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"They don’t care": Inside the triumphs and failures of accessible gaming hardware
(www.rockpapershotgun.com)
this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2023
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I'll drink the half-full glass: accessible gaming hardware is more widely available than it has ever been.
Big corporation Microsoft bad, but as the article points out, they have been one of the major players in the accessibility field with hardware and software accommodations to help meet some of the common needs of disabled gamers. Valve's platform allows for dynamic reprogramming of just about any key binding that I can think of to get around games that have their inputs hard coded in.
I believe the CEOs son has some special needs and he’s been big on pushing them to develop inputs methods that are accessible. It’s definitely getting better! As a gamer who’s been playing since they were a kid and now in my 30’s I’m starting to get RSI like issues and definitely appreciate some of these accessibility movements because they allow me to change up my input more often.
Not to mention accessibility settings in games themselves. Fortnite has an option to visually show sounds and their directions on the HUD and it was amazing when I spent a month with no audio solution, I can't imagine what a breath of fresh air it is for deaf gamers. The Last of Us Pt2 is also wildly player-friendly, and recently I've even been seeing some indie titles like Metal Unit do their best to assist players and let them enjoy the game.
Accessibility is only getting better, and I think this cynicism is unwarranted. We should certainly keep up the fight and demand for it, but you go back two decades and games didn't even come with subtitles as standard. Doom 3 still pisses me off in that regard.
Agreed, and it's been such a quick change in the industry too which is a great sign. It really wasn't that long ago that you didn't even get a brightness slider, and hell some games still have a static 50 FOV.
MS's Adaptive Controller is actually really good, compared to the PS one. Giving easily adaptable 3.5mm jacks to every function was a genius decision.