Article Category: Research
Published Online: Dec 10, 2019
Page range: 111 - 125
Received: Nov 13, 2019
Accepted: Nov 13, 2019
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/csci.128
Keywords
© 2019 Katie Ellis, Kai-Ti Kao, published by De Gruyter
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
In his 2015 article Hackers, gamers and cyborgs, Brendan Keogh reflected on the way the construction of the typical gamer paralleled the masculinisation of information communication technology (ICT) in general. He highlighted a number of key moments in the history of ICT to demonstrate the impact of the entrenched patriarchal structures through which video games emerged and currently operate. The transition from consumption of video games in arcades towards home consoles and microcomputers in the 1980s and 1990s represented a pivotal moment for Keogh, and one that the industry had to respond to in order to retain an audience. The selected audience Keogh explains was white, male and skilled at gameplay:
The emergence of a normalised gamer identity was carefully cultivated by magazine publishers, with advertisements and articles strongly suggesting that a gamer was a particular kind of person – male, young, skilled at ‘gameplay’ and technologically competent. For the Western game developers […] a stable consumer identity with a narrow, clear set of values and tastes was ideal. (Keogh, 2015)
This imagined gamer has continued to pervade industry and popular culture concepts of the normalized gamer identity. When critiquing constructions of normality and preferred users of technology, it is important also to consider the exclusion of people who have nonnormative bodies such as people with disability. Throughout this article we add
Video games are an expanding area of popular culture spanning traditional age, gender and socioeconomic divides and appealing to a diverse market. People with disability represent a significant but under-researched gaming demographic (e.g. Beeston, Power, Cairns, & Barlet, 2018). While this group represent a large portion of the gaming population, inaccessible interfaces and consoles may prevent people with disability from playing games. Despite this, research dating back to 2008 suggests almost 20% the gaming population have an impairment while 92% of gamers with disability continue to play games despite accessibility obstacles (Chin, 2015).
This paper aims to put the topic of gamers with disabilities on the agenda for Open Literacies. Throughout the paper we draw on John Hartley’s definition of Open literacy as “user-centred and system-wide, ‘bottom-up’ rather than ‘top down’, producing unforeseen network effects that in turn change the rules of the game” (see Hartley, this issue). We begin with a literature review that brings into dialogue research and conceptions of disability and digital media with accounts of gamers with disability, and how we might understand digital access as a cultural practice. This theoretical synthesis leads us to draw attention to the alternative ways in which games can be played and the impacts this has for the disability community. The paper then moves on to consider the contexts in which disability appears in gaming in academic literature. For example, therapeutic and educational contexts dominate while recreation is considered less important. The paper then draws on the perspectives of disabled gamers as articulated in media and online commentary to argue that gamers with disability, as the experts in the ways their bodies interact with digital games, have created a series of strategies, hacks and workarounds to change the rules of the game.
While disability is typically considered a medical problem outside the scope of humanities and social sciences, a critical approach to disability highlights the ways disability is culturally bound to social constructions of normality. Critical disability studies attempts to break down the binaries that have been created in relation to disability. For example the medical model of disability creates a binary between disabled and not disabled while the social model, established in response to the medical model created another one – disability (socially located) verses impairment (the body) (cf Oliver, 1996). By comparison, critical disability studies attempts to move ‘away from the preoccupation with binary understandings — social v medical model, British v American disability studies, disability v impairment’ (Meekosha & Shuttleworth, 2009, p. 50). As Rosemarie Garland Thomson explains, disability is the result of the interaction between a nonnormative body and the social environment:
This definition locates disability within society, built environments, social structures, people’s attitudes and in the body. The role of digital media enviroments in creating both disabling and enabling social practices and environments is a dynamic area of enquiry in critical disability studies. Gaming in particuar is gaining traction in recent years although it still remains an understudied topic within critical disability studies.
Although technology generally has been an enduring concern within both critical disability studies and the social model of disability (see Ellis & Kent, 2011; Finkelstein, 1980; Roulstone, 1998), Goggin and Newell’s book
In 2011 Ellis and Kent applied this argument to the so-called web 2.0 environment. The participatory web Ellis and Kent argued, allowed ordinary people with little technical know how to create disabling online environments. Similarly, large tech companies such as Facebook displayed little interest in creating accessible environments for people with disability, despite Tim Berners-Lee’s original conception of the web as powerful in its universality -. “access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect” (Berners-Lee, 1997). Like Goggin and Newell, Ellis and Kent noted that the internet and social media was created in the same disabling social world that erected steps in front of buildings without a lift or ramp. They were particularly critical of what they described as a three-step process whereby relatively accessible digital environments were created however as they amassed more users became less accessible until they would finally have accessibility retrofitted at great expense and inconvenience.
