The Ground Floor Approach to Video Game Accessibility: Identifying Design Features Prioritized by Accessibility Reviews

Abstract

This article describes the priorities for accessibility found in video game accessibility reviews. Through an analysis of 20 articles published by the accessibility review websites DAGERSystem.com and CanIPlayThat.com, this study categorizes the accessibility features in those articles in order to discover which accessibility features are the most important to reviewers, gauged by how many words are dedicated to addressing each feature. The study discovers 15 primary categories of accessibility most prominently features in these reviews. Word counts for each category provide a prioritized list of which accessibility features are the most central to video game accessibility. This article concludes by introducing the ground floor approach to video game accessibility, which calls for subtitles, difficulty settings, control options, and visual clarity as essential features in modern game design.