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How Accessibility Drives Innovation and Inclusion in Gaming with Games Accessibility Hub
107 Plays1 year ago
In this special episode of the Player: Engage podcast, host Greg delves into the world of gaming accessibility with guests Olivier Nourry and Tim Lansiaux, founders of Games Accessibility Hub. The episode is timely, coinciding with Global Accessibility Awareness Day, and focuses on the importance of digital access and inclusion in gaming. Olivier and Tim share their journey and mission to make gaming inclusive for people with disabilities, discussing the innovative solutions and the impact of accessible gaming features on the community.
Key takeaways from the episode include:
- Insights from Games Accessibility Hub: Learn how the organization assists game studios in creating accessible games through knowledge sharing, assessments, and user testing with disabled gamers.
- Examples of Accessibility in Action: Discover how major games like "The Last of Us Part II" and "Forza Motorsport" have set new standards in accessibility, allowing even visually impaired players to fully enjoy gaming.
- The Business Case for Accessibility: Understand the return on investment (ROI) for incorporating accessibility in games, including increased loyalty and broader market reach.
For anyone interested in the intersection of gaming and accessibility, this episode provides a deep dive into how inclusivity can be embedded into game design from the outset. To hear more about the challenges and triumphs in making games accessible, and to learn how you can contribute to this important cause, listen to the full episode on the Player: Engage podcast.
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Transcript
Introduction & Significance of Global Accessibility Awareness Day
00:00:07
Speaker
Hey everybody, welcome to the Player Engaged podcast. Greg here. Today we're going to do a special episode because on the 16th of May is Global Accessibility Awareness Day. It's today focusing on digital access and inclusion for more than 1 billion people alive who live with disabilities or impairments.
00:00:23
Speaker
It's marked annually, typically on the third Thursday of May. So that's going to be in two days from when you're listening to this, if you're listening to it, they came out on May 16th.
Guest Introductions: Olivier Norrie and Tim Lanzio
00:00:32
Speaker
And with that, we have two members, two of the founders of Games Accessibility Hub. We have Olivier Norrie and Tim Lanzio joining us today. So I'm excited to talk about accessibility, especially with Global Accessibility Day coming up, learning how you guys help with that. So I'll give it to you to do a quick introduction of yourself. So Tim, do you want to kick us off? Yeah, sure.
00:00:53
Speaker
Hi, Greg, and thanks for thanks for your time. And so my name is Tim Monsieur. I co-founded the hub in a year ago. And prior to this, I had a career in tech, basically. And the purpose of the hub is to support studios and publishers in the production of accessible games, basically.
00:01:20
Speaker
Cool. I'm excited to learn more about it. And Olivier, thank you for joining us as well. Would you like to say anything about yourself? Well, yes, I'm Olivier Nuit. And Tim and I, we met like two or three years ago and in previous company, and we founded the Hub.
00:01:37
Speaker
just for that because we truly believe that gaming can be more inclusive of people with disabilities. I've been in the accessibility business myself for like now 18 years working on websites and mobile apps and video games and so we gathered our
00:01:58
Speaker
our backgrounds and our threats and our work to address this very, very exciting issue of accessibility in gaming as well, both gamers.
Mission of Inclusivity in Gaming
00:02:09
Speaker
We're already keen on having more players on board and especially people who are generally excluded from basically every aspect of life and gaming is not an exception to that. So we try to make things better for them and for us too as gamers. Yeah, it's a great mission and it's exciting to hear that you've been part of accessibility for that many years, right?
00:02:36
Speaker
from different angles as well. And it's a win-win in my book, right? We've been talking about it a lot recently, accessibility, right? The more people that game, the better for the gaming environment, right? And kind of thinking that, you know, we've got to talk about it as being a mindset, right? The more I've been hearing about this, it's inclusion by design, right? Like start from the beginning, make sure you get in there. So can you kind of give us, and maybe Tim, you can start us off here, right?