Prior to
Digital access is a form of cultural practice that included some and excluded many, particularly people with disability (Foley & Ferri, 2012). Drawing on insights established in complimentary disciplines such as literary disability studies, cultural approaches to disability recognise that the way people with disability are in/excluded is a direct reflection of our ethical core (Quayson, 2007). At the same time the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with disability recognised the importance of digitisation to the full inclusion of people with disability (Alper & Goggin, 2017; Ellis, 2019; United Nations, 2006). The convention displays a strong media influence and articulates a number of digital rights (Goggin, 2015). The following section explores the ways gamers with disability, as an innovation commons (see Jenkins this issue), impact on access to games and, as a group, affect bottom up change (see Hartley this issue).
While players with disabilities are not a new area of research within video game studies, there has been a tendency to focus on the use of video games as educational or therapeutic resources. These studies range from how video games can be used to facilitate physical therapy and rehabilitation sessions (Martins, Carvalho, & Soares, 2012; Rinne et al., 2016; Rowland et al., 2016), address attention deficit and hyperactivity disorders (Santo et al., 2012), train people in the use of prosthetics (Smith, Dombrowski, Buyssens, & Barclay, 2018), as well as function as educational resources for people with intellectual or learning disabilities (Delgado & González, 2012; Israel, Wang, & Marino, 2016; Saridaki, Mourlas, Saridaki, & Mourlas, 2011). While video game research has traditionally focused on younger audiences, there is also growing attention on older players and the use of games as therapeutic resources for aging. For example, studies have been conducted into how video games can: treat and augment rehabilitation for people aging with, and possibly into, a disability (Lange et al., 2010); be used in conjunction with conventional physiotherapy to treat hospitalised older people (Laver et al., 2012); improve balance and motor control (Lai et al., 2013; Mendes et al., 2012; Young, Ferguson, Brault, & Craig, 2011); as well as influence positivity and well-being (Baños et al., 2012). Research in the field of disability and gaming has not only focused on how games can be used to treat, manage, or alleviate the disability, but there is also attention being given to how to specifically design games for the education and training of people with disabilities (Kwon, 2012).
The difficulty with this focus on players with disabilities and games that are primarily educational or therapeutic is that they tend to frame players with disabilities as “treatment-receiving objects” (Wästerfors & Hansson, 2017, p. 1143). They also reinforce the notion of what Robert McRuer describes as compulsory ablebodiedness (McRuer, 2006). Such perspectives skew our understanding of people with disabilities as players of video games as they are studied from a specific angle and under precise conditions:
This consequently provides a rather limited understanding of how players with disabilities form a part of the wider gaming demographic. Heron argues that such limited views run the risk of pigeonholing players with disabilities into “gaming ghettos” where they are closed off from the wider gaming market and culture (2012, p. 30). He also points out that they problematically assume that players with disabilities are a small and niche market, thus ignoring the ways in which accessibility options can benefit a broader population (Heron, 2012, p. 31). Such a limited view of players with disabilities also ignores the fact that they can engage with video games for many of the same reasons that players without disabilities do, including: fun, relaxation, socialisation, and challenge (Beeston et al., 2018). As Beeston et al. explain, “game designers and researchers can assume that people with disabilities want to play mainstream games with everyone else and will attempt to find a way to play” (2018, p. 12). Therefore, although it is clear that video games can be significant educational and therapeutic resources for people with disabilities, there is increasing recognition that people with disabilities are active members of the wider gaming population and share similar interests, motivations, needs, and frustrations.
The frustrations experienced by players with disabilities, however, tend to go beyond that of players without disabilities because of the various ways in which the game may intersect with their disability and thus impact their overall gaming experience, immersion, and enjoyment. As Wästerfors and Hansson explain,
When games impose limitations upon players with disabilities by not offering them the ability to adequately engage with the game, they hinder the player’s capacity to immerse themselves in the full experience of ‘play’ as a free and absorbing activity (Huizinga, 1955). Further, the “special work” required by the player to conceal their disability or overcome any resulting barriers when playing the game results in additional work on their part which can often entail an extra expense and effort.
