Accessibility Tips

When trying to accomodate their games to players, developers may run into some issues or barriers. The following tips can help alleviate some of these problems. When faced with a small team or budget, developers are still recommended to accomodate accessibility features for players. Most accomodations are low cost and easy to implement. It is best for a development team to plan for adding accessibility options early on in their project. If not possible, the development team can also add it in later with a free update or patch to their game. Other difficulties that may arise may include low return on investment or a limited audience for developers to implement such accessibility accommodations for players. Even so, the positive impact for bringing their games to more players, helping improve their mood, and increased participation in said activities with more friends, family and individuals highly outweigh these issues.

While developers also need to make money on their games to keep their studios running, increased accessibility features will most definitely improve game sales for developers. And in return, this increase in sales can help put more budget into accommodating accessibility features into later projects. The positive word of mouth from accessibility groups can also help with the game’s reception, support from people for including accessibility into account, and bringing in more players. Simple accommodations such as remappable buttons, difficulty options, subtitle and audio changes can go a long way to making your game reach wider audiences. Additionally, supporting various disabled communities and taking their consulting feedback can help you as a developer on what your games needs to be accessible. And lastly, keeping your platform and game open to modifications, such as alternate controller methods and assistive software features can allow players to come up with additional ways to custom their play experience to whatever they wish it to be.