Questions
I had several questions I wanted to answer as I visited studios and found out information. These involved, amongst other topics, how employees thought about (or sometimes were unaware of) accessibility and discussions with various individuals about improvements that could be made using current technology and theoretical practices.
The questions were as follows:
Are developers aware of accessibility?
Are developers willing to listen and understand the challenges faced by a GWS?
Does company infrastructure effect how accessibility implementation happens from studio to studio?
What is the accessibility like across mainstream platforms for GWS?
How quickly do I think the first fully accessible game will be produced, either from a current or future project?
Are developers aware of accessibility?
The short answer is sometimes. In visiting events like E3 and the Gaming and Disability boot camp at Microsoft, I understand now that developers, though they might want to do what is best for everyone, do not necessarily know that GWS even exist or need to be included in the demographics for their products.
Are developers willing to listen and understand the challenges faced by a GWS?
Once they understand there is a problem, they are usually willing to listen. It seems that the best way for developers to learn and understand the challenges of an unfamiliar demographic like GWS is to have those who are able and understand how mainstream accessibility works to go directly to them and discuss in person with real-world examples how things could be improved.
Even throwing theories around is better than doing nothing, it seems, as the individuals at Valve stated that I had done the right and best possible thing by arriving at their studios to discuss the matter of Steam platform accessibility.
On numerous occasions through my Fellowship, I witnessed reactions of shock and bafflement as gamers and developers alike, who thought things would be accessible were forced to understand that, for one reason or other, they were not. These reactions were even able to be seen at the round table discussions I had as part of my visit to 343 industries, where I was able to show clearly that there were sound cues that even those present did not seem to know existed until they were demonstrated to be present by me. However, after one such discussion, I was approached by a 343 employee who was willing to discuss the prospect of improvements for the game based on what I had demonstrated.
Does company infrastructure effect how accessibility implementation happens from studio to studio?
Yes. It is a big difference, going from, say, Valve to Microsoft, given that Valve only have around 300 to 400 staff who migrate between different in-company roles. If a company has a complete managerial infrastructure, like Microsoft, with individuals having set roles, sometimes it is not necessary to go right to the top in order to start an accessibility dialogue. It is sometimes a matter of getting a foot in the door of a company, convincing one person that accessibility is viable is sometimes all that is needed, as shown by EA’s Treatment of Madden 18.
Though the improvements in Madden are not all-encompassing (with no spoken menus at present), the changes that are being made are at least a good step in the right direction.
What is the accessibility like across mainstream platforms for GWS?
The three main console manufacturers are Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft, with the main PC distribution platform being Valve’s Steam. Accessibility features differ greatly between these methods of accessing games, though developments, as would be expected in an industry that strives to innovate, can occur at any time.
Nintendo
Though Nintendo did launch a new console, the Nintendo Switch, earlier this year, unfortunately, despite legislation, it is not accessible.
The CVAA, the 21st century communications and video accessibility act is a piece of American legislation passed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The long and short of it is that only the communication aspects of videogames are covered by the CVAA, not full accessibility for platforms and consoles. However, as the final exemption from the act is set to expire on the first of January 2019, there is a great potential for change amongst platform developers (and potentially videogame developers as well). Whilst the CVAA does not cover accessibility principles in terms of enforcing accessible game design, it does make sure that those with a variety of disabilities can communicate with each other. So for example, if I wanted to play with a player with hearing loss, there should be no reason why I can’t hear their words transcribed into synthesised speech and they shouldn’t be able to see my words appear on their screen via text.
Whereas Microsoft and (to a far lesser extent Sony) have gone above and beyond the minimum requirements, Nintendo has so far avoided this legislation altogether. This is a significant blow for the accessibility community given that the Switch is intended as a console for everyone to enjoy.
The simple fact that the Nintendo Switch uses a smartphone app for its voice chat service and other online functions is, as much as it might be a clever idea, a disappointing one for accessibility. This means that they have to do absolutely nothing in terms of making their platform accessible as the functionality that would need to be adapted is elsewhere.
Sony
Sony was the first developer to announce publicly that they would include TTS software as part of their system firmware. Consequently, numerous individuals interested in the possibilities of mainstream gaming jumped at the chance and bought a PlayStation 4 in the hopes that the pipedream of “talking consoles” and fully accessible games for those GWS would be a reality in the very near future.
Unfortunately, that did not come to pass, as Sony restricted their TTS to specific models of PlayStation 4 as well as tying it to the US, according to this linked page from the Sony online manual.
Why was this a problem?
Other than being a very frustrating move for those outside the US who wanted accessibility features but were unable to pay the import, shipping and whatever other fees were incurred, Sony’s decision was and still is a sore point because it makes it seem like the company is doing just enough to not get caught by the CVAA, but only in the country where the regulations apply.
Microsoft
Microsoft, for their part, announced a few months after Sony that accessibility features were coming to their systems. However, as far as I knew at least, it would not be region locked via hardware.
This proved to be the case when, on the launch of the Xbox One experience in late 2015, Narrator (the main feature of interest to GWS) was found to be able to be accessed outside of an official launch region of the US.
This access came via a workaround that, though it required sighted assistance to be set up, could pretty much be seen as a fire-and-forget option. It involved changing the language and region from the default to English (US) and, although it meant you were unable to buy content from your country’s store, you could still use the main Xbox interface to launch games, send Xbox Live messages and party invites, amongst other functions.
Why is this relevant?
Microsoft continued to update their accessibility suite, creating a feature that sometimes turns out to be even more useful than Narrator for GWS, namely copilot.
The feature allows for the use of two separate controllers, with the input being treated as that of a single one. This allows for single player games to be more easily played by a GWS who has sighted assistance. Though clearly it is not a complete fix for the issue of inaccessibility of older titles on other platforms, the disadvantages of such input methods are even easier to see when said GWS has inconsistent sighted assistance to act as an aid to navigation and other tasks.
Steam
Steam is a PC game distribution platform that, whilst it is usable to a limited degree with assistive technology and screen readers, has more negative aspects than positives as a GWS trying to use the platform without sighted assistance.
The process for setting it up involves, on occasion, usage of optical character recognition which is just about intelligible at best and garbled and unusable at worst. Moreover, the fact that the entire interface does not use standard windows controls means that screen readers, as useful as they are, cannot recognise the elements in the window and a GWS must resort to either getting sighted assistance or trying to work with functions that mimic the mouse cursor with relatively little success in terms of ease of use.
There are sometimes ways around certain elements, like the use of Steam chat via the mobile app to see the messages that have been written, but the key issues are navigation of the main interface and settings panels as well as being easily able to access game properties to launch new games, install them or work with their existing files.
Valve, though a fair few petitions have been raised to combat this trend, have failed to do anything meaningful in terms of accessibility that resolves any of the above mentioned issues for GWS and, as discussed later in this report, I fear that is unlikely to change any time soon.
How quickly do I think the first fully accessible mainstream game will be produced, either from a current or future project?
In an ideal world, I believe the first fully accessible game could be here within a year. Realistically, I think it could be within 2 or 3. Whatever the final answer, I am aware there are developers worldwide who would be willing to undertake what might be seen as a challenging task.