A giant in armor made of shiny steel, armed with a mace as long as the man himself. Conrad Malfort from the computer game “A Plague Tale: Innocence” is not the kind of opponent that a player can kill with just two clicks sends. But he’s not particularly agile in his armor, and if he hits nothing, the player has a time window of three or four seconds to give him one from behind.
Three seconds give Melanie Eilert, 34, an impossible task. In this short time, she would have to run around the opponent with her pawn, pull out the slingshot, aim and fire. But Eilert cannot press so many keys in a row that quickly. The administrative clerk lives with spinal muscular atrophy. The disease slowly makes your muscles weaker and weaker and increasingly restricts your motor skills.
Eilert loves computer games, but in the case of “A Plague Tale” she breaks off the game in frustration. She would have loved to throw the controller into the TV, she wrote later on Twitter.
Eilert is not alone in this. According to a study by the market research company Civey, eight percent of people with physical impairments have already abandoned a computer game. The number among gamers is probably a lot higher, because people were asked regardless of whether they regularly play computer games or not. The study was commissioned by the project “Gaming without Borders”, the specialist agency for youth media culture in North Rhine-Westphalia and the mobile operator Congstar. Eilert appears as an ambassador for the project.
Another study shows that disabled gamers are a relevant group in Germany. According to a survey by Yougov for the game association, 7.6 million out of almost 45 million gamers in this country identify as disabled. Computer games are, among other things, an opportunity for people with disabilities to participate in social and cultural life. According to the Civey survey, more than one in four of the 18 to 29 year olds among them is passionate about playing.
With the Xbox Adaptive Controller, many can finally control characters from a first-person perspective.
(Photo: Microsoft)
In order to break down barriers in computer games, two levers can be turned: software and hardware. For people with physical disabilities, for example, there are mice that the user controls with their mouth or eyes. Microsoft released the Xbox Adaptive Controller especially for gamers in 2018.
Eilert also uses it. For them, the device opened the door to computer games from a first-person perspective. Controlling them is so complicated because the player normally fixes the viewing angle with one hand and moves his figure with the other at the same time. This works with conventional controllers with two joysticks and with a PC with a combination of mouse and keyboard. Thanks to the saucer-sized buttons and the additional connections of the Adaptive Controller, Eilert uses her knees and one hand to move around in the games. The example “A Plague Tale” shows, however, where even the most innovative hardware reaches its limits.
Eilert therefore says: “The attention that Microsoft has drawn to the topic of gaming with disabilities with its advertising campaign is almost more important than the actual controller.” Much can be solved in the game itself. For example, an option that would have allowed her to slow down the game speed for the fight with the warrior.
In their opinion, the Playstation 5 game “Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart” does better. In addition to the speed, the controls can also be individually adjusted there, for example so that they do not have to press a button repeatedly. Eilert can therefore also play “Ratchet & Clank” with the conventional controller. “It’s exhausting, but it’s possible,” she says. “That is the most important thing for me.”
For the Civey study, gamers were also asked whether they had physical disabilities or not. A large part of this group fear that the games will become more expensive if developers look for such barrier-breaking options. Three out of four respondents said they were not willing to pay an extra charge as a result. Eilert says that is not necessary at all. “If accessibility is included in the development from the start, it doesn’t mean that much additional effort.” The most important thing is a close exchange between developers and disabled players, says the 34-year-old.
The number of gamers with disabilities will continue to grow. It is not only becoming more and more important to program digital games barrier-free, but also to clear up misunderstandings.