Summary
One of the most astounding things about gaming is the way it can bring in players of varying backgrounds, even those with seemingly overwhelming hurdles to overcome on the road to pressing start. For the blind,a good accessibility optionmakes the difference between playing and not. That’s somethingAgrounddeveloper Whitethorn is keenly aware of.
Game Rant’s Joshua Duckworth was able to sit down withWhitethorn’s CEO Matthew White to discuss what it means to players with such limitations to be able to join in on the fun thanks to a little extra feature here and there.
How Whitethorn Games is Pushing For Accessibility Changes
Gamers without vision issues may be surprised that blind people play video games frequently. Part of that stems from a misconception that “blindness” means a total lack of sight instead of including people with debilitatingly low visual acuity (in the United States, people with vision worse than 20/200 non-correctable are classified as “blind,” for instance). Another factor often overlooked is the wayaccessibility features can overcome even the most daunting barrierswhen used well, which is exactly what Whitethorn prides itself on.
And progress on those features is coming from the indie scene, says White. As CEO of a small studio committed to expanding the accessibility features seen across the industry, White is in a position to know. He pointed to this year’s Access-Ability Summer Showcase as evidence of the dedication of small teams.
We’ve seen some awesome things from tiny little places. [The Access-Ability Showcase] a few weeks ago was an excellent example of indies doing full blind support, full deaf support, like American Sign Language, like stuff that really you would not catch the triple-linear enterprise currently doing, but I think it’s moving in the right way. And I think the louder we are about it, I hope that that continues.
That isn’t to say that only the little studios are having big impacts. Lauded for its accessibility options,God of War Ragnarokhas made such a big difference that SightlessKombat, a blind player,was able to tackle the game in 2022,receiving only minimal support from another player in solving the game’s puzzles. Naughty Dog did such a good job with accessibility features inThe Last of Us 2in 2020 that the game brought a disability advocate to tears. The introduction of the Osteo Striga inDestiny 2, with its honing ammo, overjoyed a legally blind player. The list goes on, and hopefully it will only grown longer.
Of course, gamers are an innovative lot, and so are people living with long-term challenges like blindness. For example,Sea of Thieves' accessibility options aren’t the most expansive, yet a crewcame together to help the same SightlessKombatsail the high seas and sink skeletons all the same. And as White pointed out, vision issues aren’t limited to the kind of extreme low-vision many associate with blindness.
Blindness is a profound example, but we have ways to detect issues in players while they’re playing … Even if you consider something as mundane as nearsightedness, most people don’t have to pay money to use their eyes–so it is very much a disability in that way. So we just have to be a little more gentle with what we think accessibility needs. Even if it does “make the game easier,” I still want to enjoy the game.
Additionally, things like dyslexia and color blindness can cause issues for gamers, and are fairly common conditions. Certain fonts and color patterns can help mitigate those issues for players, but those lead to a challenge for developers–disability is as diverse as any other facet of humanity, and not everything can be so neatly resolved.
A Chronic Condition for the Gaming Industry
As a result of the wide range of hurdles that may prevent gamers from enjoying video games, and the fact that developers have only so much money to put into their games, there’s a balancing act developers have to consider. There simply aren’t solutions for every issue a gamer may face yet, as accessibility is an ever-evolving notion in the gaming industry, and where each game connects to the concept is different.
This is something that, as an indie developer, White understands. There are limitations in the form of time, resources, and expertise. That doesn’t, however, forgive inaction in his mind.
I understand the financial rationale, if you’re a tiny indie studio, and it’s like “Let’s do full colorblind mode,” like, okay, that might be some money, right? Especially in this economy … Unfortunately, it would be impossible to hit every single person, so it’s really trying to do as much as possible with as little as possible, which is kind of the indie mantra to begin with. We want everybody to do this.
To that end, not only does Whitethorn walk the walk, but it also talks the talk. White makes APIs and toolkits developed by the studio available for others, and explained his process of using a dedicated accessibility specialist early in the development process to help remove common hurdles gamers face early in the prototyping phase. He also directed developers’ attention to thetools offered by platforms themselves, encouraging other studios to take advantage of these resources to better outfit their games with features that can bring more gamers in.
That, in turn, is good business, White argues. It certainly has been for Whitethorn, which he says regularly receives praise from players excited to have been able to approach their games, echoing the kinds of experiencesThe Last of Us 2,God of War Ragnarok, andDestiny 2players had, and the transformative way that accessibility let people experience those titles.
It’s all about being more accommodating and meeting customers where they are. It’s nothing bizarre, it’s that humans are different. They’re diverse, they have different needs, and we want to accommodate them. By being a good business person and selling to customers what they want. But as far as I’m concerned, it’s really just responding to market needs. I think that would be very important, right? If I can sell good things that improve the industry that make people happy, and then allow people to feel like they’re welcome.
As shown by another recent conversation Game Rant had aboutthe environmental impact of video games, it turns out that doing the right thing can also be the profitable thing.
