Is Gaming Really For Everyone?
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- Опубликовано: 10 июл 2023
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Learn about how accessibility in video games has evolved over the years.
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Amazing video, guys. I'm a disabled gamer with cerebral palsy (thankfully relatively mild) but it means my dexterity and reaction times are not "the best." For a long time, I've had to accept the mantra, "Some games just aren't made for me," which is both okay and not. It's exciting to see people like the Techquickie folks take note of accessibility in games as an important topic worth making a video about.
The world doesn’t conform to any form of suffering. Expecting the world to will lead to disappointment
Serious question: How do you feel about playthroughs or lets plays? With twitch you can even enjoy the game with the streamer & cooperate/interact with it.
@@TheTotallyRealXiJinpingan, fuck off. They never said they expected it to. There’s no good reason to not have accessibility features in video games and we should absolutely be advocating for people with disabilities, both in the gaming industry and outside of it. Having a mentality like yours is why for so many years public buildings were not required to be wheelchair accessible in the US, for example.
@@TheTotallyRealXiJinping/r/im14andthisisdeep
games should still not be made with the lowest performance in mind
The point about "how dare you want to have fun in our game?" was very good, because this - paradoxically - is being forgotten often nowadays.
Overall, a great take on this topic!
One of the best TechQuickies I've seen so far - and very accurate.
Being a lifelong gamer and suffering from Multiple Sclerosis myself, I can very much relate to how challenging it can be to adapt your gaming style and peripherals to the slow creep of disabilities your body endures.
I guess it also depends on the type of games you play as competitive are probably less likely to have things for disabled players even if they can. Fighting games are fortunately are very accessible
Same! I've got MS, and my mental actuity + dexterity in my hands comes and goes quickly (due to extensive lesion damage throughout my cerebellum). At baseline it's far below the average persons. Take for example triggers on controllers taking about 3x the effort for me to pull, since my grip strength measures about 4 times weaker than others of my gender/age.
I've come to find out in MMO's it just takes me a lot longer than my peers to learn new things. Committing different movements to long-term memory is a challenge, but it just makes for more of a learning curve. (100s of deaths vs. 10s of deaths for my friends in something like Runescape)
Overtime I've found turn based games to be more "my speed". Strange how our tastes change as our health does.
@@vee-v Yep, that's my experience, as well. I used to raid hardcore in WoW until my MS went into overdrive. These days, I just dont have the dexterity any longer, I'm much slower to react and I'm missing the overview I used to have.
Me too, I'm leaning towards turn-based games these days, but a little more action here and there is fine, as long as it has settings that make it playable for my snail-like input. 😉
I just got diagnosed at the end of april. But I've been having symptoms for a while (thanks to my doc for not realizing what was going on at all). At first I was wondering why I couldn't react as fast as before. I honestly have to admit that I was feeling bad playing on lower difficulties cause people keep making fun about that... But now I'm just so thankful that these options exist and I can at least still play games. Very happy that we got a Techquickie episode about this. ❤
@@its_SykoeBest wishes to you - and always remember: Life's not over, it's just different.
This may sound generic and a little cheap, but with MS it's nothing but the truth.
It’s great seeing developers put attention into accessibility in games, even with the challenges some genres bring like competitive and “hard” games.
Yanis c’est pour III qui y
Difficulty is relative. Adding accessibility features to a hard game allows more people to experience hard gameplay.
it is fine as long as it is part of some super easy game mode and not core to the gameplay in every game difficulty. I for one don't want games to be dumbed down just to adhere to the lowest common denominator. This is actually already happening, where pc ports are dumbed down simply because they are designed first for the console.
Skill issue
Meanwhile some top level rocket league player plays with his feet, its really epic
I may not like their games but Naughty Dog making stuff so accessible that even the blind can play is absolutely amazing, I can't give them enough kudos.
Can confirm; totally blind and have beaten both TLOU and TLOU2.
@@BlindRossMinor That's amazing, did you enjoy them?
@@Voltaic_Fire absolutely. Challenging and rewarding.
@@BlindRossMinor 😁 Glad to hear it.
This is one of the best videos I’ve seen in a while, honestly amazing pacing, editing, writing, and delivering. All while staying in the spirit of Techquickie, thank you
i have to agree. and a really important video, seeing how e.g. some *darksouls* players are really toxic about making the game mor accessible
Definitely. The sense of intentionality and care in this one is really rad.
