Ok, some of you probably know that I am a big gamer! I have been gaming pretty hard since I was about 11 years old. My first gaming system was the Atari 2600 and then followed up by a Commodore 64 Plus. Personally, I love to play games on my PS4 Pro and some select games on my son’s Xbox One, when the urge occurs. Anyway, over the past few months I have spent a lot of time thinking about video gaming from an accessibility standpoint. I have noticed that Xbox through Microsoft’s efforts have really stepped up their game with the release of the Xbox Adaptive Controller and are currently leading the accessibility ‘front’ whereas Nintendo and Sony have went pretty quiet.
After spending some time researching accessible gaming — I’ve learned that the International Game Developers Association Annual conference is the premier event for those interested in accessible gaming. The event is held annually in San Francisco and the organizers have worked since 2003 to make gaming accessible for all gamers not just those without disabilities. So, I have plans to attend the 2020 Accessible Gaming conference if time and circumstances, permit!
Finally, I want you guys to take a few minutes to review the conference website and also checkout some of their heavy hitters in the gaming industry that are involved in this conference such as ‘Naughty Dog’ think the mega hit ‘The Last of Us’ and ‘Epic Games’ which makes us think ‘Fortnite’ — these two major gaming companies are investing their time, effort, resources and brand into making games more inclusive.
As always, thanks for reading!
Andrew
