The Access-Ability Summer Showcase Is Still The Best Thing At Not-E3

A couple of years ago now, I was in a games studies class, and a student said something to the effect of “I don’t like when games have too many menus and settings because then I have to try and figure out what the developers intended.”

I think about that moment a lot, especially when it comes to accessibility in video games because I think it’s revealing. When this conversation happened, the original Hades was massively popular and its sequel hadn’t been announced.

Hades is a game that lets you put together thousands of different builds using different weapons, boons, items, penalties, you name it. But no one would look at that and say having all those options is a problem, or that they have to determine the one way the developer intended them to beat the game. The assumption, which isn’t afforded to accessibility settings in this case, is that if an option is there, you’re free to use it.

The underlying implication that accessibility settings are something you add after the fact, that you make a game and then tweak it for the people who can’t play it the “proper” way is something that even people who are pro or neutral with respect to the concept of accessibility settings for video games have, and that’s why I’m glad the Access Ability Summer Showcase exists.

Hosted by British author Laura Kate Dale, the Access-Ability Summer Showcase aired for the second time during not-E3 last week. During the presentation, the developers behind different games went into detail about accessibility settings in their games.

Even as someone not super well-versed in all these things, just hearing in-depth details and thought and care put into the settings and design elements showed the craft that goes into designing games with as many people as possible in mind. My favorite was Wéko The Mask Gatherer, where they had distinct sound cues for every enemy to help players in combat that can’t rely on sight, which is just objectively awesome.

The show also featured testimonies from people in the industry about what accessibility means to them, providing a moving portrait of people who love games and want to engage with them but are often held back.

The Access-Ability Summer Showcase and its upcoming Winter Showcase are doing crucial work by putting it right in front of people that, just like any other aspect of a video game, accessibility is not just and add-on, and by showing the care and planning, Dale and the rest of the people behind the showcase are making that obvious.

The idea that there are “real gamers” who games are made for and then a surrounding group of people who force games to be changed to suit their needs shows up a lot in online games discourse, whether people realize they’re doing it or not.

I don’t have a perfect solution to make this go away, but I think this showcase in particular demonstrates how much simply having the developers sit down and talk about their intent and designs and showing that people outside the “real gamers” circle can help break through that notion. I would not listen to anybody talk about their games in this showcase and feel like they’re doing it out of obligation.

The Access-Ability Summer Showcase is a labor of love for everyone involved, and I hope it will continue long into the future.

Here’s some stuff I’ve been enjoying recently:

What I’ve Been Playing: 2019’s Gnosia is basically a Visual Novel version of Werewolf, but in space and you have to find imposters (…no there are no other games like that what are you talking about). The core gameplay loop is nice in small bursts and I’m very intrigued by the lore and worldbuilding.What I’ve Been Reading: The Secrets Of Hartwood Hall by Katie Lumsden is a modern gothic horror book, and you can definitely see the inspirations from “Turn of The Screw” by Henry James. A very compelling read so far, and I’m excited to see where it goes.

What I’ve Been Watching: I’m working my way through the original Star Trek: The Next Generation, and I just finished the episode “The Mind’s Eye.” I know enough spoilers through osmosis to know Sela’s coming up, which I’m looking forward to, but mostly I want people to stop being mean to Geordi. He’s a little guy. Leave him alone.

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