GAconf, The Little Conference That’s Making Big Waves In Video Game Accessibility

Consumer Tech GAconf, The Little Conference That’s Making Big Waves In Video Game Accessibility Andy Robertson Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. I write about the intersection between technology and family life. Following New! Follow this author to stay notified about their latest stories.

Got it! Sep 30, 2022, 05:18am EDT | New! Click on the conversation bubble to join the conversation Got it! Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin GAconf Advancing accessibility for gamers with disabilities GAconf Video game accessibility used to be something on the edges of the industry. Now, it’s one of the most important areas of any game development. A leading voice pushing forward the understand and innovation in this area has been GAconf (Game Accessibility Conference), a game development conference dedicated to making games more accessible to players with disabilities, hosted by the IGDA’s accessibility SIG.

GAconf was founded by Ian Hamilton, Game Accessibility Specialist and Tara Voelker, Senior Xbox Game Studios Accessibility. They now deliver it each year with Max Voelker, and a team of volunteers on the day itself. I asked Hamilton how they run the event? “The event is run by a small number of people on a purely voluntary basis, with ticket prices kept as low as possible (free for people attending online) and sales and sponsorship used exclusively to fund the event.

We do it because the event matters, the reason the event matters is because accessibility matters, and the reason accessibility matters is that games matter, they are an unparalleled enabler of access to recreation, culture, socialising. ” This year’s event has just announced its line-up and there are an impressive range of talks. Speakers include indie developers Whitethorn Games and Daisy Ale Sounds and disabled gamers, advocates, and specialists such as Rachel Kowert, Grant Stoner, Kyle Abbate, Ben Bayliss, Alexx Aplin, Licia Prehn, and Shell Little.

Then there are talks from larger organisations including: Marc Fortier, Senior UX Writer, is talking about how Rocksmith+ has increased its focus on the needs of a more diverse set of players, and removed as many barriers as possible. David Tisserand, Senior Manager of Accessibility at Ubisoft, is talking about lessons learned from building a global accessibility program. Brannon Zahand, Senior Gaming Accessibility Program Manager at Xbox and Nisha Patel, Technical Program Manager at Xbox, are talking about making in-person game industry events accessible with fresh examples from Gamescom.

Matthew Gallant, a game director at Naughty Dog, is talking about the motivations behind remaking The Last of Us for the PlayStation 5 and port the many accessibility features that were developed for The Last of Us Part II including development of cinematic audio descriptions and DualSense features. Recommended For You 1 Google Issues Warning For 2 Billion Chrome Users More stories like this Fewer stories like this 2 Forget The MacBook Pro, Apple Has Bigger Plans More stories like this Fewer stories like this 3 Google Discounts Pixel 6, Nest & Pixel Buds In Limited-Time Sale Event More stories like this Fewer stories like this Attendees at GAconf listening to a talk. GAconf Topics include deep dives on individual features and processes like the Guardians Of The Galaxy’s captioning system, and Schell Games’ accessibility prioritisation matrix; case studies on games like Rocksmith+ , Lost & Hound , and The Last Of Us Part 1 remake.

There will also be panel discussions on personal lived experiences of disabled mobile gamers and on accessibility for producers; and many more sessions including mental health representation, 3D printed controller mods, imposter syndrome & resilience as a disabled advocate, in depth look at Xbox’s new free accessibility training course, and Ubisoft’s 5 year accessibility strategy. More than the talks though, it’s an event that offers lots of opportunities for networking and learning across all disciplines of the games industry, exploring recent and future advances in game accessibility. My hope is that more and more developers understand and implement accessibility designs and features.

Conferences like this get us talking about these things, which in turn drives change. This extends beyond the games themselves, to the wider industry and how we share news, make trailers, write reviews and gather for expos and conferences like E3. The upcoming GAconf USA 2022 Oct 22-25 event is planned to be hybrid, both a free to attend online event held through Zoom and Discord, and an in-person gathering in Redmond.

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