Back in 2018 I reached out to Konami about playability of a Yu-Gi-Oh game. They released, and the representative laughed at me and asked why I would want to play a game if I was Blind, assuming it was a joke. I reached out to their social media accounts and even try to get a case escalated with no response multiple times. It’s a card game that is built off of reading text so the fact that they haven’t released a Yu-Gi-Oh game that could accommodate a completely blind person is insane to me, because of how simple the mechanics are. There are some projects out there that make video games playable for the blind through the use of mods, but some of this stuff is a little too technical for me, I don’t have anybody around me that’s very tech savvy, and if I could see, obviously, I wouldn’t need help, but also wouldn’t be a problem to figure out. I just wish the companies that made these products Would make them accessible for everybody so I could spend my money on them. I’ve only been blind for eight years, but if half of the video games that I used to play or accessible being blind and it was a painless experience, I would’ve literally spent thousands of dollars on video games. There’s also a lack of variety when it comes to accommodating the blind community because most people assume blindness is partial or theirs limited sight, I’m in the category of people that is completely blind. Nothing to see it’s all black, so audio cues directions are very useful for me. If anybody important or with influence ever reads this comment, take a look at how the iPhones voiceover function works. In my opinion it’s perfect functionality. Let my hands interact with every aspect of a program all of the titles headings options, buttons map everything else so that with one touch, you can know if something is not how far away you are from something and drop down menus to do more complex tasks.
I had a nerve injury recently with a fully paralyzed left hand....be grateful for your mobility you(& I!) take for granted!
Going from being able to play guitar and work on about any type of mechanical system from computers all the way to aircraft engines, not even being able to lift your fingers is something I will never take as a given for the rest of my life!
It's back to 70% after 6mo of severe PT appointment's and I still have neuropathy that goes from my spine all the way to my fingers.
But having my WHOLE arm taken away really puts in perspective how much we all take for granted!
Praise God you've been able to recover that much... I'd cry without guitar, man.
good luck on your recovery!
Best of luck regaining the last 30%. I hope all goes well :)
@@mrartistimo1530 It's sadly likely he won't be able to gain complete control, but we sure as hell can hope for at least 90% where he can do most things. Here's to!
My wife is an occupational therapist, specializing in TBI and stroke patients. It's really amazing how the body can heal the nervous system, and literally regrow/reroute neural pathways. That last 30% is a bitch, but I've seen (rather, strategically-redacted-due-to-HIPAA heard about) some of the amazing recoveries people with nerve damage like yours have made. Keep going! You can do it!
I gave a talk on “Accessibility in Open Source” at Fedora Hatch 2022 and one of the forerunners in accessibility I pointed out was video game software. It’s really nice to see it being discussed on Techquickie too!
Lmfao Fedora Hatch.
This was a super well-written episode. Really had some nice depth to it without getting long-winded. Kudos to everyone involved!
Jessica knocked this one out of the park - well-researched and inclusive essay. Great production too.
I'm totally blind myself, but used to play games loads before losing what I had left of my vision. Thanks for making this video, guys; it's shocking how often talks of game accessibility come up without referencing gamers who may have a disability. Getting the word out that this kind of accessibility feature implementation exists, and is both important and cool, is great.
There a version of youtube that you can use? I get you probably have a keyboard you can use fine (though your spelling is amazing for not being able to really check it visually) but even just finding the comment section seems annoying for someone totally blind
@@aidanquiett668 if i recall correctly if you tab on youtube's website, it will reveal a hidden link revealing a keyboard only mod with read out loud tts
@@ok-tr1nw Honestly I expected if youtube ever had a feature like that they would have thrown it out without telling anyone
Ok so i have bit of an ignorant question. How does navigating youtube work for you? Like replying to this, what helps you find were to click?
@@aidanquiett668 oh hell nah, there like about an estimated hundred thousand people who would notice that including people who use screen readers and papa alphabet will be angry since accessibility is a goal of tjzm
I'm glad you called out those quality of life improvements as not "true" accessibility options. I've seen developers add in some super easy mode and just go "We made a mode where you can never die, gaming is for everyone! Please give us likes and brownie points" instead of putting in actual effort like Microsoft's controller.
Restating a bit for clarity: The problem is when devs add a token accessibility feature and call it a day, not when devs add an invincibility toggle specifically.
Accessibility features often overlap with quality of life and assist features, but some don't, and the ones that don't still matter.
@@SnakebitSTI Correct, though I would go a bit further and say that some of these token accessibility features actually detracted from accessibility. Take the invincibility toggle for example. Sure, it would help some disabled players actually be able to play the game, but technically it isn't even a game at that point. What about the disabled players that want to experience the game "as intended", but the devs already patted themselves on the back and moved on?
That's my main issue with all this.
Another thing developers should be aware of is to not design the games around following the story at a point the game is only fun if you follow the exact path created for you, basically movies with obstacles.