00:03:02
Speaker
explain to us what does Gaines Accessibility Hub do? How do you approach accessibility from a company that might be starting with nothing?
Games Accessibility Hub: Pillars & Approach
00:03:12
Speaker
Yeah, so we obviously work with everyone, the smallest studios or the smallest teams to the bigger AAA companies because we think accessibility is for everyone and everyone should put the effort to gain more knowledge.
00:03:33
Speaker
and to work accessibility in their productions. So what we do with them is through three pillars. Basically, the first pillar is the knowledge. You said it. So it's training sessions. What's impairments? What is a gamer with disabilities? What are the barriers that this player is going to encounter when he plays a game?
00:03:59
Speaker
So that's the first one. The second one is going to be assessments of a production, during a production. So we can basically help the studio at any stage of the production. It can be very early on game documents, but it can be through the entire production and even post-production.
00:04:20
Speaker
And yeah, we can review basically any ingredients of the game. It can be the intro, it can be the gameplay, UI, the menus, pretty much everything where you can work on accessibility. And obviously the third pillar, and maybe the most important one,
00:04:41
Speaker
is to run what the studio did through the eye of disabled gamers because without them, you will not have the good feedback that you need. Cool. I appreciate it. I'm taking notes here. I love when companies and people bring up the concept of pillars because it's something that's kind of new-ish to me and I'm always fascinated to kind of see how
00:05:10
Speaker
What drives, how do you approach each situation? So I love the idea of knowledge, let's understand what's going on with the game, assessment, see where we are in the game, how do we approach that problem here? And then, you know, you got to test it, right? You can't just trust yourself and say, hey, you know what, this is gonna be great for blind gamers, let's see how it goes, right? Let's give it to some blind gamers and see how it goes.
Comparing Gaming Accessibility to the Web
00:05:32
Speaker
Olivier, kind of with your experience as well, you know, you mentioned as well that you have
00:05:37
Speaker
background with websites as well, not just games. And do you, and this is a weird question, and I apologize up front, right? But do you see kind of a similar trend going on across different mediums? Is it maybe like, hey, gaming is now catching up to where the web was 10 years ago, where if you were to look at accessibility in gaming and kind of say, is it, is it a child, a teenager, an adult at this point, what stage are we at for accessibility from within gaming?
00:06:02
Speaker
We are really at the infancy of accessibility, I believe, in gaming, but with a child who is growing very, very quickly. So, basically, I think perhaps gaming was one of the last areas of the IT industry to catch up with accessibility. I have no
00:06:29
Speaker
clear reason for that, but well, that's a fact. For the web, it had started like 25 years ago with the first standards that were considered as the fact of standards from the W3C, which is the institution that runs the standards for the web. So if we have a web currently, it's thanks to the W3C, actually. And so we have these standards for 25 years, but still.
00:06:55
Speaker
We find very basic mistakes or errors in terms of accessibility and far from all the developers in the web industry are currently aware of accessibility and competence in accessibility. So it's really something that you need to work out all along.
00:07:15
Speaker
But what I can observe, and which is very interesting in the game industry, is that the program is much more complex for a game because games are so diverse and you have so many ways to screw up accessibility with the game, with the current, with the UI, with the colors, whatever.
00:07:38
Speaker
but it's a very creative industry. So people are keen on finding solutions, innovative solutions to possibly problems that look like the impossible.
00:07:51
Speaker
But they try and sometimes they succeed.
Achievements & Progress in Game Accessibility
00:07:55
Speaker
I want to take this example of, for instance, the last of us, part two, which is a 3D based game where you navigate a new world in 3D. And it was made accessible up to a point where someone with no sight could win the game with no assistance. So that was really a landmark for accessibility in gaming. It was something new.
00:08:20
Speaker
And some people could get platinum rewards with this game without assistance and with no sight. So it was really striking as an example. And then someone went further because they made a game where you can drive.
