The CVAA and Gaming: Your Legal Responsibilities

I wanted to start the presentation with a quote that I really like. Um, the quote is, "Let us not act out of fear and misunderstanding, but out of values of inclusion, diversity, and regardless of all and regards to all that make our country great." And that was said by the Attorney General Loretta Lynch. Um, she really did a lot to include people with disabilities, people of color, and really tried to make sure that um, equality was the law of the land. My name is Mark Barlet. I'm the founder and executive director of the AbleGamers Charity. And my name is Bill Curtis Davidson. I'm uh, with a company called Level Access. Uh, we provide ICT accessibility services in multiple industries. I'm a senior director of strategic consulting. That sounds like a made-up title. Um, for those that

Gamers Charity is a charity that helps people with disabilities gain a greater quality of life using the awesome power of video games. Um, who here knows what video games are? Anyone? I know. Good. And Level Access essentially, uh, we are experts in ICT accessibility. We help write some of the standards around the world for web and other kinds of standards for government authorities as well. Uh, we work in all industries. Uh, we have a voice of PWDs or persons with disabilities. Uh, we have a spot on the FCC advisory committee for persons with disabilities. Um, our our representative, Sam Yale, was here earlier this week speaking on blind and low vision in gaming. So, uh, we are very connected with those authorities, but working really for companies who are working to comply. So, basically, uh, just to get the somewhat boring stuff out of the way,

the legal stuff, uh first, what is CVAA? It really covers two key areas. One is um communication services that are uh really about human-to-human, live or near near live, real-time communication. So, it's not covering uh automated or bots communicating with humans or automated communication. Uh it's really about humans communicating together in any form. So, think of text text chat, uh messaging systems, uh video or voice chat uh over the internet. Uh and then also video programming and any of the features that allow people to access those features. So, navigating to them, using them, getting the settings, anything like that. So, that's what CVAA covers. And I really want to stress what he just said. It's not just the communication, but CVAA covers getting to the communication. That's why you'll see

some accessibility features being added into consoles and stuff that don't obviously work with communication because CVAA actually covers the path to that communication as well. Now, the CVAA actually has a really broad reach. Um Netflix was just sued under the CVAA, the first lawsuit, because they are in violation of something in their app where they can't communicate with customer service. Um so, it's it's a pretty broad law and it's written and you know, it's written kind of vaguely. And it's done like way on purpose. From the video game perspective, they've broken video games down into three main chunks. You have class one, and class one is the consoles. These are the PlayStations, the Xboxes, the Switches, the Vitas, the Atari 2600s. Um I actually got an interesting question. You know, the Atari is re-releasing the Atari 2600 as a reboot. And someone

said, "Do you think that's covered under CVAA?" And I'm like, "We talked to nobody when we played that thing." Um the second one is class two. And this is video game distribution systems. So, this is your Steams, your Origins, your Apple App Stores, Google Play, how the video game gets to the console. And where I think most of you fall into place is the class three. And these are video game titles themselves. Now, just so you know, CVAA was actually passed in 2010. Um it had a 2-year implementation window, which means it went into effect in 2012. Games had a waiver, and games were on a waiver for a really long time. Now, the class one and two waiver expired in 2017. For those that are aware, you've seen Xbox and PlayStation, you're seeing accessibility features being put into those consoles.

That was because one, Able Gamers was pressuring them for years and years and years, but I think more importantly, and to be honest, it was because CVAA. Um so, there is one more waiver. The ESA had one more waiver, and on New Year's Day 2019, all of video games is covered under CVAA. All of them. Now, there are some provisions around grandfathering. So, if your content is out before January 1st, 19 2019, then you don't have to be CVAA compliant. If you make small changes after this date, you do not have to be CVAA compliant. But if you make major changes, you fall into it. And then what I would describe to that is who here played World of Warcraft? Yeah. So, World of Warcraft, if it came out today, would would not be CVAA, but Cataclysm coming out after 2000 after