This recognition has prompted further research into how all video games can be made more accessible to players with a range of disabilities (Heron, 2012; Trewin, Laff, Cavender, & Hanson, 2008; Westin, Bierre, Gramenos, & Hinn, 2011; Yuan, Folmer, & Harris, 2011). Accessibility issues for players with disabilities can usually be grouped into three dominant and interlinked categories: the player must first be able to receive stimuli, determine an appropriate response, and finally provide input back to the game to action their response to the stimuli (Yuan et al., 2011, pp. 83–84). These categories and actions become further complicated depending on the nature of the player’s disability and the specific needs of the respective game. Stimuli are usually in the form of visual, auditory, or haptic signals, and games that rely purely on one mode of stimuli (for example, the sound of footsteps to signify an enemy’s approach) will inevitably exclude, or disadvantage, players whose disability corresponds to that mode of stimuli.
The general assumption that people with disabilities are a small gaming market can also indicate that the lack of accessibility within video games is more often a result of omission and oversight rather than deliberate design. Heron suggests that greater awareness building and education will significantly help to overturn this, and indeed, there are a growing number of resources available to help game creators understand the issues commonly faced by players with disabilities and provide advice on how they can improve in this regard. See for example, AbleGamers (
Despite these concerns, improving accessibility within video games need not be a difficult or expensive exercise and, as Heron explains, “great strides can be made by, simply adopting the existing good practice that is currently spread across mainstream titles” (2012, p. 29). Features such as closed captions, layered audio landscapes, accessible sound cues, and control mapping are already commonly available and can go a long way towards making a game more accessible to players with varying disabilities (Heron, 2012, pp. 33–34).
Often, players themselves find ways to work around the limitations they experience within games. For example, players with visual impairments compensate by relying on audio cues from the game itself, signals from teammates using a voice-based chat program, or employ in-game options to adjust the colour and size of visual cues to make them more clearly visible (Lim & Nardi, 2011). Depending on the nature of the game and the needs of the player, some of these work arounds can be as simple as using an extra bench or large ball for stability (Wästerfors, 2011, p. 343), while other players remap the controls or reconfigure their gaming setups to enable them to play with their feet (Wästerfors & Hansson, 2017, p. 1154). Many also rely on the use of third party extensions, accessories or equipment to facilitate their play. Players with severe motor impairments, for example, can employ the use of gaze-based interfaces which, although limited in some ways, still offer the ability for such players to engage in gaming as a social activity without the need to disclose their disability (Istance, Vickers, & Hyrskykari, 2009).
Some of the workarounds described by Wästerfors and Hansson (2017) indicate a complex literacy, wherein the player not only exhibits a detailed knowledge of their own capabilities and needs, but also a high level of technical proficiency and gaming knowledge. These are also examples of how players manage what Wästerfors and Hansson term “disability stickiness”, that is “disability as something that is socially constructed in ways that makes it difficult to disengage from” (Wästerfors & Hansson, 2017, p. 1156). In addition to being selective about the games they play, players with disabilities also need to negotiate and manage assumptions made by non-disabled people in regards to their abilities:
Returning to Rosemarie Garland Thomson’s definition of disability as also comprising a set of practices that produce both the able-bodied and the disabled, disabled gamers must navigate the disabling social attitudes of other gamers:
While for some the ability to play games online offers a certain anonymity and the chance to escape such “disability stickiness”, others are more transparent and openly discuss their impairments seeing it as a chance to normalise disability (Baig, 2019; Johnson, 2019). In this way disabled gamers must become the experts in challenging disabling attitudes, creating user led innovations and changing the ways games are played. The next section of the paper explores the impacts disabled gamers have had on the availability of accessibility via a media and social media analysis of the ways this group has devised workarounds and accessibility hacks, in many cases prompting the industry to respond.
Players with disabilities find ways to play video games that aren’t specifically designed for their needs by using a number of strategies, hacks and workarounds. For example, players who are blind have successfully played certain games by relying purely on auditory stimuli to guide their actions and responses (Associated Press, 2005; Schreier, 2011). Others rely on the wide range of community-generated resources such as YouTube clips and online walk-throughs to help them learn the ins and outs of the game (Yin-Poole, 2016a). Some players modify how they interact with the game in order to better accommodate their disabilities, for example, by using their face, arms, or feet to manipulate the controllers (Winkie, 2017). These workarounds are often accompanied by hours of practice as players learn to navigate their way through the game and accurately time their interactions (Associated Press, 2005; Donovan, 2011; Schreier, 2011).