00:08:36
Speaker
a race car with no sight. So that's for the motorsports. And that's another frontier, another line that we have crossed now. And I like this idea that this creative industry is able to bring up solutions to problems that were thought as impossible before. So even though it's short in time, it's really intense and very encouraging. But of course, there are still a lot of work to do.
00:09:06
Speaker
Yeah, sorry, I think that's fascinating, right? We actually had someone that worked on the force for is a motorsport accessibility feature on here and there. It's like, I asked him point like, what's a game I could play blind and they mentioned fours and kind of blew my mind, right? Like, and if people, if people are listening and don't know what forza is as a racing game, right, but like,
00:09:28
Speaker
the idea that you could play a racing game completely blind and compete and be competitive is an amazing feat. And that's why I think it's fascinating that you say that we're in the infancy stage because I don't disagree with you. The thing is that I is maybe someone that I don't focus as much on accessibility. I don't know what we're missing, right? Like
00:09:46
Speaker
But then I see a new feature come out and it still boggles my mind. I was talking to someone earlier to says Fortnite, like some of the best Fortnite players turn on the hearing assistance because the search showing footsteps on the screen. It's just like, wow, you don't even need to, you don't need to be disabled to take advantage and use these features because their quality of life upgrades for the game itself. But
00:10:06
Speaker
And maybe this is a question that doesn't really have an answer yet, but when you say we're in the infancy stage, like what is missing? Like what would you expect to see on the horizon? The thing is that there are a few develops, a few studios were already advanced in this journey of accessibility in games, but there are really not
00:10:37
Speaker
not many of them and not enough, actually. So they are leading the path, but we need to have basically every person working in the game industry who is aware of accessibility and is willing to include that in the conversation. And I think it's what is important about having a mindset of accessibility is that it becomes part of the conversation and we want to have it shift from do we do it to how do we do it?
00:11:05
Speaker
just not deciding for is it something good to do but knowing it's something that you have to do and working on those solutions to get to that point of having a game with even the most basics of accessibility and it can make real difference just by choosing the right colors and the right
00:11:29
Speaker
you know, fonts and having text that are not tiny or on screen. That's really easy to do, but if you don't know, if you didn't think of that, it becomes a burden on the production because it's too late. Things are coded, hot coded sometimes.
00:11:47
Speaker
and you realize you maybe it was not ideal from an accessibility point of view if when you want to correct that while it's a lot of work it's a lot of redesign it's a lot of code again and sometimes it's too much even if not that much it's sometimes too much for the budget you have for the time you have and you have to step back and
00:12:10
Speaker
and ship the product without everything that you could have done easily if you just thought about it from the start. So really the idea is to have this mindset in every structure, every studio.
Challenges in Implementing Accessibility
00:12:25
Speaker
I think that's all fascinating. And I have a question that I really started thinking about a couple of days ago about accessibility, because it really is a win-win-win, right? The studio is making a game against more people, the players get to play more. But what's the biggest reason you hear against putting this stuff into your game? Why would a company choose not to put accessible features within their game?
00:12:49
Speaker
You know, it's always the same, the same answers. It's, it's basically a lack of knowledge. Um, so I think what he was talking about the, the, the culture, uh, a few minutes ago, but it's, it's really about this. I mean, it's like in the society, if, if, if you don't evolve in, in a diverse area, um, you're, you're just not going to make the effort, uh, to create something that, uh, is accessible is, uh, involves like.
00:13:17
Speaker
different things, different points of views. And the answers of the studio is always the same. So it's the lack of knowledge, but then it's lack of time, lack of money. You have to know that obviously, you know, but a production is like a global thing of resources, budget resources, time resources, people resources,
00:13:47
Speaker
And the more you move in the production and the harder it is to talk about accessibility, but not only accessibility, but other topics. And it's always down to, yeah, do I have the time to work on accessibility? Even if I don't know what it is, do I have the money to do it? Do I have the people to do it?