January 1st would put all of World of Warcraft under CVAA because that was a major change to how the game mechanics worked. Will there be another extension? No. The FCC was very clear that they'd given us three extensions and they pulled the industry, they talked to um companies way bigger than probably most of us in the room here, and they all said, "No, one more waiver and we'll be good." So, what is the CVAA actually requires? So, we've talked about what it what the scope of the coverage is, as we call it, the the communication services and video programming. We're really focused on in games in communication services, and that's what the waiver was about that uh Mark just mentioned. Um but let's talk about what happens in the phases of game dev. Uh first of all, in design, um the FCC doesn't tell you how to do

what I'm about to go over. It just says you must do it, right? So, uh don't There's no format that is provided by the FCC that says, "Do this exact thing." They just have things that should be done for record keeping and evidence that there's action in the space of what we're talking about. So, in the design phase, we're really looking at three key things. Uh first of all, uh researching available solutions. Um How many of you have been reading some of the press this week about, you know, just from GA Conf or the Game Accessibility, of course, AbleGamers. We We've got a lot of um dialogue going on, which we're really excited about and so there's now a situation that did not exist so prevalent prevalently last few years where there's a lot of solutions, right? And ideas. So this is about looking at those solutions, seeing what may work in your particular development

development scenario, your platform, keeping in mind that it's not just console. This is all games that have ACS in them. Could be you know, a desktop, mobile, console. Now interestingly enough, if you if you do your research and you decide to go to a third party to to do that communication, then the CVA responsibilities are that of the third party, not you. So that's something important to remember. So if you're going to put up like you're going to in your chat, you're really just secretly using Slack. Don't do that, but if you did, it would be Slack's would have the CVAA. You would have to still make sure that you had access to the Slack channel through your game, but the actual communication would fall on that third party. And it's important to note that all of those providers who provide advanced communication, Skype, Slack, all of these entities are complying with CVAA as well, right? So it's not just a But I've walked the expo floor and there's so many people on the expo floor

that are selling middleware and and bits and pieces. So if you decide that's the route you're going to go for your communication, you might want to say like, "Hey, is CVA compliant?" All right. So So other than that, of course, two other quick things. First of all, zeroing in on what are the features. CVA is written from a functional perspective like the functionality of what we're talking about and its access path. So what we do a lot with our clients is we figure out, let's look across all your game titles, where is there advanced communication services exactly? You've got to do that first and then you got to look at what's the priority. You may have some priorities based on release dates, how major the release is, how minor. Um and then finally, uh last but not least, and we'll show an example, is design checklist. Um CVAA requires that during the design phase that accessibility is considered during the design phase. That's pretty much what it says, right? Again, remember I said it doesn't tell you how to do that. Well,

how to do it, um what we advise our clients and partnering with AbleGamers, who has the Includification guidelines, some of you may be familiar with, hopefully. Um one of the things we do with our clients is something like what I'm showing here, which is this spreadsheet. I know it looks like a little scary, but spreadsheets can be your friend because it provides a handy list of things that should be considered by functional needs. So, think blind, low vision, mobility. Um also by category. So, like uh if you've got uh voice or video or text-based chat or communication, you can filter this down. What's in my game, right? And I can zero in exactly on what I should think about. And this Excel is really just a breakdown of the Includification guidelines in Excel-y business form. Well, Includification is in awesome reading form. Right. And it's prettier. Includification.com if you want to get a

copy of that. And also, just to point out, so the way these are used by teams, and I've worked with a number of them in our in our work from Level Access, is they, you know, you you fill this out. You filter it down based on what you're doing in your title. And then on the right, you might see some blank cells, if you can see the screen. How am I actually dealing with the accessibility of those features that are in scope? So, that's kind of the way it's supposed to be used. And and you really kind of want to do something like this because at the end of the day, you have to be able to show the FCC and we'll get to exactly what you need to show them that you're that you're like paying attention to it and trying. So. In development phase, so if you imagine having that checklist thought about and everyone's kind of got some sense of what they're zeroing in on, what they're maybe some solution ideas, what you'd be doing during development is actually following the best practices. Of course, it could include location provides many

examples of solutions and from different sources. So, you're able to look at that as well as any other sources you have. Um and follow those best practices not just for the advanced communication but for the on-ramp as we call it. Um and then what not to be forgotten and this is something that we say in the disability community, nothing for us without us, right? You should engage and we'll talk more about this later. You should engage people with disabilities such as working with AbleGamers or other entities to make sure that you're verifying as you go along and that this is really working for people with these different access needs. In fact, I think that's actually one of the requirements in the CTA. engaging with person Again, it doesn't tell you how to do it. Just says you should engage with them. That's right. Here's the one that everyone hates the most. Documentation.