These workarounds are not perfect and often come with limitations of their own. Vision-impaired players who rely on sound to play are heavily dependent on “sound landmarks” and clear in-game auditory cues (Associated Press, 2005; Schreier, 2011). This requires games with good sound design and nuanced attention to detail. For example Terry Garrett, a gamer who identified as being blind, observes that it is difficult to play some contemporary first person shooter (FPS) games due to the overwhelming sound of shots and explosions: “You hear shots, but can’t tell which direction they are coming from, and by the time you hear them, you are dead” (quoted in Schreier, 2011). Other players who rely on community-generated resources to learn about how to navigate certain games observe that many of these resources aren’t specifically created with accessibility in mind, and hence do not necessarily highlight issues that would be helpful for various players with disabilities to know about (Yin-Poole, 2016a).
Learning how to play games is partially a battle of finding information on the game’s mechanics (particularly for fighting games like
Above all, players with disabilities also need to have a detailed knowledge and understanding of their own capabilities to better determine which games they can and can’t play (Cavalli, 2008; Schreier, 2011). Andrew Monkelban, a player with Cerebral Palsy, explains that:
Therefore even though players with disabilities are finding creative and resourceful ways of playing games that are designed with more mainstream able-bodied audiences in mind, they do still encounter limitations.
However, they are speaking up. In true participatory culture style, players with disabilities have also become more vocal and more visible about their experiences with video games. Many have taken to official and unofficial gaming forums, websites, and social media to discuss how particular titles intersect with their disabilities. Players not only discuss the problems they encounter, but also the workarounds they use to overcome the barriers between their disability and the game. Online discussion forums such as the sub-reddit r/disabledgamers offer popular venues to talk about game and console accessibility, look for advice on equipment or controls, and discuss specific needs (“R/disabledgamers,” n.d.). While these forums and threads specifically dedicated to disability function as a useful support network, some discussions will also spill over into other avenues. Players with disabilities often use the game title’s dominant subreddits or the game’s official forums to discuss and report issues that prevent their engagement or render their previous workarounds ineffective (Borgstrom, 2017; McKeand, 2016; WheelsyGamer, 2017). When a missing control option rendered
The post not only caught the developers’ attention and prompted a fix, but the developers also named the new control option after Fitzgerald’s gaming moniker and have included the N0M4D control scheme as a feature in every iteration of the game since (Donovan, 2011).
Such forums and discussion avenues not only increase the likelihood of capturing the attention of one of the game creators and bringing the issue to their attention, but also tend to engage the broader community in a conversation about accessibility. This not only helps to normalise the discussion about accessibility, but can also create safer spaces for people experiencing accessibility issues to speak out. For example, the game
This particular issue received much community attention with other players chiming in with similar experiences:
None of these posts specifically indicated a vision impairment, but their contributions helped open up a space for another player to recognise that the issue was with the game itself, and not their own ability to see, a key concept in critical disability studies:
Players have also started creating their own modified controllers and controller accessories to enable them to play (Frank, 2017; Kraft, 2015; Ramée, 2018; Torbet, 2019; Wästerfors, 2017). For example, the Nintendo Switch was initially lauded for its flexibility as it could be adapted for three different modes of play, however its controller was clearly designed for able-bodied, two-handed players (Ramée, 2018). Disabled gamer and blogger Grant Stoner regretfully gave the Switch a negative review, observing that:
In response to this, community maker Julio Vazquez created a 3D-printed adaptor that would enable the Joy-Con controllers to be held and manipulated by one hand and shared the design for free for the benefit of other players (Frank, 2017; Ramée, 2018; Vazquez, 2017). Other player-based customizations have also emerged for various games and playstyles, including the ability to play
This topic has started attracting media attention. Media have not only picked up on reporting on players with disabilities, but have also started to pay greater attention to accessibility issues with games and gaming systems. Various industry and popular news outlets have begun calling out issues such as, for example, gaming mechanics that exclude players with certain disabilities (Dale, 2018; Egliston, 2019; McKeand, 2016; Wired Staff, 2005), patch changes that render previous workarounds unfeasible (Borgstrom, 2017), and the lack of control remapping options (Klepek, 2017). The extent of online discussion and media coverage often makes it difficult for game creators to ignore the issue, however official responses tend to underestimate the scale of the problem and reveal a lack of awareness of disability issues.