Many of the more successful games ever made are fun to play just a bit.
@@ks30512 Some people play games to see the story or play around rather than be challenged. What's wrong with those people getting to have fun with a game?
So what if it's not what the devs intended? Tons of gamers love enjoying games in ways other than intended. You've never messed around with glitches before? Learned speed running tech in a game not designed for it?
@@SnakebitSTI I think you misunderstood what I meant. I said it's fine if all you want is the story. I'm saying that I'm sure that there's plenty of disabled people who would want to play the game "normally" like everyone else, with all the challenge it entails. Except many times they can't, because devs take the easy way out of just removing the challenge, getting all the likes and praise, then calling it a day instead of adding true accessibility.
as an abled person, it's easy to forget the difficulties some people have to enjoy even the most simple of things. But I'm so glad everyone is being taken into consideration more and more through the years!
surprised to hear no mention of Celeste as an indie game with easily implementable accessibility features that go a long way in opening up the game to a wider audience
Celeste does lack a colorblind mode - but there may be mods that help.
I’m struggling to get back to gaming after having a stroke last year at 38. My dexterity and feeling in my left hand is not what it was before. I have a lot of curiosity if the Xbox controller would work for me. I’m struggling my way through the Dead Space remake. A neurologist in April recommended I get back to gaming so I’ve tried to. My occupational therapist said I’ve gained 6lbs of strength and lots of dexterity back since then. The stroke has taken away some of my abilities but I’m working hard to get them back.
Video games help so much when you are disabled, just having something to distract from the near constant pain means so much to me.
As someone with muscular dystrophy, the rise in accessibility options in games has been a godsend for me as my condition worsens. I can't mash buttons like I used to nor move my fingers as accurately. Things like changing mashing button prompts to holds or games like TLOU2 letting me turn off the camera shake when aiming has saved me from having a genuinely painful experience when gaming. It only makes me wish games like FFXVI had any accessibility options like that.
Which type if you do not mind me asking.
FFXVI has accessories in game (that are given at the start) that will dodge for you, use the best combo by just holding square and even one for controlling Torgal, but you are correct about the button mashing in QTEs. FFXVI has a lot of them and I haven't checked but I don't think they have an option to just hold rather than mash. I hope you get to enjoy the game cause I believe it's one of the best. :]
@@XGP15A2 It's also possible they meant to type XIV, and were referring to those few Active Time Maneuver mechanics.
I have very limited mobility in my left arm and play on PC. My workaround is using the d-pad on a razer tartarus keypad for movement and mapping everything else to my G600 mouse (which I highly recommend taking apart and removing the weights from if you own one).
As a blind gamer myself, I'm very happy you brought this up, hopefully this would bring more awareness to the general public about the importance of making games as accessible as possible. Remember, we, the differently abled people are into gaming, just as much as the rest of the world is, just like everything else you people do. So it would be nice to be included and more integrated with the society. We are not some foreign creatures from other planets or something that deserve to be overlooked or isolated, we're part of you, part of the community, who deserve to enjoy our favourite things like gaming just like you.
Genuinely fantastic video, probably my new favorite Techquickie. Thank you for covering this!
It is great to see the leaps and bounds we’ve gone from the beginning. Bless the brothers and sisters with handicaps who still take part in this awesome hobby; the progress is slow but it is being made
I honestly can’t wait to get wrecked by someone and then hear them on the mic ‘Bro I’m a paraplegic what’s your excuse’ i
I'm a totally blind gamer and accessibility advocate/consultant and it was a pleasant surprise seeing you cover this topic. I lost my sight due to a gunshot when I was eight and ever since, making games accessible has been my passion because gaming was something I use to do before I went blind. Blind gamers traditionally played audio games or fighting games, but ever since TLOU2, the bar has absolutely been raised and as a result, we're seeing more accessibility options than ever. The new Forza will be the very first blind accessible racing game and I'm so pumped. Thanks for making this video! Always down to talk game accessibility with you.
My absolute favorite video ever from the LTT ecosystem. I, like many others, have my own story when it comes to accessibility issues in gaming. The more attention that is given to the idea, the better the chance developers keep making leaps forward. Respect 🤘🤘🤘
My loved one has just been diagnosed with early onset Parkinsons.
It's heartbreaking how they struggle to just use the PC now 😢
I wish there were some kind of ISO-esque committee in charge of documenting, explaining, and updating a list of features for developers to us to make their games more accessible. This committee can even provide grade for how accessible each game is for people with specific disabilities.