Not the fun part, right? I love documentation. I make a ton of money writing stuff down. So, um we're starting to see some great examples here of what we're talking about. Now, some of you probably, if you've looked at the console space from the major console providers, you'll notice they're documenting how the console accessibility features work, right? Even by disability type. So, if you're hearing impaired, how to turn on captions for video programming that's supported in a console. Um similar idea here is you want to be able to have documentation by functional access need. Now, I'm going to go back to the checklist we showed, the scary Excel sheet, because that's aligned by functional need. One thing that we're able to do here is after you develop and you arrive at what you've actually done and how you've done it, you can use this filterable checklist to say, what are the features I've done by impairment.

And so then you can document that. So, you keep selling that spreadsheet, but you're not going to give them a copy of it. So, now I'm going to have to make it. Um one of the interesting avenues that you might not completely understand is your support channel is also part of covered under CVAA. It is the ability for someone to communicate with you for support. That is communication. Right. So, um this is called out in CVAA as well is that not only do you need to communicate those documented accessibility features I just talked about. So, think of it as creating the documents and then providing them such as what you might provide on an accessibility portal. Um we have a great example of that from EA. accessibility portal Um for example, um but then moreover, if there's a question and I might use that same example to point out that there's a

way to contact someone at the the game uh manufacturer or studio so that they can get the proper support. And then um having so having a point of contact, knowing how to communicate, how do people with disabilities reach you, you know, in you know, like a web form live chat, those type and make sure live chat is accessible, right? Because it itself is ACS, is communication services. I panicked for a second cuz it said 30 minutes up here. But I remember But I remember we turned the slideshow on as they were coming in. So I was like, "What are you looking at?" Um so You owe a report to the FCC. I had to explain the joke to him this morning cuz he doesn't watch this. Um So you actually do owe something to the FCC. Um a simple form is due on April 1st of every year, and it's a really You have to go create an account that said, "I'm a company. This is my FCC number.

If you feel like you're covered under the CVAA." And then on April 1st you have to fill out It's a pretty small form. Um You can find it. I can give send you a link if you send me an email later. But it's a real thing that says you're doing it. You don't have to give them paperwork. But you says that you're doing it. And what's really important here, and I really want to stress it, is Remember we've talked about the checklist? And remember you know, I highly recommend everyone who thinks they're covered under the CVAA to create a trunk on their website that's like {slash} accessibility, you know? So if your gamecompany.com/accessibility. Because what the FCC is going to do is not check up on you, but if someone complains that your game is covered under the CVAA and they don't have the information, they're going to open up an investigation. If they start finding the checklist that you just kept in the folder or you have it on Google Drive, and you have the accessibility portal that talks about your accessibility stuff, you might not ever know you were

being investigated because they'll be like, "No, they're doing what they're supposed to do." But if you are investigated and you didn't do any of these things, and you filled out that form that said you're complying, you can get in a lot of trouble. Well, I should say that there's levels of There's informal and then a formal process. So, just temper that a little bit. Um informal it would be just, you know, doing some quick checks. If somehow they go and find that you've got um accessibility information, or they and really the reason for this certification form is to know who do I contact Right. So, they'll contact you before there's any formality to an investigation. Actually, FCC created a brand new process for this because they knew and so they have this informal 180-day thing and if at the end of the informal there is in fact a violation, it kicks into the more Right. So, that's just to make sure you're clear that it's not immediately going to a a more intense investigation.

