Accessibility Gaming Workshop Summary - See differently



Accessibility Gaming Workshop Summary9 December 2019Time: 1 – 4pmPresenters: Moderator: Ian Hamilton, Independent Accessibility Gaming ConsultantAdi Latif, AbilityNetDafydd Henke-Reed, AbilityNet Matthew Tylee Atkinson, The Paciello Group Sightless Kombat, Independent Accessibility Consultant and GamerSummaries of presentationsHow accessible is gaming, in general? Adi LatifAdi Latif who lost his sight in his teens as a result of a degenerative eye condition talked about how games are now less inclusive for blind and partially sighted people despite the growth that this sector has seen over the past few years. Latif commented, “It is the core design that is not accessible, for example Battle Royale is based on accuracy but this is not the only one, there are so many others. Modern games only have visual cues. Take, football games. There is too much happening on the screen in football games for me to keep up with”. For several years, he stuck to fighting games which had simple graphics making them easier to see, such as Virtual Fighter with 3D graphics where players moved slowly on the screen but overtime, these games became faster and more difficult to play. He went on to compare his experience of playing Sonic and Buggy Boy, games one would expect to be inaccessible because of the level of interaction required but still worked quite well because of the bold graphics and clear sound effects which would not let players divert from the road to trivia and puzzle games like Unity that were completely inaccessible because developers had failed to label the buttons and therefore could not be used with screen readers. “These games don’t have a mechanical reason to be inaccessible as they are based on memory, but the buttons are not labelled.” He went on to add, “Standard and requirements can drive innovation but it’s still down to us to design and implement that innovation. To be honest, I want to play the games that everyone is talking about. I’ve been hearing about Minecraft for years. It sounds amazing. But I’ve never felt like I could play it. Rightly or wrongly, I’ve assumed it isn’t accessible to someone who is blind”. Gaming with Screen magnificationMatthew Tylee Atkinson Mathew, a Senior Accessibility Consultant with The Paciello Group, talked about game accessibility from the perspective of someone with low vision. He started by sharing his experience of using a magnifier for gaming. “Screen magnifiers on the desktop don’t generally work well with games, as most games take over the video output so players can’t zoom within it. In those that do on web browsers, gamers are only looking at a small part of the screen, so can they miss parts of the game. Consoles provide screen magnification that do work with some games, though the games may not have been designed to with this in mind, so playing it with assistive technology can be jarring”. “On mobile platforms, the screen magnification works at system level, so players can zoom in and play any mobile game. Digital versions of adventure books (like Sorcery!) and board games (like Pandemic) are also quite helpful.” “The number one accessibility complaint is text size, for example there may be in-game objects such as e-books with tiny text, or subtitles that are small. Frozen bubble (a colour matching puzzle game) has a colour-blind mode where the bubbles are labelled, but perhaps this could be included in the normal mode as well. Also, the level of detail in modern games makes it harder to see. In terms of the reaction time of games, some are fast paced, or players need to have a fast reaction time. Rallying games are fast paced but tell players what to do. Turn-based games, such as Worms allow players to play the game at their own pace.” Matthew also talked about some of the other challenges, “some games require players to do precise and often repetitive actions “button mashing” at certain points, but it’s easy to miss the cues for this”. For orientation, guide bot in Descent (a flight based first person shooter game) is a helpful bot that players can follow around to navigate the game. Also, route highlighting in Mirror’s Edge helps players find the path they need to follow. Another popular activity for gamers is making maps for games which looks like a CAD programme and can be inaccessible because of its visual nature. Making modifications (“mods”) for games is quite popular and can be more accessible, as players need to be able to do programming, which involves using text editors. Using different modes to navigate and interact with the gamePresenter: Sightless KombatSightless Kombat’s videos about playing games blindfolded, such as Killer Instinct and Gear of Wars 4 showcased how he played these games as a blind gamer. He talked about the importance of sound markers and navigational cues which often didn’t exist because the developers weren’t sure how to convey them in a way that would work for the player but for the gamers attending the workshop, the audio in games was crucial, it allowed them to be aware of things that their fellow sighted players