As far as I know, something like that doesn't exist, but game accessibility is sort of a grassroots movement, and so there are tons of resources online. My YT channel is dedicated to talking about game accessibility, then there are game accessibility conferences, as well as accessibility consultants.
One tool that is pretty awesome for accessibility is Steam Input. A very robust input remapper that works with pretty much every controller.
My best friend has a lot of hand pain, and I often make configs for her that add toggles or turbos to certain functions so she can play games without physical pain. Many games still don’t have remapping for controllers, so steam input also helps on that front.
Because while new games becoming more accessible is great, there’s a wealth of games from the past that are still fun to play, but have very dated and inaccessible mechanics like mashing QTEs.
So being able to have turbos and toggles for those is a life saver.
I've been watching this channel for about a year.
this video made me finally subscribe.
Wholesome AF taking a look into lives other than the able bodied norm.
This is a hands down top notch video, it’s clear that proper research and writing went into it and the longer length really helps explore the topic the way it should be👌
Accessibility is hard, but worth it. At Stadia we listed the accessibility features in the store for each game and supported passthrough mode for the xbox adaptive controller. I remember the studies UXR did to try and understand how people would interact with games on the service. Proud of those folks.
This was a good one. I'm a developer, and a person with the kind of ADHD that when people start getting all "it's a super power" in serious tones I kinda lose it.
Seriously. People who talk about disability like it's a zero sum game (lose something gain something) annoy the hell out of me.
It's a reflection of the competence-deviance hypothesis if anything; the more competent someone is, the more their deviations from the norm are tolerated.
To borrow an adjacent quote from Terry Pratchett: "You can't be loony and rich, you've got to be eccentric if you're rich."
Not all heroes can make up their mind and pick one cape to wear.
Well done LTT, Riley and team. Fantastic and informative. This is one of the best vids you guys have done.
extremely underrated video and thank you so much for making this. most people donot realize how far even tiny accessibility options in video games can go. even for people who game rarely, difficulty settings alone can be a huge factor for their accessibility too
I've got arthritis and playing with mouse and keyboard sucks for me. It could be a lot worse, but I'm still very thankful for good controller support
I’ve been thinking a lot about this recently, I’ve got a blind friend who wanted to play Minecraft with the rest of our friend group. I itially we were pretty confident that a game like Minecraft could never work without visual feedback, but after some googling, we found a bunch of mods that did stuff like play sounds at the location of high-value blocks, speak what block you’re looking at, set the numpad to orient you in the cardinal direction, and a bunch more! After we helped her get the mods installed, she was eventually able to play with the rest of our group which was a super neat thing to witness!
This is precisely why some people choose larger controllers (like the old style controllers)
For people with mild dexterity issues, just a keyboard and mouse will suffice. It’s just controllers that are small are Very Hard to handle
Still, some people just need more practice with controllers. Like two or three times longer. The thing is, it’s as frustrating for them as it is for everyone else
For myself; I bought a Keymander in order to play some PS3 and PS4 games due to some of them requiring rapid inputs of the face buttons with thumb, and that just damages and seizes up my already damaged thumb that was caught between a door jam and a door on a train as a kid some 30 years ago, what with the button mashing.
Yet for years since I got that Keymander people in comments sections like here on YT keep accusing me of "cheating" by trying to put some accessibility function in to games I otherwise love if only they weren't destroying my ability to even grasp a cup of water by the abuse they put my thumb through.
Shoutout to Falling Squirrel, the devs behind The Vale. I don't think I'll ever get over the fact that they lost out on the Innovation in Accessibility award at the 2021 Game Awards to Forza, who's 'innovation' was functionally ASL subtitles that hadn't even been implemented at the time of the show.
it's been depressing that some games i loved as a teen are becoming more out of reach as i get older now due to it being much harder for me to intake and analyze vast quantities of information quickly. Like i loved playing starcraft back in the day, but now the best i can do is campaign modes because trying to go PvP i simply don't have the mental agility to respond to a rapidly changing battlefield. And even when it comes to typing or using a mouse, i more frequently have to deal with fingers twitching and hitting keys/buttons i didn't intend to. I can only imagine how frustrating it must be for some differently abled people to be unable to properly play some great games because of physical or mental limitations.
My Lady fair was a gamer, who because of her Friedreich's Ataxia slowly lost the ability to play games. Years ago she was the best healer for a group in an MMO. Near the end of her life she could play Baldur's Gate 3, with me as her assistive device, describing what we could see and letting her dictate the actions to take in game. I know she would have shed a tear to hear the progress being made in adaptive capable games. We are all differently abled.
