Accessibility reports and market data
3 game industry reports, presentations and talks about accessibility from writers such as AEVI and Fundación ONCE, newest from 2023. Every document has a summary and key insights with the page they come from, and 9 charts and tables are extracted as data.
Documents
Llibre Blanc d’Accessibilitat per al Desenvolupament de Videojocs
The central thesis is that video-game accessibility must be embedded from the earliest design stages, using a standardized, non-subjective evaluation framework, to achieve universal inclusion while avoiding the steep costs of retro-fitting.
- Accessibility must be integrated during early design phases to avoid the high costs of retrofitting, utilizing the European EN 301 549 ICT-accessibility standard as a foundational framework.
- The global gaming market includes over three billion players, with approximately 400 million individuals living with a disability and 18 million regular players in Spain.
- The Ga11y portal, launched in July 2022, provides a catalogue of 28 star-rated accessibility guidelines that map specific technical solutions to visual, auditory, motor, speech, and cognitive impairments.
Libro Blanco de Accesibilidad para Desarrolladores
The core thesis emphasizes that video-game accessibility must be embedded from the earliest design stages, rather than added later, because retro-fitting dramatically inflates development time and cost.
- Accessibility must be integrated during the earliest design stages to avoid the significant cost and time inflation associated with retrofitting features.
- Approximately 400 million of the 3 billion global gamers live with some form of disability, making inclusive design a critical market consideration.
- The framework categorizes over 30 accessibility measures into a 5-star system, ranging from basic joystick swapping and puzzle-skipping to advanced sign-language interpretation and text-to-voice features.
Accessibility for Developers: Spain
The Spanish video game industry is undergoing a strategic shift toward universal design, prioritizing the integration of accessibility features from the earliest stages of development to ensure inclusivity for players with motor, sensory, and cognitive disabilities.
- Video games are a significant recreational option in Spain, with over 18 million regular users, and globally, nearly 400 million of the three billion players have some form of disability.
- The Spanish Video Game Association (AEVI) and the ONCE Foundation's Ga11y project are collaborating to establish clear accessibility guidelines for game developers, aiming for universal accessibility for players and professionals with disabilities.
- A primary barrier to video game accessibility is often the controller hardware, not just the software, highlighting the need for games to be compatible with various adapted peripherals.