Game Accessibility and Advocacy for Participation of the Japanese Disability Community

Abstract

In this paper we examine the recent situation of advocacy through game accessibility of video games for people with physical disabilities and its challenges in Japan. We conducted an email survey among the dominant gaming companies in Japan. We discovered that most gaming companies developing games for those with disabilities have actually attempted to provide some consideration to people with disabilities through setting additional special functions such as "easy mode" and "support for visual disabilities". One out of five companies could be categorized as having successfully developed games based on the concept of specialized assistive technology, and the remaining companies could be categorized as having developed games for disabilities based on the concept of barrier-reducing goods. We also found out that the major Japanese gaming corporations had a tendency not to be active in communicating with the disability communities. Our results might indicate that stronger interaction with the gaming companies is one direct way to enhance further development of games for people with disabilities. In addition to that, considering that games are a significant form of social participation for people with disabilities, more social understanding is required in the Japanese domestic context.

Accessibility of games and game-based applications: A systematic literature review and mapping of future directions

“…The code 'elderly' emerged as I encountered studies on accessibility of game technologies for the elderly. The word 'elderly' was used in said Beckett et al, 2016;Beeston et al, 2018;Bouaine et al, 2020;Brooks, 2017;Brown and Anderson, 2021;Cairns et al, 2019aCairns et al, , 2019bFortes et al, 2017;Garcia and de Almeida Neris, 2020;Granzotto Llagostera, 2019;Kaigo and Okura, 2020;Leite et al, 2019;Merritt, 2017;Thompson and Syrett, 2018;Tyagi et al, 2019;Westin et al, 2018;Dupire, 2016a, 2016b) 4 Studies (da Silva et al, 2018;Flores-Garzón et al, 2020;Mangiron, 2016;Shooster et al, 2017) 27 Studies (Andrade et al, 2018(Andrade et al, , 2019(Andrade et al, , 2020…”

“…Visual disabilities have consistently received academic research attention while auditory and mobility disabilities have significantly fluctuated in popularity. Amaro et al, 2016;Andrade et al, 2018Andrade et al, , 2019Andrade et al, , 2020Bar-El et al, 2018;Beckett et al, 2016;Brown and Anderson, 2021;Bulgarelli et al, 2018;Cairns et al, 2019b;Chakraborty et al, 2017;Compañ-Rosique et al, 2019;Escudeiro et al, 2017;Flores-Garzón et al, 2020;Fortes et al, 2017;Garcez et al, 2020;Gerling et al, 2020;Gonçalves et al, 2020;Grabski et al, 2016;Granzotto Llagostera, 2019;Kaigo and Okura, 2020;Khaliq and Torre, 2019;Leite et al, 2019;López et al, 2016;…”

“…Examine development and co-design processes (Andrade et al, 2020;Beckett et al, 2016;Brooks, 2017;Garcia and de Almeida Neris, 2020;Gerling et al, 2016b;Kaigo and Okura, 2020;Kang et al, 2021;Mahardhika et al, 2019;Mendoza-González et al, 2018;Muratet and Garbarini, 2020;Regal et al, 2020;Rocha and Escudeiro, 2018;Torres-Carazo et al, 2016;Urbanek and Güldenpfennig, 2019;Westin and Dupire, 2016b) 15…”

Serious Games Accessibility Design Model for Low-Vision Children

“…Accessibility refers to how software and ICT applications can be accessed by disabled people [2,4]. Accessibility is important for developers and organisations to improve the usability of ICT applications.…”