00:14:11
Speaker
And so that's why when we talk about accessibility with our clients, studios and publishers, we always say, well, try to think about accessibility at the beginning of the projects. Even if it's going to be just discussions about it, it's really important to have this in mind at the beginning and not down the line where it's getting harder and harder. So I think, yeah, the pain points are
00:14:40
Speaker
knowledge, time and money in the end. I think it's important to understand that accessibility is not something that you do at one point in time or in the project and it's not a dedicated work for one team or one person.
Integrating Accessibility into Company Culture
00:15:01
Speaker
it's really something that is part of a framework. It's just like other topics or transfer topics like security, sustainability. These are topics where you need to think about it all the time and to think globally about it. And it goes down to
00:15:21
Speaker
Even the HR, even the marketing and communication teams should be involved in this discussion because, as Tim said, the more you have diverse employees, diverse colleagues who are of
00:15:37
Speaker
an array, a diverse array of disabilities, and they can testify about their own experience, their lived experience, about how do they play games, what do they like, what do they dislike, what is a barrier for them. It's way easier to have that insight in-house, as opposed to just imagine what's happening with players. So the more diverse is the workforce, and the better are the games, actually, because you include more and more standpoint.
00:16:07
Speaker
And you have the ability to imagine more easily what it is to be a player of disabilities if you work with people with disabilities on a daily basis. So that's really something that we infused the whole culture of the company and not just one group of persons who we worked really on the one unique point of time in the project.
00:16:32
Speaker
Well, what I really liked that you mentioned there was the framework because I think the framework, you know, we talked about design inclusion by design and kind of creating your.
00:16:42
Speaker
footprint and having a framework is important. And I'm curious when you're working with your clients, is it more of an educational session where they're learning how to do some of this stuff that maybe, maybe you're working with this indie developer on a couple of games and they say, Hey, we're going to learn how to do this. We're going to learn how to do this. Now we know how to do it. We know our best practices. We're going to move forward or is a consistent basis where they're going to go over and over again.
00:17:06
Speaker
Well, there is no one-size-fits-all. It's always a new project, a new way of working with new people. So it depends on where they are in their journey. It depends on what they already know or not know yet. Really, it's something that we customize every people we meet and talk to. So yeah, that's the general approach of this kind of business that you can't
00:17:36
Speaker
placate methods that you have used before, you have to reinvent yourself all the time. That's exciting, but it makes it a little more complex than just having pre-made methods and let's do what we already know. You will never know what you're doing for the next one.
ROI and Benefits of Accessibility
00:17:58
Speaker
You have to learn.
00:18:01
Speaker
Tim, one of the things you mentioned was a barrier to entry was kind of money and cost, right? And a lot of times when it comes to SaaS-based tools that we, I'm just used to SaaS sales, I'm going to say SaaS, right, is ROI. We build an ROI showing how you'll save money over time. And I have to imagine from the world of accessibility, it's
00:18:22
Speaker
less about ROI because you're doing a greater good, but I'm curious, when you do look at the cost of it, how do companies measure ROI when it comes to something like accessibility? It's a real challenge because the question always comes, especially when you have management people in front of you or sales people, you always get the question about the return on investment. It's a difficult question because you can never test
00:18:50
Speaker
and the launch of a game that is accessible and then the same that isn't accessible. So you cannot compare the same game at the same time and see which one does the best, obviously. But on the other hand, there are some answers. I mean, the first thing is when you
00:19:11
Speaker
When you work with a studio and you train them, you work on a production, you give them the good practices and you do this like during the entire production can be like six months or 15 months or whatever. They do learn things. And then on the next production, they are going to use those knowledge and everything they've learned.
00:19:35
Speaker
basically on this new production. So you can already see that something that has been done on a production can be transposed on the second one or the third one or whatever. So that's the first answer we give. The second one is that the community is really strong and it's always good for the studios to talk to this community. So
00:20:03
Speaker
And it's also a community that is, what's the word in English? Loyal. Yeah, exactly. So they are going to follow you. They are going to follow the updates. It's important also for the studios to communicate about the work they do on accessibility. And yeah, they will follow you. They will engage with you.
00:20:29
Speaker
And they will, in the end, buy a game that they will be able to play VS versus a game that isn't made for people with disabilities. So yeah, that's the two big answers.
00:20:47
Speaker
Yeah, the community is really helpful in that. They are always keen to help with feedback with propositions and so on. Obviously, the choice of people with disabilities is more limited in terms of everything in life, but obviously in games too. If you are blind, if you can't use your hands and so on, the number of games you can play
00:21:16
Speaker
a lot less than for other people. So they are more involved and there are actually studies that show that they buy more DLCs, they are more loyal and they are more engaged with the developers and they create content and so on and so on. So really, I think it's really beneficial for the studios, not in terms of financial returns, but
00:21:45
Speaker
maybe brand recognition, brand loyalty and stuff like that. And anyways, I mean, I remember someone saying in the web development world that accessibility is the most interesting thing you can do as a developer.
Personal Fulfillment in Accessibility Work
00:22:03
Speaker
I think it really struck a chord in me because really that's what I feel too. I've been working in the IT before that and I've been developer, project manager, consultant, whatever. But the really exciting part of my career was with accessibility because it's really interesting because what you do makes sense. It has meaning. It's something that you're happy to work for.
00:22:32
Speaker
And I think it's really interesting because, and I've seen colleagues like that were a bit bored in that everyday job. And when they discovered that they could do something for people, that job became interesting suddenly. It was same job, but just with the meaning. And in this time where it's difficult to hire people and retain talents, I think it's important to provide meaning and something more than just a job, you know.
00:23:00
Speaker
It can be a life changer, and I think it's important to have that in mind about Accessibility 3, something that people embrace rather than just do.
00:23:10
Speaker
I love a couple of things you both kind of put together there and obviously the most recent one you said was the most interesting thing you can do and I love that because you know I think back to I don't know why I'm actually go to like when Microsoft released their accessible controller and they had they show kids that have like extreme forms of you know there'd be autism or some other type of
00:23:30
Speaker
disability and they can enjoy the game and how do you not feel good after seeing someone that's struggled something with their whole life by having fun playing games like Forza or Call of Duty and not only that kicking my ass when I'm playing that game because I'm terrible at them and it's just so much fun to see that and I think that goes back to community right like
00:23:49
Speaker
you have these diehard fans that will do anything for you because you're involving them in the game, they can start playing this game. And it's just so exciting. And I can see why that is the most interesting thing and why that is the most amazing thing. And this is gonna be a really broad question, but
00:24:06
Speaker
being where you are at Games Accessibility Hub or maybe even before it in previous, did you ever have like a holy crap moment? I made a difference or like a wow, like you went home at the end of the day, like just with the biggest smile on your face. Are there any moments like that you can share with us? Yeah, absolutely. The previous company we worked for actually designed and made special joysticks and buttons for people who are very low-strength and very low mobility.
00:24:35
Speaker
And it's something we had to do because it didn't exist to that point, to the point where our co-founder was able to play because someone who had a really, really limited strength and mobility. And he looked for a way to play with his kids, actually, for years, and he couldn't.
00:24:59
Speaker
He used to be a big Nintendo fan he had. All you can imagine about Nintendo, he had played it as a teenager, but as an adult, he couldn't play with his kids. And so the only way for him was to create his own gear, and that's what he did. And in the meantime, he created a company, Strong Wave 25 employees, and we actually designed and built this gear.
00:25:29
Speaker
And we showed that to kids in a professional exposition and so on. And seeing these kids playing for the first time, for some of them,
00:25:44
Speaker
and discovering the joy of playing video game. And we are gamers around here. We know what it means to play the game. And seeing that just, well, you have put thousands of hours of hard work in that and it's just worth it. Yeah, you can stop there. Or I think you want to go further because you see that and yeah, you get your reward. So yeah.
