1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,400 Think about your favorite video game. If you lost your sight tomorrow, 2 00:00:04,400 --> 00:00:09,240 would you still be able to play it? What about your hearing? Or the dexterity in your hands? 3 00:00:09,240 --> 00:00:14,680 Anyone can be a gamer, at least in theory, but historically, very few games were designed 4 00:00:14,680 --> 00:00:18,880 to be played by everyone. These days, developers are using some cool tricks 5 00:00:18,880 --> 00:00:22,240 to bridge the divide. And we're not just talking about closed captioning, 6 00:00:22,240 --> 00:00:25,720 but also settings that change the actual gameplay. 7 00:00:25,720 --> 00:00:29,240 But to appreciate these, it helps to understand what gaming was like 8 00:00:29,240 --> 00:00:33,880 in the olden times. Due to the limitations of early gaming technology, 9 00:00:33,880 --> 00:00:38,960 designs were simple and rather inflexible. Games like Pac-Man and Space Invaders 10 00:00:38,960 --> 00:00:42,880 had high contrast visuals, straightforward gameplay, no dialogue, 11 00:00:42,880 --> 00:00:48,800 and a minimal number of possible inputs, which meant they happened to be somewhat accessible. 12 00:00:48,800 --> 00:00:53,340 Games like these were fine for people with moderate low vision, developmental delays, 13 00:00:53,340 --> 00:00:57,920 or learning disabilities, even if that wasn't at the front of the developer's minds. 14 00:00:57,960 --> 00:01:01,480 There's not a lot of tactical complexity to a game like Pong. 15 00:01:01,480 --> 00:01:06,440 You move the paddle up, then down, then up again, if you're feeling cheeky. 16 00:01:06,440 --> 00:01:10,360 Compared to a modern controller, the big buttons of an arcade cabinet 17 00:01:10,360 --> 00:01:14,080 don't demand a ton of precision. And you can see some common design themes 18 00:01:14,080 --> 00:01:17,280 between old arcade controls and specialized peripherals, 19 00:01:17,280 --> 00:01:21,560 like the Xbox Adaptive Controller, and its assorted plug-in accessories. 20 00:01:21,560 --> 00:01:25,120 But some of those old games were also highly visual, 21 00:01:25,160 --> 00:01:29,040 fast-paced, and they had no real easy mode. 22 00:01:29,040 --> 00:01:35,200 A problem for people who are nearly or completely blind, and for people with more profound, fine motor challenges. 23 00:01:35,200 --> 00:01:39,260 Even something as common as arthritis can seriously impact a player's ability 24 00:01:39,260 --> 00:01:43,160 to engage with genres like first-person shooters and rhythm games. 25 00:01:43,160 --> 00:01:48,920 As gaming matured, we started to see gamers getting more options for how they'd interact with their games, 26 00:01:48,920 --> 00:01:53,440 things like adjustable difficulty settings, simultaneous text and audio dialogue, 27 00:01:53,440 --> 00:01:57,960 and lightweight ergonomic controllers. But these weren't true accessibility options, 28 00:01:57,960 --> 00:02:02,320 as much as they were basic quality of life measures that improved the gaming experience 29 00:02:02,320 --> 00:02:06,400 for a much larger population than just disabled gamers. 30 00:02:06,400 --> 00:02:10,920 For example, assistive settings like tutorials and story-only modes were designed 31 00:02:10,920 --> 00:02:15,180 to help new and inexperienced players, but they also help gamers 32 00:02:15,180 --> 00:02:19,320 with physical and cognitive disabilities. While these helpful options have been with us 33 00:02:19,320 --> 00:02:24,520 for a long time, they've often been implemented haphazardly, or as an afterthought, 34 00:02:24,520 --> 00:02:30,520 because it was left up to individual developers to decide whether or how to include them. 35 00:02:30,520 --> 00:02:34,480 Unsurprisingly, those developers rarely got it right the first time. 36 00:02:34,480 --> 00:02:42,000 A good example is the original Assassin's Creed, which has a score of 3.3 out of 10 on CanIPlayThat.com 37 00:02:42,000 --> 00:02:46,960 because it has no option for subtitles, despite being released in 2007. 38 00:02:46,960 --> 00:02:52,060 Subtitles had been invented. Only two years later, the second Assassin's Creed 39 00:02:52,060 --> 00:02:56,580 had both subtitles and fully voiced lines in five different languages. 