The original release of the
This rather lukewarm statement increased the backlash against the game with many perceiving it as a dismissal of the disabled gaming community. Deaf player and game reviewer Susan Banks summed up the general feeling in commenting:
The backlash eventually forced the company to address the issue in a patch four months after the game’s original release and included further accessibility options:
Added subtitles in all languages (across all three games) for previously unsupported cinematics, including:
Character headers to identify active speakers Succinct line splits for readability Colored text for improved character association in most languages
Subtitle on/off toggle added under the Options menu (Activision, 2019)
Activision is not the only company to come under criticism for its treatment of players with disabilities. When AJ Ryan, a player with arthrogryposis, contacted Nintendo to express his frustration at the lack of control remapping options with their Switch console, he received a response stating that “it can certainly be very frustrating to not be able to enjoy the same games as many others do due to having an unfortunate condition, and we sincerely empathize” (quoted in Klepek, 2017). However, Ryan was less than impressed with the company’s response:
For Ryan, the use of the term “unfortunate condition” demonstrated the company’s general lack of awareness and understanding of disabilities, further pointing to the underestimation of the disabled gaming community and market.
This underestimation of the disabled gaming market is often programmed into the game from the beginning. For example, a recent addition to the popular Pokémon franchise,
Masuda’s comments reveal that the game was designed with the assumption of an able-bodied gamer in mind, thus demonstrating that the industry still has a long way to go in recognizing the diversity of their audience and market.
However, not all game creators and companies have been dismissive in their attitudes to the community. There is also growing media coverage on the positive steps that game creators are taking to make their games more widely accessible. This includes accessibility features such as the option of control remapping, adjustable difficulty levels, options for people who suffer from colour blindness or motion sickness, subtitles or closed captions, and even the simple ability to pause action (Chan, 2018; Clarke, 2018; Frank, 2018; Gaddes, 2018; Gwaltney, 2017; Kuchera, 2010; McKeand, 2015; Sarkar, 2016; Yin-Poole, 2016b). These efforts have been supported by community-led initiatives such as: AbleGamers,
There’s also increasing recognition that players with disabilities enjoy playing games that both entertain and challenge them, and the players themselves have proved appreciative of this recognition. Speaking to
There is a growing industry of game development specifically tailored towards designing accessible games for players with disabilities (Baig, 2019; Cohn, 2005; Diver, 2017; Egliston, 2019; Schreier, 2011). These efforts towards game accessibility have also been complemented by developments in hardware accessibility with gaming companies investing in more accessible controllers and game accessories. Microsoft recently released the Xbox Adaptive Controller, a customizable controller “designed primarily to meet the needs of gamers with limited mobility” (Microsoft, n.d.). Originally conceived at Microsoft hackathon, it was developed and refined in consultation with a number of disability communities and organizations including AbleGamers (Bailey, 2019; Brody, 2019). The inclusion of this controller to Microsoft’s existing line up of Xbox accessories has been applauded with observations that:
It is also seen as long overdue recognition of players with disabilities as a significant part of the overall gaming population, and that they are a significant market in themselves. AbleGamers COO Steven Spohn views it as confirmation that:
This recognition, while most welcome, has been hard fought and driven from the bottom up. Players with disabilities have shouldered the large burden of identifying the issues, drawing attention to them, and advocating for better inclusion and access.
By comparison, our literature review of gaming and disability demonstrated a compulsory able-bodied focus as disabled gamers are most often considered in the context of therapeutic intervention or pedagogical support measures. Such a focus ignores the possibility people with disability may play games for fun, relaxation, socialisation, and challenge. At the same time, the gaming industry has disregarded people with disability as a potential audience demographic via both inaccessible designs and disabling social attitudes. While there is no clear definition of what accessibility should look like, Straub describes it as “giving as many players as possible the best opportunity of completely experiencing a game” (Straub, 2012). A significant part of this is involving players with disabilities in designing and building processes so that they can provide feedback on accessibility issues from the start. As Sightless Kombat explains:
Even when the industry does not engage players with disability in the design and building process, disabled gamers who make up about 20% of the gaming population have found other avenues for feedback via online discussion forums and communities of users. This user led feedback has received increasing mainstream media attention. This in turn has led to a growing recognition amongst the industry of the importance of accessibility.
As Henry Jenkins, Tara McPherson and Jane Shattac observe in