What Does Accessibility Mean in Game Design
What Does Accessibility Mean in Game Design
What Does Accessibility Mean in Game Design
By Josh Bycer
April 30, 2021
Summary
In it, we talked about what accessibility means not only for game designers but for the consumers who are playing games.
Discussing the misconceptions and myths about accessibility made me think again about approachability and accessibility, and I wanted to take a chance to revise my thoughts on the topic.
The Difficulty of Defining Accessibility Accessibility means different things for different people, and why there is a problem both among consumers and developers in terms of defining it.
One of the topics that Steve and I talked about was that there is no such thing as a checklist for accessibility: that if a game has A, B, and C, it's automatically accessible to everyone.
For a game to be accessible, it's important to look at what are the major pain points and walls that are stopping someone from experiencing a game.
Many people argue that any game without difficulty sliders is inherently not accessible, but From Software's latest titles do feature accessibility options to them in terms of subtitles, control rebinding and more.
Some will say that if the game just has an easy, medium, and hard mode then the game would be fair for everyone, right? Not necessarily, and this is a trap a lot of developers and consumers fall into with difficulty and the point of this post.
The game features multiple tweaks to the combat system: affecting parrying time, number of enemies, number of checkpoints, and more; all of which can be toggled to different points.
Here's the simple truth that every designer and member of the game industry needs to understand: GOOD GAME DESIGN IS ACCESSIBLE GAME DESIGN. The problem is that many people consider UI/UX design as just UI/UX design and nothing more.
The dirty little secret is that both are examples of accessibility in games, but they approach it from different sides.
Reference
Bycer, J. (2021, April 30). What does accessibility mean in game design. Retrieved July 30, 2021, from https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/JoshBycer/20210430/380675/What_Does_Accessibility_Mean_in_Game_Design.php