As in the real world, accessibility features make things more fun and easier for all of us. Not all of us want to "try hard" in games all the time. :)
My aunt is disabled, she started playing Final Fantasy back in the NES/SNES days in the 90s because she could control it easier, it became her favorite series...up until the modern ones, now she can't play them anymore because they are too fast paced and action oriented. Its kinda sad.
The biggest challenge for this field on the hardware side is that every individual is different so every new peripheral has to have a insane level of customizability to it which means that saving money through standardization is virtually impossible.
yeah. I don't get why people are shitting on companies for not wanting to make a loss. They're releasing the thing for the cheapest possible price. shouldn't that be praised???
@@polocatfan Agreed. You have a company that is taking on high design and production costs while targeting a desperately tiny market. All that means people should be glad there are any companies willing to even entertain the idea off accessibility based hardware.
I always love seeing a well filled out list of accessibility options in a game. While I don't require any, I do turn some of them on in some games. The extra visibility or extra audio cues can help a lot, doubly so if the game can get competitive. I personally refuse to play League of Legends without colour blind mode enabled. It might not do much for actual colour blindness, but it does make things like the HP bar easier to track as the default green doesn't work well against the green background of the game map.
Also, fun fact: the Dualsense haptic feedback works in an ingenious way. The rumble is controlled by sending audio signals to the actuators. It literally makes you feel the sounds. Which is a simple, but very effective way of controlling the feature.
Photosensitivity is a real issue in my home. My wife had a concussion a few years ago and she still has issues with certain games. I wanted to play Street Fighter 6 with her, but I can hardly play with her in the same room. The full screen flashes and effects make her feel nauseous with prolonged exposure.
Recently, she's been playing Cyberpunk. She's not experienced with shooters and can't handle the intense effects in a firefight, so instead she plays as a dedicated hacker so she can take her time and have direct control over when certain effects appear. I still often need to do the braindance segments for her.
What I would ask are more setting to reduce or remove certain effects, particularly high contrast and full screen effects.
I just talked with my friends yesterday about how some games make you sit through an entire voiced cutscenes and tutorials with no subtitles on by default, and only after getting through it you can access the subtitles setting.
One of the accessibility options I didn't know was so overlooked were colorblind options; a friend of mine who has color-blindness says that even for games that have options, there are no standards between them and not a lot of consideration for different types of color-blindness. For example, Option X in Game 1 is the same as Option Z in Game 2, while Option X in Game 2 is like Option A in Game 3.
Seems like something that should be handled with some kind of color-shifting overlay that users can either download themselves and use for all games, or that developers can choose to include in their games without having to build up the tools from scratch.
This video makes me so happy. Accessibility in games is so important and it's nice seeing it becoming more mainstream.
My grandfather worked for IBM in the 1970s 80s and 90s. He had ALS and was working on equipment for disabled people as part of his research. They had developed eye tracking to move the pointer around the monitor so that he could continue to write even when most of his body had failed.
Despite being a little long - I think the pace is much more adequate and easier to follow. Great video!
I feel like this would be a good episode to reformat for y'alls new GameLinked channel!
In my opinion, as a viewer. 😂
As a disabled gamer, wheelchair bound and very socially isolated especially since covid. Its really good to finally feel some attention from a well known name, because it often feels like we are forgotten or not wanted. Personally i would love to see this topic come back every now and again to keep it in peoples minds. Of course not overdoing it, we dont want to be perceived as a nuisance
Hope whoever reads this has a nice day :)
You touched on controllers a bit, but one of the most frustrating things for me is that consoles still use controllers as a selling point instead of recognizing that it's the only way the player interacts with the game. Certain controllers cause me more wrist pain than others and it's really annoying when a game is exclusive to the console that only uses that controller. I hope for a future where they all agree to some basic standards and we can just use whatever input device we want on whatever console we want. You know, like on PC.
As I and the rest of the 70’s kids grow into old age the availability of accessible controllers and games is going to become even more important. Excellent Techquickie.
I like how you note at the start that some accessibility changes are just quality of live changes -- that is indeed very often the case!
It turns out that 'accessibility' is just generally a good idea. A game that thought about colour blindness will likely also have less brightness issues with overly dark caves -- and 'team colours' are a regular request in many kinds of games. The combination of sound and subtitles is not just great for people with hearing options but also for those who have to play the game in a foreign language. An easy mode for a game is not just for people who are bad, but also for people who have had a long day and want to enjoy the lore and story -- without being gatekept by the combat. And a more ergonomic controller might also be more similar to the big red Commodore joystick and therefore appeal to gen X -- who, as far as I have observed, often don't like how WASD forces you to walk with your non-dominant hand.
