Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Accessibility by Numbers: A Critical Review of Game Accessibility Guidelines

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Disability and Video Games

Part of the book series: Palgrave Games in Context ((PAGCON))

  • 99 Accesses

Abstract

As official regulations and unofficial recommendations on designing accessible video games have continued to grow, several organisations have developed guidelines to make the endeavour easier for developers. This chapter discusses a variety of these guidelines, tests how well these documents delineate areas for improvement in commercial video games and attempts to apply accessibility checklists based on these documents against titles with which are considered applicable. Horowitz’s findings demonstrate each of the documents’ strengths and weaknesses, concluding that while more recent publications are thorough, they also feature highly inapplicable areas that could disproportionately cost developers time and effort. However, in conducting this evaluation, he is also able to conclude by indicating some important areas of accessible game design that developers appear to almost universally neglect.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 119.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Compliance testing and subsequent conformance is an important part of the late stage of developing a title. First-party licensors of consoles have developed their own checklists for developers to use against their titles, including Sony’s Technical Requirements Checklist, Microsoft’s Xbox Requirements, and Nintendo’s Lotcheck. A title which fails to meet these requirements will not be granted permission to release on the corresponding platform.

  2. 2.

    Ipsative measures (i.e. “Which of these do you agree with more strongly? A. I find the game easy to navigate. B. I find navigating the game difficult.”) may have also been appropriate here if not dealing with existing game accessibility guideline documents, of which the original wording needs to be preserved as much as possible.

  3. 3.

    The 23rd category, “118: Photosensitivity”, was absent from the evaluations as its only guideline (in summary, “Xbox Game Studio titles should go through and pass Harding FPA product safety testing without failures”) is untestable without specialist equipment which was not available for this study. Removing the guideline removed the guideline category.

  4. 4.

    n.b. Such a result does not mean that all 15 games returned a value of 5.00 for this guideline, as some values returned an ‘n/a’ result. As 19.6% of the evaluation questions were not applicable, such a scenario was common.

  5. 5.

    Speech-to-text and text-to-speech refer to technologies capable of converting analogue speech into digital text and vice versa. Speech-to-text (STT) software converts the spoken word of users into digital text that is transmittable by chat services or parsable by computers. Text-to-speech software converts digital text—either originally written by human users or generated by machines—into audible spoken text playable over headphones or loudspeakers.

  6. 6.

    “Advanced Best Practices” is a term in the Xbox document covering sign language interpretation, appropriate reading ages, and mechanisms for displaying definitions of words, phrases, idioms, jargon, abbreviations, and acronyms.

References

  • Abascal, J., & Nicolle, C. (2005). Moving Towards Inclusive Design Guidelines for Socially and Ethically Aware HCI. Interacting with Computers, 17, 484–505.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Caldwell, B., Cooper, M., Reid, L. G., & Vanderheiden, G. (2008). Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0.

    Google Scholar 

  • Game Accessibility Guidelines. (2017a). Game Accessibility Guidelines | A Straightforward Reference for Inclusive Game Design. http://gameaccessibilityguidelines.com/.

  • Game Accessibility Guidelines. (2017b). Game Accessibility Guidelines | Full List. http://gameaccessibilityguidelines.com/full-list/.

  • Grammenos, D., Savidis, A., & Stephanidis, C. (2009). Designing Universally Accessible Games. ACM Computers in Entertainment, 7(1), 1–29.

    Google Scholar 

  • MediaLT. (2004). MediaLT: UPS. http://www.medialt.no/rapport/entertainment_guidelines/index.htm.

  • MediaLT. (2020). About MediaLT—MediaLT. https://www.medialt.no/en-US/about-medialt/13.aspx.

  • Microsoft. (2020). Xbox Accessibility Guidelines—Game Stack | Microsoft Docs. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/gaming/accessibility/guidelines.

  • Porter, J. R., & Kientz, J. A. (2013). An Empirical Study of Issues and Barriers to Mainstream Video Game Accessibility. In ASSETS ’13: Proceedings of the 15th International ACM SIGACESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility, 1–8.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reid, L. G., & Snow-Weaver, A. (2008). WCAG 2.0: A Web Accessibility Standard for the Evolving Web. W4A’08: Proceedings of the 2008 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility, W4A, 109–15.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sears, A., Lin, M., Jacko, J., & Xiao, Y. (2003). When Computers Fade: Pervasive Computing and Situationally-Induced Impairments and Disabilities. HCI International, 2(3), 1298–1302.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shinohara, K., & Tenenberg, J. (2007). Observing Sara: A Case Study of a Blind Person’s Interactions with Technology. In Proceedings of the 9th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility, ASSETS 2007, 171–78. Tempe, AZ.

    Google Scholar 

  • White, G. R., Fitzpatrick, G., & McAllister, G. 2008. Toward Accessible 3D Virtual Environments for the Blind and Visually Impaired. In Proceedings—3rd International Conference on Digital Interactive Media in Entertainment and Arts, DIMEA 2008, 134–41.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yuan, B., Folmer, E., & Harris, F. C. (2011). Game Accessibility: A Survey. Universal Access in the Information Society, 10(1), 81–100.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Games

  • Diablo III (2012) Blizzard Entertainment. Irvine, CA, USA: Blizzard Entertainment. Nintendo Switch.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dungeons 3 (2017). Realmforge Studios. Worms, Germany: Kalypso Media. PC.

    Google Scholar 

  • For Honor. (2017). Ubisoft Montreal. Montreuil, France: Ubisoft. Xbox One.

    Google Scholar 

  • Forza Motorsport 5 (2013). Turn 10 Studios. 2013. Redmond, WA, USA: Microsoft Studios. Xbox One.

    Google Scholar 

  • Human Resource Machine (2015). Tomorrow Corporation. San Francisco, CA, USA: Tomorrow Corporation. PC.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kalimba (2014). Press Play. Redmond, WA, USA: Microsoft Studios. PC

    Google Scholar 

  • Kingdom Classic (2015). Noio, and Licorice. Stockholm, Sweden: Raw Fury. PC.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime (2015). Asteroid Base. Toronto, ON, Canada: Asteroid Base. Xbox One.

    Google Scholar 

  • N++ (2015). Metanet Software. 2015. Toronto, ON, Canada: Metanet Software. Nintendo Switch.

    Google Scholar 

  • Runescape (2001). Jagex. Cambridge, UK: Jagex. PC.

    Google Scholar 

  • The End is Nigh (2017). McMillen, Edmund, and Tyler Glaiel. Nintendo Switch.

    Google Scholar 

  • The Sims 4 (2014). Maxis. Redwood City, CA, USA: Electronic Arts. Xbox One.

    Google Scholar 

  • Untitled Goose Game (2019). House House. Portland, OR, USA: Panic. Nintendo Switch.

    Google Scholar 

  • VVVVV (2010). Cavanagh, Terry. London, UK: Terry Cavanagh. Nintendo Switch.

    Google Scholar 

  • World of Warcraft (2004). Blizzard Entertainment. Irvine, CA, USA: Blizzard Entertainment. PC.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow, Scotland

    Alexander Horowitz

Authors
  1. Alexander Horowitz
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alexander Horowitz .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. International Center for Ethics in the Sciences and Humanities (IZEW), University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

    Markus Spöhrer

  2. Department of Literature, Art, and Media Studies, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany

    Beate Ochsner

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2024 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Horowitz, A. (2024). Accessibility by Numbers: A Critical Review of Game Accessibility Guidelines. In: Spöhrer, M., Ochsner, B. (eds) Disability and Video Games. Palgrave Games in Context. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-34374-2_10

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation