Characteristics and Motivations of Players with Disabilities in Digital Games

Abstract: In research and practice into the accessibility of digital games, much of the work has focused on how to make games accessible to people with disa- bilities. With an increasing number of people with disabilities playing main- stream commercial games, it is important that we understand who they are and how they play in order to take a more user-centered approach as this field grows. We conducted a demographic survey of 230 players with disabilities and found that they play mainstream digital games using a variety of assistive tech- nologies, use accessibility options such as key remapping and subtitles, and they identify themselves as gamers who play digital games as their primary hobby. This gives us a richer picture of players with disabilities and indicates that there are opportunities to begin to look at accessible player experiences (APX) in games.