I am very disappointed by the gatekeeping culture in "true" gaming; many of the most popular games either lack settings (like Elden Ring) or do have some option but in a lore-unfriendly and somewhat humiliating way (like the 'god mode' in Hades that still requires you to die 30 times before it gives you the full bonus, and there is no inbuild system to help you if you still die because you can't properly see the projectiles).
I have deutan colourblindness, so im really grateful for games that have colourblind accessibility in them, i found out that in games like dota its hard to distinguish between green and red health bars of mine and the enemy team, especially at a glance when there's a lot of action going on, drastically slowing reaction time and decision making.
Also another example is polybridge where its otherwise impossible to see the pieces turn from green to yellow to red when indicating component stress level. (they all look kinda brown)
Really makes a difference since green and red colour coding usually convey the most information like team side and health status. (thanks rocket league for using blue and orange, or tf2 for using blue and red)
Man being deaf in my right ear doesn't usually affect me but I thought Vale was such a cool game until I realized it would be nearly impossible for me to play it.
As a disabled gamer in a wheelchair myself... Glad you guys covered this! I'm really happy to see all the options out there for everyone these days.
Some companies go through extensive accessibility checklists on the games. However, to me, the bare minimums are:
- Subtitles + font/color
- Colorblind modes
- UI scaling + safe zones
- Make sure keybinds for keyboards and controllers (some games) are allowed and are not restrictive (some games doesn't allow you to rebind vehicle controls)
- Be careful with button holding, mashing and holding two buttons together and give options to change them (configurable hold/toggle ADS, sprint, crouch and map view are common examples)
As someone who's been dealing with the ups and downs of having relapsing remitting MS for 13 years now, I greatly appreciate the games industry for actually putting real effort into inclusivity and accessibility. Knowing that, when the day comes, that my illness has progressed to the point of making me largely immobile and incapable of doing most of the things that I can do now, I'll still be able to relax and enjoy playing a game. Knowing that means more to me than most might realize
As a legally blind gamer and IT engineer, thank you for making this video. 💞 Been using a ton of accessibility tech since I was little to lay driving and FPS games.
This was great. Bravo! To the script writer (Jessica Pigeau), everything was clear, understandable and informative without getting bogged down in details. Well edited, presented, directed the whole damn team deserves a raise!
One of my best gaming memories is playing Portal 2 co-op with my friend who has CP and struggles to operate analogue controls. We discovered that with careful planning, the vast majority of the co-op campaign can be completed with one player performing only simple movements.
It made the campaign more interesting and drove a more cooperative and satisfying playstyle than when I tried playing through it with gamer bros who think dropping people into death traps never stops being funny.
I'd like to see more experimentation with asynchronous mechanics as a way to approach accessibility in multiplayer games, although not to the exclusion of other methods.
As someone who just lost their left hand beginning of this year, January 21st, this stuff is awesome to see.
As a deaf gamer, I think its awesome to have more accessible games. Obviously my disability is the easiest to account for in most games but devs really dont know the difference a game can make just by being accessible. I know its super expensive for smaller studios but the big players have no excuses!
Hard of Hearing (along with issues in right hand related to thumb-actuated face buttons) and aural processing issues (basically; tiny processing buffer and sensitive to random loud sounds) here, and subtitles/closed captions are a *godsend* in games and movies; to the point I've stopped seeing movies in the cinema as it's hard to understand spoken dialogue without relying near solely on context clues from the scene layout since most cinema complexes don't have a way to display closed captions on the screened media.
One feature I turn on in games where given the chance is not just subtitles but directional sound identification; such as the "[mob sound]" text boxes that use angled brackets to point left or right in the direction of what made a particular sound relative to the player.
A strangely easy thing that could be done to open up games to a ton of people is having all First-Person and Third Person games come with both a invert Y AND X axis movement. I've met several people, including my wife, who are instinctually dumbfounded by the way the X axis camera normally operates in most games, and with a quick search on google there is a shockingly low amount of games not implementing what seems to me should be an INCREDIBLY easy option to games where it could potentially help. Why is this being overlooked so much?
This is why Steam Input is so revolutionary. Don't need to install any software on your machine you don't already have. Game developers don't need to implement jack. And you can even reuse mappings across similar games.
As a disabled gamer and overall tech enthusiast; THANK YOU!!!
I hope this gets the attention of more software and hardware developers. LMG had covered some accessibility products, mostly ergonomic desktop computer accessories, which you should do more of and you should expand into showcasing more accessibility related products and projects. Especially as the fist generation of us who grew up with computers and video games as part of daily life are getting older, more and more games and other tech will have to become more accessible; and more of your audience will be people with disabilities.
