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Cripping the Controller: Changing the Game and Reimagining Access
Key insights
5 takeaways- 01Future gaming hardware design must shift from standardized, normative models toward explicit personalization and modularity to accommodate diverse physical abilities.
- 02Designers should adopt a 'crip technoscience' framework, which treats disabled individuals as expert knowledge producers rather than passive recipients of accessibility accommodations.
- 03Material hacking and custom hardware development serve as forms of political resistance that challenge the exclusionary power structures inherent in traditional controller design.
- 04Prioritizing interdependence and community-led design processes allows for the creation of hardware that functions as a tool for worldmaking rather than a rigid input device.
- 05True inclusivity in gaming requires moving beyond 'fixing' perceived deficits to cultivating critical disability awareness as a foundational principle of the creative process.
Summary
Cripping the Controller: Changing the Game and PHOENIX PERRY, University of the Arts London, United Kingdom REBECCA FIEBRINK, University of the Arts London, United Kingdom MICK GRIERSON, University of the Arts, London, United Kingdom Game controller design systematically excludes the bodies, epistemologies, and creative practices of disabled people.
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