Video Games Accommodations for Impaired Players

Video Game
Accommodation for Impaired
Players Professor Name
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2Video Game Accommodations for Impaired Players
Video games have shown progressive evolution from past many decades but yet many are unable
to play due to their impairments such as blindness, deafness, impaired memory, dyslexia,
paralysis and amputation etc. Although these days gaming industries have made their attempt to
come up with some experimental devices to provide alternative to the disabled individual but still
there is lot more to accomplish. The focus is primarily on the PC games and currently 59 percent
of Canadians play video games, most of them have video game console. Almost every video
gamer have their own computer and according to the WHO among 18 roughly 3 individual have
physical disability and over all there are 15% individual with different form of impairment. It’s a
large number which is still to be covered by the gaming industries. Gaming industry knows very
little about the attitude of disabled gamers. Recent attempts are revolving around young children
with well known disabilities; disabled lying outside this category are mostly overlooked. As
games are not only for the entertainment but it also helps the patient to feel relaxed after various
discouraging training sessions (Disability and Health).
Disabilities can be broadly classified into 3 categories: Sensory impairment, cognitive disability
and motor impairment. Among the three categories sensory impairment is most challenging to
the gaming industry; visual impairment is most common sensory disability. Across the globe
there are 217 million are with moderate and severe vision limitation and 36 million people are
blind. In Canada itself there are multiple people with color blindness and partial deafness which
encompass 6 million of the population of the total population. Individual facing partial visual
issues can use magnifying utility available in Windows and Mac. Motor impairments are one of
the most common types of disability, marked by limited movement of the joints. Individual with
such a disability faces issues in interacting with the gaming system physically. Custom key
binding and macros are some helpful software side to solve such problem. It also helps in

3Video Game Accommodations for Impaired Players
improving the mobility of the joints. Cognitive/psychological impairments are marked by the
difficulty experienced by the individual in memory and learning. This is a very wide category
and has a variety of different conditions and challenges. All the disabled individual face concerns
in either to receive the information from the computer or to understand the information or to send
the information to the computer (Disabilities: Definition, Types and Models of Disability)
.
Computer advancements have changed the lives of many individual. Modification in the tools
and software has provided better facilities to the modern day gamer. For the blind players there is
now availability of one switch games, can be operated using a single button. Games have entered
in the area of the education, physical therapy, rehabilitation etc. There are “game with a purpose”
(GWAPs), these games are designed in a way to provide entertainment to the user as well as
solve complex problem as a result of games byproduct. Video games have been popular among
collectors and it represents change in culture of gaming from time to time. Video games have
increased social lives of the disabled and diseased people. There are multiple categories of games
available like First-person shooter (FPS) such as counter-strike, Real time strategy (RTS)
example Star-craft, Multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) such as Dota 2(12 Types Of
Computer Games Every Gamer Should Know About) .
There are several attempts which are made by the gaming industries in order to provide
alternatives to the disabled players. One of the most effective strategies has been introduction of
the different gaming controller for the disabled players. The QuadStick (530 CAD) is a kind of
controller which allows the disabled player to play the game with their mouth. Mouth piece
provides some sip and puff switches, with the help of which players can send commands. It also