Video Games Are for Everyone—And That Should Include Disabled People

While Black and woman are words historically seen as incongruent with the image of “gamer,” they are descriptors I add proudly to the front of my gaming identity. As such, I was thrilled by Deathloop, a first-person shooter (FPS) game featuring a Black man and Black woman as stars of the story. It is rare to come by titles that feature BIPOC and/or female protagonists, so it was exciting to see these characters in promo materials for the game in late 2021. I decided to conquer my fear of FPS games to give this one a try.

My husband beat me to it, bringing home Deathloop to start on our new PlayStation 5. As I watched him play, I was drawn to the crisp graphics and muted reds, yellows, and blues of the beach scenery. I especially liked the big floating messages throughout the world that gave players cheeky clues about what lay ahead; this style choice was another reason I was drawn to the game.

But as I continued to listen to the dialogue and stare at the screen, a sinking feeling came over me. I was having trouble reading the subtitles, even though I was standing right in front of our sizable flat-screen. You see, I’m albino, and as such my sight is finicky; I generally require large fonts in order to read things, even close up.

I asked my husband if the font could be made any bigger for readability. He went into the settings to explore the options for text size. There were options for adjusting the text opacity, as well as widening the game’s field of vision. But we were aghast to discover that the font size I was struggling to read was already the biggest one available. Never mind adjusting the text sizing of the heads-up display (HUD) or menu screens. My husband was able to continue playing and eventually finish Deathloop with his near-perfect vision, but he felt despondent in the moments of dialogue or gameplay he knew I would have enjoyed.

Meanwhile, I felt dejected. It had happened again—another game I couldn’t play because of my inadequate vision. A game I was so excited to play because, at first, I felt it represented pieces of me. I was again reminded of another piece of my gaming identity. A piece lurking in the shadows of the gaming world. Disability.

Up until recently, I didn’t consider myself disabled. I was told consistently as a child that I was “normal,” “just like everyone else.” Outside of telling my teachers that I always needed to sit in the front of the class to see the board, I assumed I couldn’t be accommodated further. Not that I would have wanted to be anyway. I heard the whispers and snickering from people as I walked the hallways; I felt the horrified stares of strangers burning into me both in and out of school. I didn’t want to draw any more attention to myself as the weird albino girl.

Through therapy and following disability advocates online like Imani Barbarin (@crutches_and_spice on TikTok and Instagram), I’ve begun to see my impaired vision differently. In talking with my therapist about how I found ways to work around my vision in school, she very casually used words like disability and accommodations to describe my experiences. Hearing her use this language shifted my perspective—and angered me. I realized that, as a student, I deserved accommodations, but I was too preoccupied by shame (and overachieving) to believe so. And I began thinking of myself now, how I still make considerable effort to appear “normal” in social situations by sitting at a distance from screens or pretending to see faraway words or objects when I can’t.

During the pandemic, I gravitated toward disability advocates like Barbarin, who helped me to think intensely about the intersections of capitalism, disability, and racism. She regularly discusses how disability is actually quite common, but the US medical and labor systems force many of us to hide—and literally work through—our various ailments without accommodation.

I accept now that I have partially-sighted low vision, defined by the American Optometric Association as “[having] visual acuity between 20/70 and 20/200 with conventional prescription lenses.” Since I was nine months old, I’ve needed glasses with intense—and very expensive—prescriptions to bring my vision to the higher visual-acuity range of 20/20 to 20/70. Even with corrective lenses, my vision sits on the fence of 20/70.

To naked eyes, however, I am simply a woman with glasses. Glasses are perhaps the most normalized form of disability accommodation we have, to the point that it is not seen as such. But there is a spectrum of disability that is not recognized in our society. I am fortunate in some ways to be on the lighter end of this spectrum, and yet due to our culture’s limited imagination about what disability can look like, I am also invisibilized for that very reason.

When it comes to video games, it is challenging to find even minute accommodations for those on the lighter end of the spectrum. There are certain adjustable features gamers have come to expect in the “Options” menu of a title: aim assist, motion blur, toggle button holds (tapping a button to initiate an action rather than holding), and subtitles. Yet the inclusion of these and other basic features is hit-or-miss across various titles, and they seem to only cater to people with slight vision or motor impairments.

For example, when first beginning the game Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, players are given a warning that a “small percentage” of people experienced epileptic seizures due to some elements in the game—but are not provided with any options to disable these features in the “Options” menu. Some “easier” games, like Kirby and the Forgotten Land, don’t have accessibility features at all. If game developers are unwilling to make small concessions in game mechanics for folks like me, how can they be trusted to look out for gamers with prevalent physical, motor, or cognitive disabilities?

If game developers are unwilling to make small concessions in game mechanics for folks like me, how can they be trusted to look out for gamers with prevalent physical, motor, or cognitive disabilities?

The process of selecting games while disabled is tricky. You have to consider not only if you like the game’s story but also whether or not its software mechanics are likely to provide a bearable playing experience. An open-world fantasy game or RPG like Dragon Age: Inquisition will probably have visible objectives in the HUD, which is great for people with cognitive or memory disabilities. But will the font be readable for those with visual impairments? A racing game like Mario Kart 8 will surely have adjustable text size for easy multiplayer fun, but will it have assisted steering for those who lack motor precision? When it isn’t industry standard to make accessibility features available on game websites or packaging, buying any title on a whim is a gamble.

In-game mechanics aside, players with physical disabilities have the additional concern of being able to play games at all. On the hardware side, there is a dearth of ergonomic console controllers or PCs on the market, save for a few notable examples. For instance, there’s Xbox’s Adaptive Controller, released in 2018. Designed for people with low motor ability, the remote allows players to attach external assistive devices (like buttons, joysticks, etc.) to it, enabling them to create a more customized experience for their needs. Additionally, consumers have the option of “button mapping” by personally customizing key commands in a way that makes sense to them. The release of the adaptive controller for the Xbox was a huge step in the right direction from Microsoft, a console juggernaut in the industry.

However, some have criticized the practicality of adaptive controllers for the entire disabled gaming community. Kyle Abbate, a disabled gamer and activist, pointed out in an interview with The Verge that many of these innovative new technologies are expensive. This is a huge barrier for disabled folks, many of whom live in forced poverty because of government-aid standards that allow them to have just two thousand dollars in assets at any given time. And even if disabled gamers were able to afford these gadgets, they would then be tasked with setting them up and figuring out how to use them, which would be difficult for those with motor or cognitive impairments.

The shortcomings of hardware devices is connected to the less-than-holistic approach to game development as well. Accessibility features big and small are piecemeal across genres, even within singular game series. If your entry into the Assassin’s Creed series was Valhalla and you wanted to play previous titles, you could expect a serious downgrade in accessibility features. The first game, released in 2007, doesn’t even have subtitles. A game could have one workable feature for a specific impairment that is negated by core gameplay mechanics. Fighting games such as Injustice 2 may provide button-mapping options, but if button mashing and rapid hand movement are still required to play them, then button mapping is useless for someone with combined cognitive and physical disabilities.

Even worse, the larger game community has elitist attitudes about what constitutes a legitimate gameplay experience. Features that could substantially help disabled gamers, such as invincibility modes or easier difficulty levels, are scoffed at by lifelong (usually male) gamers. In my personal experience, I’ve found myself struggling with a section of a game that may be seen as “easy” to higher-skilled players. When I’ve looked up YouTube walk-throughs or Reddit forums on how to complete these sections, it hasn’t been uncommon for me to see dismissive comments from other gamers, mocking the intelligence of those like me who got stumped by the section. If there is eventually an update to a game’s mechanics to make gameplay easier—even if the changes are not necessarily disability accommodations—it is referred to pejoratively as “nerfing.”

The attitude is ableist and serves to gatekeep not just disabled players but any player who is simply not as skilled at video games. I fall into both categories. I struggle with game mechanics that require aim, precision, quick reaction time, and an eye for detail due to my disability. Because of this, I utilize stealth by killing enemies with sneak attacks as much as possible in my gameplay, even in scenarios that would benefit from ranged or melee combat. Outside of my disability, I am also a bit of a hoarder, looting every in-game item I come across. These combined factors cause me to take two to three times longer to finish a game than my husband does on normal difficulty. As much as I’d love to play a title like Elden Ring (an open-world fantasy role-playing game), discovering that there are no options for difficulty shuts down any hope that I could realistically complete the game and actually enjoy myself.

Like just about every gamer, I find joy in the challenge of video games. However, there’s a difference between conquering challenges and engaging in masochism, and that line is different for every player. For me, whether it’s a lighthearted Nintendo game or a story-driven PlayStation series, I’ve found a new love for gaming during the pandemic. I started playing games more seriously in 2015, and I spent years figuring out my play style and preferred genres.