hadn’t noticed yet. Audio targeting also helped players know if they can make a clean shot, or if there is an object in the way. He added that, “On PCs, OCR (Optical Character Recognition) can be used to take text from an image and convert it into a screen reader accessible format. However, it doesn’t know how to render a grid-based menu system into text for a screen reader user. The information isn’t always placed where it should be, or legible. It’s used as a last resort to navigate a game. Still, these accessibility features allow gamers to play with other people, a common gaming front. Information on how to play games can be expanded upon so blind and partially sighted people can play them like everyone else”. Another interesting mode was Cooperative Playing, that allows?players?to work together as team mates and have them all work in conjunction for the same game. So, for a blind gamer, two people playing a game could control the same character and let the sighted partner help with the tasks the other person can’t see. Conclusion It was agreed that generally, accessibility of games had improved somewhat in the recent years particularly the accessibility of consoles with the introduction of an accessibility menu in Microsoft’s X-Box which offers access to features such as the Narrator, controller options, game transcripts, high contrast among others. Participants also made an important point about sharing experiences on all the ways blind gamers use games across the sector and how it could benefit companies. Gamers in the workshop identified the ways in which this could be done, such as with YouTube videos or surveys for user-testing at the foundational stage however as one of the speakers pointed out, the optimal time to consider accessibility is during early development phase, which could easily be two-and-a-half years before the game is released. There were some suggestions on the development of specific features that could improve the accessibility of these fast paced highly visual environments. Matthew Tylee Atkinson talked about the verbosity setting, “it would be interesting to be at a level where games had a verbosity setting for people to say a line once or multiple times or to turn aspects like the background noise off”. He added that, “streaming in gaming is very popular but it’s difficult to keep up with the chat and game. Some games allow players to use cooperative play where their partner can tell them what’s happening, but others don’t”. So, a certain level of consistency needs to be achieved. Sightless Kombat’s demonstration of Xbox’s CoPilot feature allowing him to enjoy the game DOOM was fascinating.? The feature allows two players, each with their own controller in the same room, to simultaneously control the same character.? This can be very useful, for instance, if sighted assistance is needed to progress in a game.? The Titan 2 is a piece of hardware that serves the same function as CoPilot, though it is not restricted to a single console family.? Sightless has used the Titan 2 to complete games including God Of War and Uncharted 4 on PlayStation 4, but with a compromise. Both players have to be in the same room.Another important aspect is communication between players in gaming and web forums are a popular form but unfortunately most have web accessibility issues. For example, the Discord App has accessibility issues on iOS although the Android version is better. Windows is the best option here. Adi also talked about the commitment from gaming engines such as Unreal and Unity that have expressed a commitment to accessibility. “The first set is game engines. Historically, they have been a total barrier to entry. For example, Unity has a huge market share. So do iOS games that use it. However, out of the box, none of these games will support VoiceOver. Not even to swipe around a menu. There are plugins that help. But that is not the point”. However, there is research underway that is promising change at a scale that has not been seen before. For example, Microsoft’s “Seeing VR” Project which has post-processing filters for existing games created in Unity. This has automatic tools, such as edge enhancing, brightness, colour filters, object highlighting or object description which needs more effort from the developer. So, these tools are useful. Still, there is room for research evolving technology, such as haptics, 3D soundscapes and binaural audio which will potentially be acknowledged as the game-changers in the years to come. So, all in all, there is progress, but more concerted efforts are needed across the sector to bring about the level of change required to open mainstream gaming to people sight loss. And in the poignant words of one blind gamer at the workshop, “if you don’t tell us that you’ve done the work … we’ll probably assume that the game is totally inaccessible. Involve disabled gamers. Ask me to play your games”. For more information or to share your experience of accessible gaming, please email audiodescription@.ukDate of publication: 17.01.2019 ................
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