00:26:14
Speaker
Imagine seeing that smile. It's like, that's awesome. That's lovely. Thank you for sharing that. Tim, I don't know if you have a story you want to share. Yeah. So I've been working in tech for about 10 years and my work was to help big companies make more money. It's fine. It's okay. But I was
00:26:38
Speaker
I went to the point where I was waking up in the morning and I was like, what's the point of my job? What am I literally doing? That was five years ago and I stopped working for this company and I was looking for something that had more meaning to me.
00:26:58
Speaker
And yeah, I discovered a company in web accessibility and started literally discovered what accessibility meant. And at the same time, one of my grandfather is like, he's 90 years old and he's a big gamer. And when I discovered all these options that some games have, and so I started playing with him and he has like,
00:27:27
Speaker
vision issues and whatever. And I showed him that he could make changes in his game for a better comfort user experience. And it changed his gaming experiences on it. That was really amazing. And I knew I had done the right decision by stopping the tech companies and going in accessibility. Yeah, that's a good stuff. Awesome.
00:27:58
Speaker
I love when it impacts someone you see on a daily or often basis, right? You know, you make a difference and the thing that they love to do, you can help make sure that they can continue
Quick Personal Insights from Guests
00:28:07
Speaker
doing it. So thank you for sharing your story. Um, halfway through the podcast, which I think we're, we're past. I like to kind of do the fireball around where I just asked some random questions and get some quick answers for you. So good to go. Yep. Yeah. All right. Let's, uh, for, for each one of these, let's just go with Tim first, just so we have a consistency here. What did you have for breakfast?
00:28:28
Speaker
Porridge, always. Always. Olivier? Coffee with milk and whatever is in the cupboard. There you go. If you go to a bar, what drink are you ordering? Beer. Good answer.
00:28:52
Speaker
Yeah, well beer, but it depends what they have. If it's only like random beers, I would go for something else, maybe water or whatever. I like good beer. Two French people on the line and no one ordering wine, but at this point. Yeah, it's a myth. We don't drink wine at all. We just sell it all. Yeah, we do, but at home. What is your dream vacation?
00:29:19
Speaker
I think it'd be somewhere sunny with very few people and, yeah, family. So somewhere in France. Yeah, well, I'm very classic in this aspect, sunny beach, coconut trees.
00:29:40
Speaker
Yeah, I love scuba diving, so somewhere where I can do that. All right. What game are you playing right now? Yeah, for me, stroke ethic. I'm absolutely trash at it. I'm thinking the top 10 persons, but from the bottom,
00:30:03
Speaker
But I love this game. I really love this game. I play it every day for a few hours and I play with my kid, Atri, and we have had the best time ever together because we play in tournaments and
00:30:16
Speaker
what we want. And it was just totally amazing. It was such a great experience. I think video games can bring that. You can have a crash generation. My kid is 11, and I'm more than 50. So it's hard for us to play any kind of sports, like football or basketball. But we can play video games together at the same level and have the same fun.
00:30:43
Speaker
Yeah, that'll be Diablo 2 resurrected for me. I've been playing Diablo 2 for 20 years and finally started playing the remastered version and it's absolutely amazing. I love it. Awesome. And last question I have for you is what show are you binge watching? The morning show at the moment.
00:31:11
Speaker
There are many shows that I loved and I think one of them is The Boys. The Boys, yeah.
00:31:20
Speaker
I'm a bit ashamed of that because it's a great choice. It's a really great, great show. Cool. Off the hot seat. And now a question I'm really curious about is, you know, you're working in accessibility with gaming and I'm curious from your perspective is for what you do, what skillset would you say do you tap into the most?
Skills Required for Accessibility Work
00:31:43
Speaker
Is it something like project management? Is it something like development?
