Yesterday afternoon saw the broadcast of the inaugural Access-Ability Summer Showcase. Coming it at just under an hour, the showcase focused on new games “made by disabled developers and featuring accessibility settings designed to ensure more disabled gamers are able to play.”
As the host, the writer and accessibility consultant Laura Kate Dale, put it, the aim was to ensure that “disabled gamers could be confident that if a game trailer seemed interesting to them they would know up-front if a game was likely to be playable by them or not when it releases.
“Basically,” she continued, “I want this to be a space where disabled gamers can get in on the excitement of finding out about new and upcoming videogames with less risk of finding out later that a cool looking game you’ve seen today isn’t something you can play when it actually releases.”
The showcase, which was sponsored by I Need Diverse Games, and was available with English audio description as well as BSL and ASL interpretation, highlighted fifteen games, and also included stories from disabled developers and disabled gamers, ranging from the Twitch Ambassador and accessibility advocate Radderss, to the consultant, speaker and Eurogamer writer Vivek Gohil.