Popular Accessibility Settings in Digital Games

Baltzar, Pauliina; Turunen, Markku; Hassan, Lobna

doi:10.1145/3569219.3569335

Cited by 7 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…More accessibility settings (such as game speed and contrast modifications) are appearing in games, in fact, according to our survey, 65% played games with built-in accessibility settings. Still, it seems that some games are lacking knowledge of even the most basic accessibility features and existing accessibility settings should be added to every game to make the games more accessible (Baltzar et al, 2022). Our findings also confirm these observations as 49% of the participants agreed that games are currently not accessible to them.…”

supporting

confidence: 79%

“It’s Easier to Play Alone”: A Survey Study of Gaming With Disabilities

Baltzar

Hassan

Turunen

2023

Journal of Electronic Gaming and Esports

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Within gamers, disabled people remain an understudied minority. While research indicates that they actively play single-player games, we lack an understanding of their experience with multiplayer games. This study aims to answer the following research questions: (a) What kind of games do disabled people play? and (b) Why do disabled people not play multiplayer games? The questions are answered using survey data focusing on playing digital games as a person with disabilities. In total, 92 answers were analyzed. The findings suggest that disabled people play both single-player and multiplayer games and they play games for the same commonly reported reasons as players without disabilities do, although demographics seem to be a key differentiating factor among them in their playing habits, rather than disability differences. However, disabled people reported that they play single-player games more often. We identified four themes from our data that explain why multiplayer games are played less, which are: playing company and insecurity about one’s own skills, lack of relaxation while playing, lack of game accessibility, and lack of interest. Our results indicate that much more work is needed to ensure, especially the social, as well as the technical accessibility of multiplayer games.

show abstract

supporting

confidence: 79%

“It’s Easier to Play Alone”: A Survey Study of Gaming With Disabilities

Baltzar

Hassan

Turunen

2023

Journal of Electronic Gaming and Esports

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The previously discussed skill requirements of game play can present an issue of accessibility, whether because of lacking experience with a particular kind of game, intentional game design, or disability (e.g., Baltzar et al, 2022). Players' perception of their skill could encourage or discourage them from playing games or influence game choices, while some respondents had physical limitations to their gaming.…”

Section: Accessibilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Direct parental control (e.g., Meriläinen, 2021), negative societal views, and stereotypes that relate to gaming (e.g., Kowert et al, 2014;Latinsky and Ueno, 2021), as well as struggles over who is allowed to exist or belong in game cultures, exemplified by different discriminatory behaviors (e.g., Paaßen et al, 2017;Ortiz, 2019;Friman, 2022), exert their influence on young game players by affording or removing gaming opportunities. As discussed in some of the responses, factors such as disability can also push individuals away from games if not accounted for when games and devices are designed (e.g., Baltzar et al, 2022).…”

Section: Allowed-forbiddenmentioning

confidence: 99%

The light, the dark, and everything else: making sense of young people's digital gaming

Meriläinen

Ruotsalainen

2023

Front. Psychol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Whether gaming has a beneficial or detrimental effect on young people's lives is a defining feature in both the research and the public discussion of youth digital gaming. In this qualitative study, we draw from a thematic analysis of the experiences of 180 game players in Finland, aged 15–25 years. Utilizing the digital gaming relationship (DGR) theory, we explore how different aspects of gaming actualize in their lives, and how different features of gaming culture participation come together to form their experience. We contend that framing gaming as a balancing act between beneficial and detrimental obscures much of the complexity of young people's gaming, reinforces a partially false dichotomy, and overlooks young people's agency. Based on our results, we suggest alternative approaches that help reduce and avoid these problems.

show abstract

“…There is a continuous stream of scholarship dedicated to defining what are games, play, or gameplay (e.g., Avedon and Sutton-Smith, 1971;Juul, 2011;Salen-Tekinbas and Zimmerman 2003;Stenros, 2017;Suits, 1990). There is a growing body of literature around the accessibility and games, play, or gameplay mostly related to an array of physiological impairments (e.g., Baltzar et al, 2022;Garber, 2013;Hassan and Baltzar, 2022;Miesenberger et al, 2008;Porter and Kientz, 2013;Said and Kane, 2013;Yuan et al, 2011). However, aside from some technical approaches described in the following section, there is little to no work examining the simple procedural methods of how access to play, games, or gameplay is controlled, particularly digitally.…”

Section: Accessing Gameplaymentioning

confidence: 99%

The access control double bind: How everyday interfaces regulate access and privacy, enable surveillance, and enforce identity

Gardner,

Tanenbaum

2023

Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Med

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Access controls are an inescapable and deceptively mundane requirement for accessing digital applications and platforms. These systems enable and enforce practices related to access, ownership, privacy, and surveillance. Companies use access controls to dictate and enforce terms of use for digital media, platforms, and technologies. The technical implementation of these systems is well understood. However, this paper instead uses digital game software and platforms as a case study to analyze the broader socio-technical, and often inequitable, interactions these elements regulate across software systems. Our sample includes 200 digital games and seven major digital gaming platforms. We combine close reading and content analysis to examine the processes of authentication and authorization within our samples. While the ubiquity of these systems is a given in much academic and popular discourse, our data help empirically ground this understanding and examine how these systems support user legibility and surveillance, and police identities in under-examined ways. We suggest changes to the policies and practices that shape these systems to drive more transparent and equitable design.

show abstract

Popular Accessibility Settings in Digital Games

Cited by 7 publications

References 0 publications

“It’s Easier to Play Alone”: A Survey Study of Gaming With Disabilities

“It’s Easier to Play Alone”: A Survey Study of Gaming With Disabilities

The light, the dark, and everything else: making sense of young people's digital gaming

The access control double bind: How everyday interfaces regulate access and privacy, enable surveillance, and enforce identity

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About