How To Make Video Games More Accessible (And Why It Matters)
Vložit
- čas přidán 25. 07. 2024
- Video games should be for everyone, but millions of players struggle to play due to a lack of accessibility. In this video I go over why accessibility features are so important, and how you can make your own games more accessible!
Blog / Transcript:
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
01:22 Why Accessibility Matters
05:50 Blindness
08:57 Low Vision
10:45 Color Blindness
12:26 Deafness / Difficulty Hearing
15:26 Low Mobility / Dexterity
19:31 Cognitive Disabilities
23:08 Motion Sickness / Seizure Disorders
25:19 Conclusion - Hry
First off, like many videos on videogame accessibility, I really like this one. You give great examples in voice and video and do a great job conveying stuff in a friendly way, so, thank you very much for this, I'm always happy if more attention is given to accessibility.
One thing, though: I feel like especially a video on accessibility should really have dedicated, non-auto-generated captions/subtitles, so they're easier to read and you can be certain they're correct. It was a bit surprising to see only auto-generated ones available on a video like this. 😅
Thanks for your work on this, though! 🙂
Awesome video! Accessibility is such an important topic
as there are so many people who have some form of disability.
I had a stroke 4 years ago and my right hand feels like I am playing with a welding glove on. I will have to get a PlayStation control with the buttons on the left.
As a predominantly TCG channel, may I ask for the same video but on card design specifically for people like me, who wear glasses or struggle to read small font, on how to design my card game in such a way that I convey information without that strain?
This video is already amazing and super helpful for somebody who also wants to make video games like myself and really helps, I was just hoping you could cover this for card design as I look at Digimon and Yu Gi Oh and shudder when I see how tiny the text is! I want to avoid that like the plague.
I already employ a few strategies in my card design in regards to this, but I value your expertize in this a lot more than my own. Thank you for reading.
I've always wanted to be a game developer who specializes making games accessible to blind players. I have a few tiny demos under my belt. A quiz game, brick breaker, space shooter, Simon, an infinite runner, and I'm currently working on a virtual pet game. The virtual pet is currently being tested but all the other games have successfully been played by blind users.
Obviously, text to speech plays a big role but I also use controller virbration as my main indication for things like when to jump or when they've hit a border. It helps reduce what I call sound vomit.
Is it me or are some parts repeated? Like with the audio sliders. It’s been in this vid twice with pretty much the exact same explanation.
rly enjoyed this video, but as a note: after speaking with several colorblind people (including my wife, who has been gaming since she could first hold a controller), colorblindness filters are very much NOT effective in making a game more visually accessible to someone with colorblindness, as it usually only makes it harder to distinguish colors rather than helping; its a good solution in theory, but it doesnt do much to make things easier in practice.
Full Dive Brain implant chips will be the great equalizer in gaming. But by the time we have that, we might have cures for most physical disabilities anyway…
They should stop with the constant updates and balances in all new video games. I miss the days when a game was released completely finished
What a great message/video. Came from pndacat on twitch :3 stayed for the content!
Although I appreciate supporting accessibility to a degree in video games, reaching out to support blindness for most video games is pretty ridiculous. While government agencies report 1 in 4 people have disabilities, those that actually pertain to video games I imagine are much much lower. For better or for worse, most of this doesn't make economic sense in reality. Of the stuff you list, colorblindness, deafness, and seizures are the most practical to account for.
There's plenty of games where there is no excuse for lack of text to speech, like in visual novels. It's all text anyway and adding some really basic text to speech features aren't that time-consuming. Or games like Mortal Kombat would only need some either text to speech or getting the announcer to say a few more lines for the title screen, options, and character select screen. Simple games like virtual pets or even simple platformers are easy enough to make accessible to the blind. There's a complete blind CZcamsr who plays games like Minecraft and Stardew Valley with accessible mods that tell him what his cursor is on. That should only take an extra line or two of code.
Apple catered to blind people first by having text to speech out of the box for their computers. As a result, they have millions of dedicated blind customers. The PlayStation 5 is blind accessible out of the box since it has text to speech. I've already recommended it to several of my blind friends and co-workers but it's pointless if developers aren't willing to take the minimal effort to utilize it.
As I agree that some games could benefit from having support to blind people, by saying that it's just "a line or two of code" you're undermining the actual amount of work that is necessary to do it and I find it borderline disrespectful towards the people who did the work, be it game developers or modders.
This is literally my 2 cents but, I'd argue if game dev is full of creative problem solving in programming, art, sound design and more, is only a case of creative problem solving for accessibility too. Not only that but some games already done the work for you, for the same problem with the same solution, I don't see why you cannot simply copy and call it a day. Is better if is there, than it not being there, and having your playerbase basically deducting points for lack of accesibility than having a text-to-speech reader and a few sliders for brightness at the very least.
@@implozia1360 text to speech requires paying someone to narrate everything, which in some cases can be more expensive than voice acting all the games dialogue
Any other game designers watching to make game adults can UNDERSTAND. No offence but adults just are to close minded
literal soyjack
You cant make a game for everyone or it's for no one. That said within reason im not against options that dont affect difficulty in anyway. So long as everyone has the chance to fail equally I am okay with options. So ads color blond stuff l, button bindinfg etc. but if a game like dark souls gets some dofficulty from being surprised it shouldnt have any identifiers for when your being attacked. A game ahould keep it's identity despite any optiona given, and if you cant keep up amymote then that game just isn't made for you anymore. I am also against toggles to like one hit things or to bit die etc, your not even playing the game at that point...
1. We aren't trying to make games for everyone here, we are trying to make games more accessible. It is not the same as making a Disney game, advertizing it for the whole family. Making a horror game more accessible for horror game lovers who just happen to have a condition shoul'd be the same as making a horror game for "everyone". Because...
2. If someone with a visual deficit is trying to play your game, wouldn't that count as being surprised by an attack every time? Is not the same as being attacked from behind or from the front, that a seeing person can make said distinction. A blind or partially blind person might genuinely be just as surprised either way.
An identifier just evens out the advantage a seeing person might get over a blind one. Not only that but...
3. Aren't we watching the same video to make a "videogame that isn't blind-friendly" into a blind-friendly videogame? The excuse of "this game isn't made for you" needs to dissappear. Maybe an able-bodied person might look at somebody else thinking they are "lacking" but in reality, the world itself is what makes these people "disabled". They themselves do not see themselves as "lacking", they are normal.
4. If you are so worried about difficulty, then my question is, why use accessibility functions of a game if you don't need them? This is like being an adult choosing to stay on training wheels you don't need.
@@implozia1360 accessible doesn't mean make it easy, a lot of people are conditioned to optimise the fun out everything, that can mean defaulting to easy mode at the first sign of struggle only to then drop the game later as they get bored of it because nothing easy is satisfying.