Question for Riley and the LTT Team.
I know I am going to be flamed for this but still, allow me to ask.
How would you make a game like Dark Souls more accessible when the entire selling point of the game is that it is frustratingly hard? That is the achievement, the glory that players of those types of games desire for.
How would you make a game like Counter Strike more accessible when the entire selling point of the game is skilled PVP. It requires extremely good motor skills, swift reactions and ability to discern visual and audio cues.
"Git gud" mentality aside, some games require you be actually really good. That is the selling point, that is what makes either a competitive PVP or a gruelling PVE experience.
What would you like to add to games like the ones aforementioned to improve accessibility?
3:51 When I get around to playing this game I will play it blindfolded, could stream it to show people how cool it is that well behaved dog made this possible!
I’m here for long format Techquickie. Love it.
It's one of the big reasons I made a Keyboard-Controller adapter for the masses 🙂 Play the way you want, with keyboards that are in-general way more accessible than a one-size-fits-all controller!
Excellent video!!! I'm a teacher who has worked with many kids with disabilities over the years, and my wife was diagnosed with MS about a year ago. I'm so glad that our society is starting to realize that "accessible" isn't good enough and that things should be inclusive.
I've, relatively recently, developed pretty bad wrist pain, carpal tunnel, stuff that happens when you're in fields that involve typing, and all of the jobs and hobbies I've ever had and considered involve extensive keyboard time. I've pretty much always played mostly RPGs, Action RPGs, and games with controller support, and controllers don't cause my wrists to hurt nearly as badly on most days, so usually it's a nonissue. However, I am aware that someday, my traditional controller days will come to an end. Quite honestly, the horrid ergonomics of my setup probably aren't helping, but alas, all of the viable solutions cost a small fortune to implement.
For unrelated reasons, I've become pretty obsessed with alternative control methods for games to find something more intuitive. Naturally given how I know that someday I won't be able to use a controller anymore, I have all the more reason to indulge my fascination with weird alternative input methods. I would personally love to experiment with things like the MS Adaptive Controller, and home wire some strange cockpit that only makes sense to me, but money is the primary thing holding me back there as well, however, it brings up a point that Riley neglected to mention.
Accessibility hardware is EXPENSIVE, like, REALLY expensive. Like, as in the hardware needed to play a game for people with worse issues than mine, costs enough money that you could make a down payment on a car with it. In my opinion, this is not OK, and all of the prices reek of insanely high profit margins. In fact, I've heard the Adaptive Controller is sold at a loss, and I don't believe that. I realize that not all hardware is equally expensive or cheap to make, however, I do know a lot of the parts can be put together with an Arduino and cheap microelectronics, so I put two and two together and realized that doesn't add up to a $100 price tag.
You could probably go even cheaper if you went full MacGuyver and took a $20 controller and just, modded the daylights out of it, since controllers just use simple circuit gates to determine button press states and the logic for turning those into the digital outputs is already in the standard controller PCB. It probably wouldn't be hard to just wire a ton of sensors to the thing and wrap the whole thing in electrical tape like you're trying to make an Apple product and ran out of hot glue. The catch there being microelectronics are nowhere near as accessible to the masses now that Radio Shack is dead.
I have debilitating arthritis and noticed the first game i could no longer play was Hades.
This was a great episode. Huge props to the writer
I'm so happy to see this! With arthritis and poor eyesight, accessibility options are a must for me. Surprised that you missed the amazing options Celeste has. That game would have been impossible for me if not for the time slow option. It's still extremely challenging, but at least now I can try!
Amazing work! It's really important that people like yourselves talk and bring light to these topics!
Great script and editing ❤
That was an excellent Techquickie. I had no idea about a lot of that stuff, great research and kudos to the devs and technicians thinking about and implementing solutions.
I am physically abled. I have little to no hearing comprehensive - all noises sound the same to me, even with a hearing aid. The existence of Subtitles and non-verbal clues in video games has been a huge boost for people like me.
I always feel like video game developers could have done more, but we are in a better position nowadays than when video games used to not have subtitles at all.
I would really love if they reviewed some of these accessable controllers including the eye trackers, even if not on the main channel
Iirc LTT did a video on the xbox adaptive controller a few years back.
I love to see a large channel like this promoteing in game accessibillity, thanks to recent advancements in accessibillity I can play most games includeing VR, but I recently struggled to play The Bookwalker as the lines are not voiced
Having adhd it’s so frustrating playing difficult content with friends and realizing you scrubbed an encounter because you didn’t see a small timer in the bottom left hand corner of your tv. Having 5 people talking and most of the action taking place in the center of the screen makes that little text or timer or whatever basically invisible. I know a lot of people have it a lot worse but I feel like this is something that could be remedied so easily. But thanks for shining a spotlight on this issue guys and gals. You’re appreciated!