00:31:47
Speaker
If you were to go back to school, what would you be studying to get to where you are? That's a great question, actually. Obviously, if you're a technical person, it's easier to talk with other technical persons. If you have knowledge in game design, if you have knowledge in UI design and so on, it's really easier. It makes it easier for understanding the perspective of the person you're talking to. But I think
00:32:16
Speaker
One of the less understood aspects of accessibility is that it requires a lot of diplomacy and psychology because you are talking to human beings who have put a lot of hard work into what they have done and you come to tell them that maybe it was that good.
00:32:33
Speaker
At least not as good at the thought first. And sometimes you have really negative reactions when you come and saying, well, this was not good. This was problematic for some people. And it's hard to not feel bad about it when you're on the receiving end of such a judgment. So what we try to explain is that we're not here to judge or to punish or whatever.
00:33:03
Speaker
We are trying to help, actually. We are trying to help and make a better product, a product that is enjoyed by more people. So let's go together on that. And I think it's a skill that is not understood by everyone. And why not? I will work on that more. Psychology. Yeah. Diplomacy. Diplomacy, psychology, love it. Tim?
00:33:29
Speaker
Yeah, if I were to go back to my study years, so I did study psychology, but I would want to study like, I did only one year, so that's something I would like to
00:33:46
Speaker
I would have liked to study more, more in depth. And obviously the technical side of games, maybe. I'm not technical at all. It's not my job. It's not what I do. But I feel that in, and that's why Olivier is here with me. But I feel that in some discussions, it would be a real, like it would benefit
00:34:13
Speaker
me of having a more technical background, I'd say.
Highlighting Studios Excelling in Accessibility
00:34:22
Speaker
I have a kind of a two point part question here. Um, the first one is going to be if you were to pick a studio that you think is doing accessibility, right? Kind of, Hey, these are like the poster child for all these features. And if you're just a user or a player and maybe you don't have an accessibility, is there something that you would recommend or say, Hey, try out this feature. It might make your quality of life better. Something that maybe people don't know exists.
00:34:50
Speaker
I would say that in my mind, there are two companies that do really, really interesting things. They're not the only ones, but the ones I think of first is Nochi Dog, who has done a really, really
00:35:04
Speaker
great job on their games. And it's interesting because they have made progress over time. They started with baby steps, with Uncharted. And initially, they had feedback from a player, a fan of their games of Uncharted, who say, I love the game, but at the end of Uncharted, I just could not play because I couldn't pass the QTE.
00:35:31
Speaker
which required button mashing, and I can't do that. I solved every other mystery, every other puzzle in the game, but not this one, I couldn't. And it really started something at Naughty Dog, and it's really the beginning of their story. And now they are one of the most advanced studios in Israel. And the other company I like too is Ubisoft.
00:35:57
Speaker
because Ubisoft has really tackled that as a part of the company culture. And that's the work of David Dissron in Canada. And a really, really great example of what you can do at the scale of a group like Ubisoft, which is strong with, I think it's 17,000 people. So it's huge. And he managed to do that almost single-handedly. And that's quite fit.
00:36:24
Speaker
So, yeah. Yeah. I've heard Avatar has quite a number of great accessibility features. Avatar and Assassin's Creed, every Assassin's Creed and Prince of Persia. Every title that goes out of UV stuff currently is really great. Accessibility wise. Awesome. And yeah, I've heard the same thing about Naughty Dog. I heard someone say The Last of Us 2 is one of the top accessible games of all time. Absolutely. Yeah. It's really a long mark. Yeah. Yeah. Tim, similar answer or you want to?
00:36:52
Speaker
Yeah, so my answer is going to be a bit boring but obviously for the poster studio it's going to be Ubisoft and obviously it's a good and bad example because what they've done is integrate the accessibility as the culture of the company is amazing.
00:37:11
Speaker
A bad example because it's a huge studio and they have really big budgets. But that's not the reason. There's loads of big studios and they haven't done half of what Ubisoft has done. So Ubisoft obviously.