But 2020 changed my relationship to playing in ways I didn’t expect. Losing myself in games has helped me to feel stimulated, gratified, frustrated, and engrossed all at once during a time when the real world was—and still is—scarier than fiction. As someone who prides themselves on perfection in every other area of life, video games are the one hobby I have where my enjoyment isn’t dependent on expert skill level. I can admit that I’m a mediocre gamer at best (except with fighting games . . . I will finish you)—and yet, I keep trying. Games are important to me because they are an exercise in humility and imagination, traits we often lose as adults grinding in this capitalist machine we call society.

Games are important to me because they are an exercise in humility and imagination, traits we often lose as adults grinding in this capitalist machine we call society.

Disability advocates and lesser-skilled gamers alike have argued that adding more “easy” level options and customizable game mechanics would level the playing field for consumers. But hardcore gamers contest that doing such things, particularly for games intended to be hard like Dark Souls or Bloodborne, sacrifices the integrity of the story the developers sought to tell. These games, along with Elden Ring—all developed by FromSoftware, Inc.—are single-difficulty, ultra-hard action RPGs. This argument falls flat, however, when you consider how common ultra-hard modes are in games (such as the “Maddening” mode in Fire Emblem: Three Houses or the “Savage” tiers in Final Fantasy XIV) compared to ultra-easy ones, even though more people would benefit from the latter. Put another way: Expecting disabled people to play games on “normal” difficulty with few or no accessibility features to accommodate them is our own version of “maddening.”

In spite of a fragmented video game landscape, disabled gamers are finding ways to participate in the broader gaming community. Alliance organizations like AbleGamers and Everyone-Games are a welcoming space for people with disabilities to not only advocate for themselves to game developers but also to combat social isolation through play. The website Can I Play That? is both a resource for the latest news in game accessibility and a home to a host of game reviews written with disabled people in mind.

For those within the industry unsure where to start with creating accessible mechanics, the Game Accessibility Guidelines is an excellent resource. It is a living directory of basic, intermediate, and advanced features that could transform games for disabled people. Even better, the guidelines are broken down by disability category with examples of existing titles that contain each specific recommended feature. Suggestions I hadn’t even considered possible, such as making puzzles skippable or providing an option to adjust game speed, are now things I can look for when scanning accessibility menus. Seeing disability advocacy in the video game community made me realize that there are radically different approaches we could be taking to enhance everyone’s gameplay experience.

The fact that there are a growing number of titles out there that utilize at least some advanced accessibility features tells us that the industry isn’t totally lost. I am heartened when I hear text-to-speech at the start of Far Cry 6 and see its extensive accessibility options. The Last of Us Part II also featured a wealth of gameplay customization options. Even a slightly older title like Tomb Raider, released in 2013, had features that I found helpful, such as the ability to highlight destinations or interactive elements in the environment. With the push of a button, I could turn the environment to black and gray to reveal a yellow beacon of light indicating either where I was meant to go or what parts of the environment I was meant to use. The advancements are scattered, but they are there.

The task for game and console developers now is to bring all of these disparate features together. Rather than selectively using some accessibility features, the industry should be working to raise the standard for software and hardware mechanics. To do this, there must be a consciousness shift as far as who plays games. Instead of equal, developers should be trying to make games equitable. A game should have enough accessibility options to meet people where their skills are. Putting unnecessary pressure on all consumers to play games “normally” is the same ableism that keeps disabled people across the spectrum from participating in society at their fullest potential. Ableism also discourages newer players from exploring games outside of their comfort zones, regardless of disability status. There is no one correct gameplay experience. Validating disabled voices will erase the single story of the gamer, writing a new narrative that finally recognizes our collective individuality.

I recently revisited Deathloop while researching for this essay and was heartened to discover that there had been an update to the game to include multiple new accessibility features. Developers added an additional larger text size, the ability to slow down the game’s speed, and color options for HUD items, among other things. On the whole, the game’s accessibility features are still lacking compared to others on the market (like the aforementioned Far Cry 6 or The Last of Us Part II). But the fact that they were added after the initial release signals that developers are listening. We are slowly being heard and incorporated, and that excites me.

Most importantly for me, these updates might just make it possible for me to play. Whether or not I do remains to be seen, but knowing I have the option feels freeing. These new accessibility features open up a world of possibility for fun to be had, which is exactly what video games should do. For all of us.

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