Thank you very much for this, I'm always happy to see more attention brought to accessibility and this video included some very nice examples and historical progress, I like that.
One thing, though: especially for an accessibility-focused video, it would really be nice to have dedicated, non-auto-generated subtitles available. 🙂
Thanks very much for your work either way, thought!
My baby brother died of ALS when he was 54, but he was an avid gamer and while his entire body gave up on him he was able to play some story driven games with his eyes towards the end of his life. This was also how he spoke. I believe it was his ability to play games in addition to his faith that enabled him to live as long as he did.
I'm a support worker. My favourite client is blind and loves playing sport games.
As a gamer whose disabilities don’t impact gaming, I cannot love this enough. Ecstatic for my fellow gamers whose disabilities impact gaming!
Love this TechQuickie. It addresses with respect an important topic, and still is fun to watch, even if with a bit less jokes than usual. Great job guys!
As a disabled-gamer, I use the Xbox Adaptive Controller to bind the left trigger to the big-ass button and use my foot to hit it.
This should be mandatory watching for anyone before they get to post on steam forums
I’ve been replaying the GTA 5 campaign on Game Pass over the cloud and the input lag made it impossible to aim at enemies consistently due to the highly variable delay over a wifi connection. Thankfully they essentially have a lock-on feature, which helps immensely. Aiming at partially obscured enemies or driving in tight spaces can still be problematic, but I found it much more manageable.
Awesome to see companies do this when it likely doesn’t make them much more money compared to the effort they have to put in.
I’ve been doing cancer treatments for about a year now and have lost quite a bit of the feeling in my hands and they are often in pain. One thing that was getting me through chemo was gaming. It focused my brain enough to distract from the struggles and made things much more bearable. As my hands would hurt my wife would then play and we could beat games together. Funnily enough she said she never got to play or beat games when she was a kid because of her brothers so she’s now been able to beat several games on her own as I watch. I know many try and make gaming out to be a waste of time, but it’s increased my quality of life during an extremely difficult time and it’s fantastic to see companies working to provide that to more people.
Thank you for spreading the awareness. I'm visually impaired and an option to change the fonts on handwritten notes is a blessing for me and I hope other games will adapt to this.
Great video keep the work buddy
Absolutely fantastic episode, team! The idea that something I love as much as gaming is finally (albeit slowly) being brought to some of the more historically underserved segments of the population is so awesome that it gets the emotions welling up.
Stop it, Riley.
Riley, is this the new Techlonger? - cause I'm here for it!!
As a person with a bit of eye sight problems (i'm blind from the right eye and i see 3/10 from the left one), this video is well made and it speaks of something with i struggle on a daily basis: accessibility. And it's not in only in gaming (i'm a quite involved gamer too), even at work and in the other parts of life it is an important (quite vital for me) subject... i usually get away with a bigger screen and text size options (or zoom maybe) but still it's impressing how often this aspects of a product are, to this day, quite neglected or completly absent for the most wide array of reasons... Lazyness most often than not.
Thank you for speaking of this here.
This is an excellent video, and a topic that needs to be addressed more IMO. Gaming should be for everyone, who wants to enjoy the hobby that is, and the move, especially in the last few years, to offering more accessibility options is great. I've always used mods, and cheats, to make games more accessible to me, mainly God mode types, or full aim assist, etc. To be clear I play single player games only. But now with modern gaming offering accessibility, from a decent story or easy mode mode, to slowed down combat (Jedi Survivor), I can enjoy the game without cheats or cheat mods.
7:03: I figured Double Dragon 2 for the NES would be mentioned. You couldn't beat that game on easier difficulties. It'd only allow you to progress so far and if you wanted to see the end, you had to play it on the hardest setting. (Supreme Master) Practice lets you play the first 3 stages, Warrior let's you play right up to the stage before end end, and Playing on Supreme Master is how you see the true ending to the game.
West of Loathing has an incredibly well implemented color blindness mode, those guys deserve more attention for their incredible work with the accessibility of the game.
This is something I think about a lot now that I’m older. I was in the army and I look back glad I never deployed because I could live with out a leg but if I lost my right arm I would probably go insane. It also makes me sad that someone could literally be playing games on day and fucked the next.
As someone who is a gamer and an OT, Thank you for highlighting some very important aspects of adaptive controllers and adaptive settings on games.
Great, great video. We need more coverage like this is the gaming community.