Video Game Accessibility Defined Through Advocacy: How the Websites AbleGamers.org and CanIPlayThat.com Use the Word Accessibility

Abstract

This study investigates how the word “accessibility” is used in online news articles published by two video game-based disability advocacy organizations. AbleGamers is an accessibility and disability advocacy charity focused on improving the lives of people with disabilities through gaming. Can I Play That? publishes accessibility reviews of video games. Both organizations have news pages that publish disability and accessibility news. The study examines 50 news articles published by these organizations for how they use the word “accessibility.” The articles produced 105 instances of the word “accessibility.” The study finds nine themes for how “accessibility” is used. The study compares those uses and concludes by producing six pseudo-definitions for video game accessibility.

Keywords

video games accessibility disability advocacy ability

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

AbleGamers (2022). Our impact. The AbleGamers Charity. https://ablegamers.org/impact

Anderson

S. L.

Johnson

M. R.

(2022). Gamer identities of video game live streamers with disabilities. Information, Communication & Society, 25(13), 1900–1915. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2021.1907433

Anderson

S. L.

Schrier

(2022). Disability and video games journalism: A discourse analysis of accessibility and gaming culture. Games and Culture, 17(2), 179–197. https://doi.org/10.1177/15554120211021005

Balan

Moldoveanu

(2015). Navigational audio games: An effective approach toward improving spatial contextual learning for blind people. International Journal on Disability and Human Development, 14(2), 109–118. https://doi.org/10.1515/ijdhd-2014-0018

Barnes

(1992). Disabling imagery and the media: An exploration of the principles for media representations of disabled people. British Council of Organisations of Disabled People.

Brown

Anderson

S. L.

(2021). Designing for disability: Evaluating the state of accessibility design in video games. Games and Culture, 16(6), 702–718. https://doi.org/10.1177/1555412020971500

Cairns

Power

Barlet

Haynes

Kaufman

Beeston

(2021). Enabled players: The value of accessible digital games. Games and Culture, 16(2), 262–282. https://doi.org/10.1177/1555412019893877

Carr

(2014). Ability, disability and dead space. Game Studies, 14(2). http://gamestudies.org/1402/articles/carr

Charlton

J. I.

(2000). Nothing about us without us: Disability oppression and empowerment. University of California Press.

10.

Corker

Shakespeare

(2002). Disability/postmodernity: Embodying disability theory. Bloomsbury Publishing.

11.

D’Acci

(2004). Cultural studies, television studies, and the crisis in the humanities. In Spigel

Olsson

(Eds.), Television after TV: Essays on a medium in transition (pp. 418–445). Duke University Press.

12.

du Gay

Hall

Janes

Mackay

Negus

(1997). Doing cultural studies: The story of the Sony Walkman. Sage.

13.

Ellcessor

Kirkpatrick

(Eds.). (2017). Disability media studies. NYU Press.

14.

Gibbons

(2015). Disability, neurological diversity, and inclusive play: An examination of the social and political aspects of the relationship between disability and games. Loading, 9(14), 25–39. https://journals.sfu.ca/loading/index.php/loading/article/view/150

15.

Glaser

Strauss

(1967). The discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative research. Aldine.

16.

Grammenos

Savidi

Stephanidis

(2009). Designing universally accessible games. ACM Computers in Entertainment, 7(1), 1–29. Article 8. https://doi.org/10.1145/1486508.1486516

17.

Jerreat-Poole

(2020). Sick, slow, cyborg: Crip futility in Mass Effect. Game Studies, 20(1). http://gamestudies.org/2001/articles/jerreatpoole

18.

Johnson

(1986). What is cultural studies anyway? Social Text, 16, 38–80. https://doi.org/10.2307/466285

19.

Kato

P. M.

(2010). Video games in health care: Closing the gap. Review of General Psychology, 14(2), 113–121. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0019441

20.

Marino

M. T.

Beecher

C. C.

(2010). Conceptualizing RTI in 21st-century secondary science classrooms: Video games’ potential to provide tiered support and progress monitoring for students with learning disabilities. Learning Disability Quarterly, 33, 299–311. https://doi.org/10.1177/073194871003300407

21.

Marino

M. T.

Gotch

C. M.

Israel

Vasquez

III Basham

J. D.

Becht

(2014). UDL In the middle school science classroom: Can video games and alternative text heighten engagement and learning for students with learning disabilities? Learning Disability Quarterly, 37(2), 87–99. https://doi.org/10.1177/0731948713503963

22.

O’Toole

C. J.

(2013). Disclosing our relationships to disabilities: An invitation for disability studies scholars. Disability Studies Quarterly, 33(2). http://dsq-sds.org/article/view/3708/3226

23.

Powers

G. M.

Nguyen

Frieden

L. M.

(2015). Video game accessibility: A legal approach. Disability Studies Quarterly, 35(1). http://dsq-sds.org/article/view/4513/3833 https://doi.org/10.18061/dsq.v35i1.4513

24.

Shakespeare

(2014). The social model of disability. In Davis

L. J.

(Ed.), The disability studies reader (4th ed., pp. 214–221). Routledge.

25.

Snyder

S. L.

Mitchell

D. T.

(2006). Cultural locations of disability. University of Chicago Press.

26.

Stendal

(2012). How do people with disability use and experience virtual worlds and ICT: A literature review. Journal of Virtual Worlds Research, 5(1), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.4101/jvwr.v5i1.6173

27.

Strauss

(1987). Qualitative analysis for social scientists. Cambridge University Press.

28.

Strauss

Corbin

(1990). Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory procedures and techniques. Sage.

29.

Wendell

(1996). The rejected body: Feminist philosophical reflections on disability. Routledge.