40 00:02:56,580 --> 00:03:01,300 Many. Now, many, many, many games later into the same franchise, 41 00:03:01,300 --> 00:03:06,300 the accessibility options for Assassin's Creed are extensive, albeit imperfect, 42 00:03:06,300 --> 00:03:10,300 and players can separately control the difficulty level for different aspects of the game, 43 00:03:10,300 --> 00:03:16,500 like combat, exploration, and stealth, taking into account cognitive, motor, vision, 44 00:03:16,500 --> 00:03:20,460 and hearing challenges. And Ubisoft has been far from the cutting edge 45 00:03:20,460 --> 00:03:25,860 when it comes to accessibility. Compare Naughty Dog, for example, who released The Last of Us in 2013 46 00:03:25,860 --> 00:03:30,940 with visual cues for important sounds, highlights for small, hard to notice pickups, 47 00:03:30,940 --> 00:03:35,340 and the option to change handwritten notes to more readable, plain text. 48 00:03:35,340 --> 00:03:38,860 2020's The Last of Us Part II was especially ambitious, 49 00:03:38,860 --> 00:03:41,860 including text to speech, fully remappable controls, 50 00:03:41,860 --> 00:03:46,300 a high contrast mode, labeled subtitles, indicating who is saying what, 51 00:03:46,300 --> 00:03:52,900 a glossary of game-important audio cues, screen magnification, auto-aim, and navigation assistance. 52 00:03:52,900 --> 00:03:59,380 In fact, Naughty Dog promised that blind players could play through the entire game without sighted assistance. 53 00:03:59,380 --> 00:04:03,420 Which many did? Naughty Dog, more like well-behaved dog, 54 00:04:03,420 --> 00:04:08,660 if you don't count the crunch. But Naughty Dog and Ubisoft are large, established game developers. 55 00:04:08,660 --> 00:04:12,980 How are small, independent studios supposed to provide the same level of accessibility? 56 00:04:12,980 --> 00:04:17,540 And how are studios small and large, implementing features specifically designed 57 00:04:17,540 --> 00:04:22,180 for disabled players? The truth is that a lot of the push for accessibility in games 58 00:04:22,180 --> 00:04:25,620 came from, naturally, disabled gamers themselves. 59 00:04:25,620 --> 00:04:28,780 A lot of experimentation in both software and hardware 60 00:04:28,780 --> 00:04:31,820 came from independent programmers and hardware developers 61 00:04:31,820 --> 00:04:35,700 looking to serve a niche community, often because they or someone they knew 62 00:04:35,700 --> 00:04:40,180 wanted to play video games, but couldn't. It's hard for an able-bodied developer 63 00:04:40,180 --> 00:04:44,660 to imagine in a vacuum all the barriers disabled gamers might run into. 64 00:04:44,660 --> 00:04:48,340 Never mind how to address those barriers. That's also why the PC, 65 00:04:48,340 --> 00:04:53,100 with its plethora of specialized peripherals and open standard connectors like USB, 66 00:04:53,100 --> 00:04:56,380 has been the machine of choice for many disabled gamers. 67 00:04:56,380 --> 00:04:59,580 The Adroit Adroit Switchblade Controller, 68 00:04:59,580 --> 00:05:03,300 which allowed gamers with limited mobility to play on the Xbox 360, 69 00:05:03,300 --> 00:05:07,780 was originally developed by Abel Gamers, a non-profit organization dedicated 70 00:05:07,780 --> 00:05:11,740 to accessible video games. Abel Gamers was founded by Mark Bartlett, 71 00:05:11,740 --> 00:05:16,660 whose best friend was slowly losing her ability to play EverQuest due to multiple sclerosis. 72 00:05:16,660 --> 00:05:21,980 It was only after the launch of the Adroit Switchblade that Microsoft took notice and tapped Abel Gamers 73 00:05:21,980 --> 00:05:25,180 to help make the Xbox Adaptive Controller. 74 00:05:25,180 --> 00:05:29,500 But the good news is that the push for solutions has already led to some useful features 75 00:05:29,500 --> 00:05:34,860 like screen magnification for low vision, altered color schemes for different kinds of color blindness, 76 00:05:34,860 --> 00:05:38,500 and haptic feedback as a replacement for audible signals. 77 00:05:38,500 --> 00:05:41,620 Any new feature a developer implements is going to take time and effort, 78 00:05:41,660 --> 00:05:44,660 but open, well-documented developer resources 79 00:05:44,660 --> 00:05:48,580 can shave down that workload and make it more realistic for small teams 80 00:05:48,580 --> 00:05:51,940 to implement some of these solutions. Some of the past reluctance 81 00:05:51,940 --> 00:05:54,980 to fully implement certain kinds of accessibility options 82 00:05:54,980 --> 00:05:58,940 like adjustable difficulty settings, aim assist, automatic navigation, 83 00:05:58,940 --> 00:06:03,460 and glowing visual guides comes from concerns about cheating, 84 00:06:03,460 --> 00:06:08,100 as well as a certain stigma common to the mainstream AAA sector, 85 00:06:08,100 --> 00:06:13,660 a get good gatekeeping mentality that wants to preserve the perceived exclusivity 86 00:06:13,660 --> 00:06:16,740 of especially challenging games. 87 00:06:16,740 --> 00:06:20,940 Dark Souls, from software. Some games don't even allow the player 88 00:06:20,940 --> 00:06:25,380 to finish the game on easy mode. For an extreme example of this, 89 00:06:25,380 --> 00:06:28,940 Twisted Metal 2 from 1996 has an easy mode 90 00:06:28,940 --> 00:06:34,380 that ends after the first boss, telling players no losers allowed beyond this point. 