A new level of gaming: designing video games for all abilities, with Vivek Gohil

VG 0:00

With accessibility, it doesn't mean a game is really accessible if it has millions of accessibility settings. It could be just one simple setting that makes the game easier to play so it's less about the quantity, it's more about the quality.

TS 0:27

Welcome to Made for Us, a podcast about the intersection of innovation and inclusion. It's for anyone who's curious about how to develop products that work better for all of us. I'm your host, Tosin Sulaiman, a podcaster and former business journalist. Today I'll be speaking with Vivek Gohil, an accessibility consultant working to improve gaming for people with disabilities. Vivek has Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a muscle wasting condition and uses a ventilator to assist his breathing. In our conversation he talks about the solutions he's found to be able to continue playing video games and he shares his thoughts on how the gaming industry can be more inclusive.

VG 1:08

I'm Vivek Gohil, I'm a disabled gamer. I've got Duchenne muscular dystrophy which is like a muscle wasting muscle wasting condition so I've using my experiences to kind of improved gaming for disabled people especially people like me because I've had a lot of issues accessing gaming and for me growing up gaming has been so important to me, it's like been my hobby because there's a lot of times when I was like stuck in bed and didn't have a lot to do so kind of gaming helped me. But about six years ago when I got a PS4 that's when I realized like I can't actually use the controller and I thought the only thing I had to do was give up gaming which when I gave it up and I couldn't game I actually became really depressed. My mum noticed my mood change and everything because it's only then that I realized how important gaming is and through that I tried to find a solution and I found accessibility and realized that there are other disabled gamers that would be having the same trouble as I would and I wouldn't want them to have to give up gaming.

TS 2:59

It was around this time that Vivek heard about the charity SpecialEffect, he got in touch with them and they helped him find the right setup after assessing his abilities.

VG 3:08

They gave me a controller that was adapted and the buttons were easier to press, the sticks were easier to move so through that controller I was able to be play on my Playstation 4 so it was through kind of a really bad time that I found a way out and it's hard to say how grateful I am to them but they've really allowed me to be happy. And through that I started writing for the gaming magazine Eurogamer, like focusing on accessible gaming or just gaming in, in general. So I like to elevate people's voices through my writing or my advocacy because I've worked with a few game developers. I've worked on testing the Xbox adaptive controller when that was released so it was kind of around that time, in Twenty nineteen is when I became very involved in accessible gaming.

TS 4:26

I just wanted to go back to when you actually started gaming. What was it that turns you into a gamer?

VG 4:34

Well, there's been quite a few times. When I was younger, at eight, I had a Game Boy that had Super Mario and I would play that, I completed it and found all the secrets and everything. So I've always enjoyed that kind of gaming but at that age, I wouldn't have said that I was a gamer, just like Mario. But when I was 11 there was a children's hospice I went to, it was in Two thousand and one and they just got they just had the game Halo and I was playing that all the time, but that's when I thought when I get home I need a games console so after that I was telling my mum can I get an Xbox just because I wanted to play Halo so I think it was than that I truly realised how much I loved gaming.

In a way for me at that time, I struggled with a lot of frustration and anger because of my condition that I couldn't really I couldn't really physically do a lot, so it was a difficult time for me but gaming is when I was happy and I was able to sometimes forget you're disabled for a bit and just step into another world, be another person. I could just enjoy myself, it was like my coping mechanism.

TS 6:15

Vivek was nine when he found out he had to Duchenne, a condition that has no cure. Since that time, he says he's progressively lost muscle function in his arms and legs, but he still has strength in his hands.

VG 6:28

I got diagnosed a bit later than normal because I was misdiagnosed with a different condition. The other condition there was a cure for it but when I was nine I found I got Duchenne and there's not treatment so I think that was very difficult because I was always losing my muscle function, like I couldn't walk. My arms were still alright when I was up to thirty, then they kind of became weaker and weaker. Then about five years ago I wear this ventilator all the time because my breathing muscles are weak so you need like assistance with breathing.

But at the minute my hands and my fingers, they have function. There's not full function but because I'm so used to holding the controller my hands are quite strong in that position and they're like fused into the position on the controller so I'm still able to do stuff with my hands and I use a mouse as well so it's just preserving my hand function that is important so I do a lot of physio and that so I have to maintain that. So they will never get stronger but you can preserve what you have. Mentally, it has been really difficult because like it's just it's just difficult disease when you're a teenager because there's a lot of things that you want to do but I wasn't really able so it's just that frustration that is hard to deal with, but at the minute because of my life and like what I do I'm very happy with by my world at the minute because I'm able to do something that I enjoy and also helps other people.

TS 9:05

Thank you for sharing that. I was just curious to know a little bit more about what adjustments you've had to make to be able to play games.

VG 9:14

So the main thing that had to be adapted for me is the controller. I have to have a PS4 controller because I'm used to that shape so with the PS4 the buttons need to be lighter and the sticks need to be a bit more sensitive. I've also got switch ports in my controller so if I need to switch somewhere else I'm able to kind of use that. And also I've got a stand that I rest my controller on so I don't have to hold it as the same time as moving my fingers because doing that at the same time is a big struggle. So if it's held, it's a lot easier for me. And I also have to use sponges to elevate my hands to the right position. Then also, how I game is I've got this device, which is a Titan 2. It allows me to use any controller on any console so that means I can use my setup and also through Titan 2 I can write, I can code accessibility features into it if the game doesn't have it. So I can remap buttons, I can create my own combos of buttons. So that's how I game and how I'm able to game quite well, because of my hardware is correct.