00:37:28
Speaker
And an accessibility feature, it's going to be very boring, but it's what basically saved my grandfather's gaming experience. It's being able to increase the size of the font in the game and let him read what the game was telling him. Essentially, it's really right. Yeah. That's a good choice. I know.
00:37:57
Speaker
I use those features for any show I'm watching these days. I turn on subtitles and I tell my wife I'm getting old, I just want subtitles, but it's so loud, these medias these days, and the vocals are so low. It's just like, how am I supposed to hear this if I don't have supersonic hearing here?
Origins of Global Accessibility Awareness Day
00:38:16
Speaker
I really loved today's conversation. There's a lot of good information here about accessibility. I appreciate Tim and Olivia, you coming out here. Before we do end today, though, I'd love for you to kind of talk through for our audience what global accessibility global accessibility awareness day is and why it's important. So
00:38:32
Speaker
Would you mind just kind of giving us a rundown on what the purpose of the day is? Yeah, it started 13 years ago. And the initial point was the observation that so many people that are just not aware of digital accessibility at all. Most people know about accessibility at large in physical world, like, you know, the ramps for the wheelchairs and, you know, the braids, the prints and so on.
00:39:00
Speaker
But when it comes to digital accessibility, it's less common knowledge. And many people are still not aware that blind people can use computers and smartphones on a daily basis and for everything in life, actually. Or people who are deaf really benefit from simple technology like captions and sign language video and so on.
00:39:28
Speaker
So from this standpoint, it's actually two people who study that. It's George Evan and Janice and Ashwin Chen. And they started this global day in order to help raise awareness and tell more and more people what it is about. And so there are some kinds of challenges, like you spend the day without your mouse.
00:39:52
Speaker
You work without your mouse using just a keyboard just to kind of feel what it is and see what are the features that are useful for you or can be a barrier if you can't use a mouse.
00:40:09
Speaker
And so that's this kind of challenges and events everywhere in the world, companies and communities and groups and so on. And it's really about trying to push the conversation forward and make more and more people engage in that and aware of that. So that's things are up and we make progress on every front. That does the idea. Awesome. Remaining the adder.
Raising Awareness & Closing Remarks
00:40:39
Speaker
Yeah. So the thing is 50% of the population basically is going to live with one or more disabilities in their lives. That's huge. And there's still a lack of knowledge where people, so as you just said, people know that there are realms for people in wheelchairs, for example, but do they know that 80% of disabilities are invisible? I don't know. I don't think so.
00:41:10
Speaker
And yeah, in the end, we always make better games, but it applies to everything. We make better things with diverse people and diversity in global. So yeah, it's about telling people that there are differences, they exist, and that we can make better things when we involve them in the process.
00:41:39
Speaker
Awesome. Well, thank you, Tim and Olivier for coming out today, educating us about accessibility, letting us know what's out there, teaching us about global accessibility awareness. Is there anything that you would like to share with our audience? Let us know where we can find you just so we have information.
00:41:57
Speaker
Yeah, so thanks a lot, Greg. Thanks a lot, Greg, for the time and the questions. It was a great moment. And yeah, people can find us on the internet, gamesaccessibilityhub.com or on LinkedIn. We're always happy to chat with everyone. Yeah.
00:42:17
Speaker
Yeah, if you are someone who is interested in accessibility, maybe you're a player of disabilities, you can talk to us, we can see if we can maybe have gigs for you. If you're a professional, you want to be more educated about it, or you want to work with us about accessibility. Yeah, let's talk.
00:42:39
Speaker
Tim, Olivier, thank you again for coming out today. It's Friday afternoon for you guys, so I hope you have a smooth sailing into the weekend. And everyone listening, thank you for checking it out. We'll make sure that on May 16th, check out Global Accessibility Awareness Day, check out Game Accessibility Hub at gamesaccessibilityhub.com. We'll have all our link and information on our Player Engage website as well as our social. So again, thank you so much for coming out today. I hope you guys have a great rest of your week.