91 00:06:34,380 --> 00:06:41,180 You must switch to medium or hard to continue. Because how dare you try to have fun? 92 00:06:41,180 --> 00:06:44,900 Another concern is that, well, certain changes to a game 93 00:06:44,900 --> 00:06:50,540 might turn it into a wholly different experience. The accessible version of The Last of Us Part 2 94 00:06:50,540 --> 00:06:54,100 is still a poignant and brutal narrative experience 95 00:06:54,100 --> 00:06:58,780 thanks to the thoughtful work of its developers. However, if you took a game like Getting Over It, 96 00:06:58,780 --> 00:07:02,020 an experience that is fundamentally about accepting the frustration 97 00:07:02,020 --> 00:07:06,780 that comes with having to start over from zero, and you made it impossible to fail, 98 00:07:06,780 --> 00:07:11,420 well, then you haven't made a game accessible, you've made a completely different game. 99 00:07:11,420 --> 00:07:16,060 Instead, Getting Over It has options for using a mouse, a joystick, or a touchscreen, 100 00:07:16,060 --> 00:07:20,780 allowing flexibility, but still retaining the spirit of the experience. 101 00:07:20,780 --> 00:07:25,780 A big part of what makes games fun is the catharsis of overcoming a significant challenge, 102 00:07:25,780 --> 00:07:30,020 especially a challenge that is difficult or impossible for less dedicated players. 103 00:07:30,020 --> 00:07:34,820 But being unable to participate in a game because you are physically unable to play 104 00:07:34,820 --> 00:07:37,980 is a fundamentally different challenge than the one that was intended. 105 00:07:37,980 --> 00:07:42,620 And there are a lot of accessibility options that do not necessarily eliminate challenge 106 00:07:42,620 --> 00:07:46,460 for their intended users. For example, the Quadstick is a controller 107 00:07:46,460 --> 00:07:50,660 specifically designed to allow tetraplegic players to game using their mouth. 108 00:07:50,660 --> 00:07:55,340 And honestly, if you can't get a kill streak and cod with just your lips, are you even a real gamer? 109 00:07:55,340 --> 00:08:00,140 The fact that gaming is a more participatory experience than watching a movie or listening to music 110 00:08:00,140 --> 00:08:03,860 complicates the goal of a universally accessible experience. 111 00:08:03,860 --> 00:08:08,100 But it also means that games can provide experiences that might otherwise be out of reach 112 00:08:08,100 --> 00:08:11,220 for people with disabilities. For example, it's often much harder 113 00:08:11,220 --> 00:08:15,740 for wheelchair users to leave the house, which can be extremely socially isolating. 114 00:08:15,740 --> 00:08:19,820 Online video games can be a great option for shared social experiences, 115 00:08:19,820 --> 00:08:23,420 despite those physical barriers. There are still financial barriers, however, 116 00:08:23,420 --> 00:08:27,100 as adaptive controllers can be prohibitively expensive. 117 00:08:27,100 --> 00:08:31,460 And it's not all about adapting existing games to suit disabled gamers. 118 00:08:31,460 --> 00:08:34,860 Audio games are entirely blind accessible by default, 119 00:08:34,860 --> 00:08:38,740 using just audio and haptic feedback to communicate with the player. 120 00:08:38,740 --> 00:08:42,860 A recent popular example is The Vale, a story about a blind adventurer 121 00:08:42,860 --> 00:08:48,380 where the player has to navigate and even fight and dodge enemies using only auditory cues. 122 00:08:48,380 --> 00:08:54,020 These kinds of games often use binaural audio recording, which uses two microphones specifically positioned 123 00:08:54,020 --> 00:08:58,820 to give a sense of 3D space. So the player can tell whether a sound comes from the left 124 00:08:58,820 --> 00:09:02,100 or right, front or back. If you're wondering what the game looks like, 125 00:09:02,100 --> 00:09:07,460 well, we would show you some gameplay footage, but well. In the end, we're probably never going to live in a world 126 00:09:07,460 --> 00:09:11,420 with perfectly accessible games, but there's a lot of low hanging fruit 127 00:09:11,420 --> 00:09:15,580 and great new ideas when it comes to making gaming a hobby for everyone. 128 00:09:15,580 --> 00:09:18,820 And my thanks to everyone who watched this whole video. 129 00:09:18,820 --> 00:09:23,260 Like the video if you liked it, dislike it if you disliked. To check out our other videos, we got lots. 130 00:09:23,260 --> 00:09:29,300 Comment below with video suggestions. We can make a lot more. And don't forget to subscribe and follow Tech Weekly. 131 00:09:29,300 --> 00:09:32,420 That's this channel. So in case you were, where am I?