TS: 11:03

I did want to ask you about game developers, you've had the opportunity to test lots of games. What would you say in terms of the way that games are developed? Who's getting it right?

VG: 11:15

I think with game development, it's a big topic but at the minute a lot of games are understanding accessibility. In a way sometimes it isn't about the settings itself, it's about how the company interact and utilize disable gamers. Do they talk to us, have like an accessibility department because it's difficult to make games accessible if you're not talking to the people that you're making the game accessible for because a lot of the settings we live with it so we do know a lot more than the developers. Contacting us is good because what needs to happen is accessible design. Where the whole design process is focused on making the game as easy to play, not just for disabled people but generally for everyone because there's a lot of those kinds of settings that would help everybody but it's how do you access that knowledge?

I would say a lot of PlayStation developers and Xbox they're very open to accessibility, they have improved it a lot. And it's not just triple A developers, it's even like indie developers and little developers. Because with accessibility it doesn't mean the game is really accessible if it has millions of accessibility settings. It could be just one simple setting that makes the game easier to play so it's less about the quantity, it's more about the quality. And also what disabled gamers want is information about the game and the accessibility at the beginning so we can make an informed decision if we want to buy the game or not without kind of buying it and realising it's not really accessible. Because I think they need to understand taht they could make more money if they make, if they could make their game inclusive.

TS: 14:14

Vivek's advice to game developers: think about accessibility from the start and include people with disabilities in the design process.

VG: 14:21

I think sometimes there are developers that have been doing, making games the same way for so long. Maybe change is difficult for them. I think for me what it is, I think it's because they haven't seemed to work with disabled people in a way because they would know that they the modern way of doing it is to use disabled consultants in the game and to think about game design in a completely different way. Because so many developers think that accessibility means making accessibility settings and putting it in last as like an add on, rather than integrating it from the beginning of game development. It's harder to put accessibility settings in if you do it that way. But I think some developers are behind the times. I'm not saying they're bad, but I don't think, they're a bit archaic now.

TS: 15:59

As an accessibility consultant Vivek has worked with companies like Sony and Microsoft advising on the design of the PlayStation access controller, which just launched in December and the Xbox adaptive controller which was released in Twenty eighteen.

VG: 16:13

Yeah, well when I tested the Xbox Adaptive controller, it was like, it's a controller by Xbox that you can plug a lot of switches into it so then you could use the controller in a way that's accessible to you so I sometimes connect a switch and put it on the table that I game on. So it kind of gives people an opportunity to make their own setup without having to spend that much money. So with the Xbox adaptive controller it's like they designed it with disabed gamers and they kind of provided something that we would actually use. It's not always perfect because there's always going to be some disabled person that still can't play using the adpative controller but at least it helps most disabled gamers because we shouldn't be excluded really.

TS: 17:34

How did it make you feel knowing that you people like yourself were part of the design process?

VG: 17:41

I think it's good for our voices to be heard because we do know a lot more information about being a disabled person so it feels like accessibility has become something more mainstream. It's not just a niche area anymore so I think, that's what I feel it put, like, accessibility on the map.

TS: 18:20

And since then, what would you say have been the main developments in accessibility when it comes to gaming?

VG: 18:28

Yes, well I would say that like games like The Last of Us Part Two and God of War Ragnarok, they really did revolutionize accessibility because the way they integrated it into the game was really really well done and a lot of the options even surprised me as a gamer with a disability, like in The Lasts of Us they had if you were aiming in the game then time would slow down so that allowed me to enjoy the game a lot more because in that game if you miss a shot you die because the zombies are like really difficult and stuff so like those kind of settings they definitely did design it with disabled people. Also like God of War, it had the best, a lot of the settings there allowed me to enjoy the game without stress also because they thought very deeply about how they could adapt the controls in the game to allow accessibility settings.

TS: 20:04

And what about the way disabled people are represented in games?

VG: 20:11

Well yeah I think with with that they're still not as representative as we would have wanted. There's not been too many disabled characters as such. In the Spiderman game there was a female character who was deaf so we've had representation there but there's not a lot of representatives of people like me in a wheelchair or a power wheelchair. It's improving but it's fairly slow. There was one game I was working on the main character she was disabled but it was a small indie game that people may not have heard of whereas I think we need representation in bigger triple A games where a lot of people will know about it and recognise it. Because I have always thought that yeah, I think the story in games or TV series I find them slightly boring because it's been done before but if there was disabled characters we'd bring another flavor to the story and it could be very, very interesting for able-bodied people to kind of experience. I would like to see in the future a game with the main character who's in a wheelchair because that like really make me feel represented in games. Because if the real world has disabled people in it then why would a world in a game not have disabled people either?

TS: 22:49

That was Vivek Gohil, an accessibility consultant and writer. You'll find details of how to follow him in the show notes. If you enjoyed the episode, please do share it with a friend or colleague. And it'd be great if you could rate the podcast wherever you're listening. I'm Tosin Sulaiman. Thank you for joining me on Made For Us.

Transcribed with the help of https://otter.ai