Um there's a period of dialogue and they really want to work with manufacturers to find out because everyone understands while there is a a requirement, um there's a process by which this um has to happen and uh there may be something you're doing in as evidence through your records that you can't do something right now, but you're planning to do it in the next version, right? So, that's reasonable and they'll work with you on that um before and then if it becomes formal, that would be a different thing. But they've actually had in the CVA, so the the person who helped spearhead the CVA through FCC was actually here on Monday and she said they've had 192 complaints and only one went formal. So, she was talking very extensively about the process is really just to work with you to get it fixed, not work at it to fine you. Right. They want to encourage positive action with everyone involved, right? So,

Where did the little image guy go? it again. Oh, there he goes. So, so how do you get there? So, Yeah, so So, a couple of key things you probably heard themes in our presentation. There's There's a a theme of engaging people with disabilities and knowing about these best practices, right? That's one thing that uh definitely is important. Um and I'm delighted to be here with We're really excited about our partnership with AbleGamers um because um there's a lot of competency about those practices, a lot of uh people with disabilities who want to be involved. So, that's you know, we want a couple of things. We want to get that engagement going and more fluid, right? Use the ideas that are coming out in your colleagues' work as well. Uh the creative solutions that are happening. And then I'm I'm kind of representing the business part of this,

right? The work I do when I said that word strategic consulting, what does that mean? I work with companies to put the process in place, right? Because if you don't have a process and you're just doing this kind of in one title and then maybe another group and there's no sharing of knowledge inside your company, however small or large it is, then that's not really efficient. And moreover, if you do, you know, certify with the FCC that you're creating records, well, you really should have some kind of process. So, we've been working with um game development as well as console providers to put that process in place. And it doesn't take a Yeah, it doesn't have to be a big process. It just needs to say like have something. you know, stop for a second and go, "Does this have an accessibility um ramification?" And just document that you thought about it for a second and what your answer was and just keep that in your records. If the answer is yes, do something about it. Please don't just say, "Ah, who

cares?" But I do something about it, but just keep those records. Talk to this slide real quick, so. Yeah, so so again, what we're saying here, put a process in place, engage people with disabilities. Those go hand in hand. Um I uh work with a large uh publisher of games, and we put in place the um the process of roles and responsibilities, some training, um the checklists, um these piece parts of a program, so everybody can share those resources. And then when it comes to persons with disabilities, happens to be uh Level Access. Our company is about 200 or so people, so we're fairly small, but growing. Bigger than mine. And over 50% of our people have our persons with disabilities. So we have a lot of people on our staff who perform that role of maybe being engaged with a client, but then there's uh organizations like AbleGamers. know, engaging with people with disabilities is is can be somewhat

intimidating. So AbleGamers um worked to kind of fix that, and we have something called our player panel. Um we we um would like to invite Chris Dr. Chris Power up here, who is the um person spearheading this project, to just say something about it, because what we're creating has kind of already started changing the game industry. Um I think that's a live mic. So what we're doing is we're providing an opportunity for game developers, for designers, for researchers, those who want to do either user research with players with disabilities, or game testing. And the process by which it works is that we've collected information with a group of people with disabilities. We currently have about 300 people across the disability spectrum in terms of uh disability use, and in terms of uh assistive technology use. The process that we've put in place is you as designers come to us, you tell us what your need is, and what you're going

to remunerate our players with and we will advertise that to the panel and ask people who meet the criteria uh for your study whether they would like to participate. When we get those responses back, we then pass off the contact information to you and you can engage with the players in the type of work that you want to do. We take no money for this. All we are doing is providing a matchmaking service so that people with disabilities can be involved in the process more. Yeah, and this is I will tell you something that's that's as as a an advocate here. When we put out the original tweet, Chris and I had a bet that we would get about 25 or 35 people. Um we had 142 of them in 2 days. And we have 300 vetted, but I know there's still now like 54 last count that we haven't even sent the initial survey out. We got three people yesterday, one person this morning. So, people with disabilities are eager eager

