especially children) to participate in activities that most individuals enjoy and take for granted can help reduce emotional pain and the feeling of being an outsider.
Social reasons aren't the only reasons why game developers should introduce accessibility features into their titles. Accessibility features can increase sales by encouraging people with disabilities to buy an accessible title. Increased sales can also come from gamers who want to support a company that supports the accessibility community. And finally, the positive P.R. from the media as well as accessibility advocacy groups provides free advertising.
The demand for accessibility will continue to grow as the gaming population ages. As people grow older, mild impairments can become more severe. Also, people are likely to develop new difficulties and impairments as they age. Adding basic accessibility features to titles can help publishers and developers continue to draw revenue from these customers.
Doom III [CC], an unofficial modification of Doom III, adds closed captioning for the hearing impaired.
The State of Accessibility in the Games Industry
For most of the games industry, accessibility in video games is a low priority. One reason is because of a lack of awareness among developers about accessibility issues-developers who are not disabled might not be aware of the ways that they can make a title more accessible to people with disabilities or impairments.
Another reason is that developers have limited amounts of time and resources. Cost-benefit analyses often conclude that accessibility issues aren't worth the attention and investment of the games industry because of assumptions like:
These assumptions are faulty. Making games accessible is well worth the investment.
|
|
|
|
|
Previous