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Understanding the experience of gamers with disabilities

Gamers with disabilities often face difficulties due to accessibility problems encountered in games, despite some good resources for developers who are designed so that people with disabilities can effectively participate in the gameplay.

PlayStation 3,

We asked gamers to share their thoughts, experiences and opinions about the use of subtitles in games, ideas for improving game accessibility, as well as stories about players with disabilities.

“I found that the single player in almost all video games currently contains subtitles, which greatly help me enjoy the game and understand the gameplay,” said Gabriel Callahan, a deaf gamer who shared his experience with subtitles in games. “I can have a cochlear implant (a medical device, a prosthesis that can compensate for hearing loss in some patients with severe or severe degree of neurosensory (sensor-sensory) hearing loss), which allows me to hear, but my level of hearing is still not good enough, to clearly understand the speech in the game to the full. Thus, the subtitles allow me to understand the history and the dialogues quite clearly, and they were never intrusive. ”
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Brent Rogers (also Brent Rogers), also a deaf gamer, when he was asked to express an opinion on the use of subtitles and assistive technologies in the game, stated that “All that I personally ever needed from the game was the ability to turn on and off subtitles for dialogue and captions for game goals, whereas the possibility of voice chat is considered useless for us [deaf gamers]. We should be able, where the PlayStation camera can be used, to sign each other in the game. It is not necessary to use headsets with microphones, you need the game manufacturer to provide an opportunity to use the camera and make it available in every game, especially in a universal way. These two features are very important for better understanding in each game and for better communication in multiplayer mode or cooperative games. ”...

While there are several formalized standards for incorporating accessibility into games, AbleGamers Foundation provides guidance on game accessibility guidelines - Includification . The guidelines are divided into such limitations as mobility, hearing, vision, and cognitive impairment and were created to ensure that access can be realized without affecting the gameplay. For example, in the area of ​​mobility impairments, the principles include alternative configurations and key assignments, in the area of ​​hearing impairment they focus on covert support of subtitles, in the area of ​​visual impairment include high contrast mode and marking of the enemy, but principles regarding accessibility for people with cognitive disorders focus on providing levels of difficulty and game benefits. Dr. Scott Hollier (from Scott Hollier) from Media Access Australia recently wrote an article titled “ Available gaming: is there any help there? ” (In English: Accessible gaming: is there any help out there?) stated that "in fact, one should not simply accept that the game cannot have features for people with disabilities built into it as additional settings."

Additional feedback regarding your gaming experience is welcome. More information about gaming resources, on-line communities and main gaming opportunities can be found on our page of available games .

(Original "Understanding the experience of gamers with disabilities" ).

Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/243167/


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