to jump in here. And we've been really lucky because we've had Greg Haynes part of our uh group working to collect that information. We've had Jen Beeston who's one of our PhD students at the University of York who's been working on the demographics to understand who we have available and we also have a great picture now of who people with disabilities are in gaming and we're expanding this program so that we can give them a voice. Enable Gamers will be working with those players to understand what are the current uh experiences that they're having in games so that we can start talking about those accessible player experiences with uh uh game developers. And I'm really grateful that Jen and her co-supervisor Paul Cairns has been working very closely with Able Gamers on this. This is pretty cool. It's the first time gamers with disabilities are really being included um from a from a knowledge perspective. So, we're almost out of time. I want to give a couple of questions. Um I do want to say that there's a great policy paper. We we are not lawyers, but I watch a lot of Judge Judy. Um,

but we did consult with lawyers before we came here. Um, Kelly Dryer helped us with this presentation to give us all of the proper information. Um, they have a policy PDF. If you go to that URL or if you have a QR reader, um, that's a four-pager that kind of gives you a breakdown of this entire presentation. Um, you can reach out to AbleGamers if you're small and you don't have any money and you need help. If you have money, reach out to Level Access because um, or if you do have money and you want to help for us and just give us money, we're a charity. We'll take it. Um, but I'm really excited that um, that we were able to have this talk and I think we have just about 5 minutes if anyone has any questions. Come on, someone have a question. So, I have a question. Who here thinks that the content they're working on is going to be covered under CVAA now that you've heard about it? With the lights in my eyes, I think I see three hands. Three, four, maybe. Who is the rethinking some of the things

they're putting in their games now that they know the CVAA is there? Guys, I'll tell you it's not that hard to become to do this. So, you know, do it because games need to be accessible. You want as many people playing your game as possible and accessibility features. Interesting number, did you know that 80% of people use a feature that's an accessibility feature? Um, the biggest one being making the little slider at the bottom of Windows where you make PowerPoints and things bigger so that you can move stuff around. That was actually built as an accessibility feature and you all use it. And we're seeing lots of things that are being used across. The subtitling is one of the ones that's a great example where lots and lots of players, uh, who aren't hard of hearing We had a research The research said we had 17 people that we surveyed that were deaf or hard of hearing, but 98 people said that they use subtitles. So there's lots of situations in which people can't use sound, be it when they're traveling on a plane or when they're sitting in a room like this for all of those who are currently playing

two dots, where you need to have different indications of sound. So we're seeing things like that that help design across the different types of games that are out there. I think someone's at the mic. I'm not sure there's a shadow or something. Go ahead and do your Hi. Um yeah, I have a question about um to what extent, if you were a small team or a solo game dev, do game making tools like Unity or Unreal have a responsibility to provide like an accessibility API to make it easier to make um games been a conversation all week. Why doesn't Unity do some I think there is some moves afoot. There's a plug-in. There's some There is an accessibility plug-in in Unity, we know. It's not great, but it is good. It's a good start. Um but there is a move I'd really like to see people way smarter than me kind of do a working group to go ahead and build some accessibility plug-ins in Unity and just give them out um a friend of mine, Victoria, she was trying it, but she wasn't getting any traction, so

she kind of had to go make money and work, but I really would like to see developers step up and kind of create an open source Unity plug-in, get it on GitHub, let people start contributing to it, and that way it's not You don't have to lovingly handcraft accessibility. You can just um plug it in and go. I also think it's an important point to make that um achievability is an important aspect of CVAA. It's actually spelled out. So if somehow what you're doing, you're trying, and you're keeping those records, but somehow it's not all worked out yet, that's a journey you're on, right? What would not be a good idea is to not certify and you're covered and not keep any records at all, but if you're keeping those records and doing the work but it's not quite done, that's a journey you're on and it's okay to be there. I always tell our clients you're never going to be 100% accessible conforming all the time. It's

in and even in other platforms, it's very difficult to do that at 100%. But the the SEC is wanting to see that you're making efforts towards that. All right. I've got the giant X in the back which means we are out of time. Thank you guys for coming to our thing. Glad to speak with any of you if you want. going to pack our stuff up and head out there if we want to just buy us lunch cuz this was a great presentation and thank you guys. Thank you for coming. Thank you for coming. Thanks.