Accessibility: Did the next generation consoles waste an opportunity?

The Game Awards this week felt like a big moment with lots of big news. Hats off to Geoff Keighley, who helped create, finance, produce and host the awards.

Also, thank you to Geoff Keighley for this thoughtful tweet;

The Game Awards, as confirmed by the Tweet, had a special audio descriptive mode on the livestream. Why? As Keighley Tweeted, Accessibility matters.

The question is; does the computer games industry agree?

YouTube helped, of course. Keighley didn’t need to invent special technology. They just cared enough to use what was already provided.

Google may not be everyone’s favourite company these days, but they do regularly make an effort to ensure their web technology is as accessible as possible. It is a legal requirement, so that helps.

In America, the Supreme Court has had its say, with the Domino’s app as the test case. The pizza company had a complaint from a blind customer who struggled to change the toppings on their pizza and then make a purchase.

After some back and forth, the 2019 ruling makes it clear; Domino’s app must be accessible to everyone.

Speaking to Geek Native, the RNIB (Royal National Institute of Blind People) made it clear that not enough is being done. Sonali Rai, Broadcast and Audio Description Manager at RNIB, said:

We’ve heard from blind and partially sighted people who enjoy gaming that accessibility is something that is being widely overlooked by developers. Whilst some improvements have been made in recent years, the fact that very few of the year’s top 100 games have been recognised for accessibility goes to show that more needs to be gone to make gaming an inclusive experience.

The simple steps of including audio cues, providing options to change font size and background colour would go a long way in making gaming more inclusive for users with sight loss. We strongly urge developers to consider the requirements of blind and partially sighted people when creating their games.

Who are these blind and partially sighted gamers? Well, there’s Sophie, 28, from Hertfordshire was born with congenital cataracts and who has been gaming since she was a kid. She started out on a Sega Megadrive.

Problems Sophie faces are poor font choices, white text and speed at which text vanishes from the screen. These are solvable problems, why not add an option to adjust text colour, sizes and backgrounds? A simple coding ask. Sophie’s also a fan of audio cues.

Then there’s James, 37, from Cumbernauld has the sight condition Macular Degeneration. James enjoys a mix of games but finds the reading a challenge in roleplaying games when a large block of text is splashed on the screen.

The RNIB is right, of course, in all the hype around the next generation consoles have you heard anything about improved accessibility? In any conversation about a triple AAA title heading to the new platforms was accessibility mentioned?

Sadly, the opportunity to really show that the games industry believes accessibility matters may have been missed.

The PS5, to pick an example at random, is still cruelly limited for third party controller support. As you can imagine, this annoys gamers but is a game-stopper for fans who simply can’t use the system-packed DualSense controllers.

So, while Google’s helped to add accessibility options to YouTube and Chrome and made sure we knew they were there, have console makers helped game studios with accessible games? Is Google’s own Stadia any better, for that matter?

However, there’s reason to hope and reason to keep championing the cause. The Last of Us 2 had some wonderful fine-grained font control and even classics like Mario Kart and Minecraft have added helpful features. Mario Kart added auto-accelerate and a version of Minecraft can be played with eye control.

For now, though, these are the exceptions that prove the rule. So while The Game Awards were big, I think it’s also worth noting 2020 also had the 2020 Video Game Accessibility Awards.

Here’s the full 2020 Video Game Accessibility Awards winners list.

Same Controls But Different:

Assassin’s Creed

Second Channel:

Naughty Dog

Improved Precision:

Apex Legends

Clear Text:

The OuterWorlds

Do More With Less:

Sucker Punch Productions

Play Alongside:

Borderlands

Bypass:

FUSER

Training Ground:

EA – Madden NFL

House Rules:

Innersloth

Helping Hand:

Naughty Dog

Creative Commons credit: Gamer Girl Nouveau by Medusa-Dollmaker.