Computer Game Accessibility

As the casual games market starts building steam, accessibility is becoming more and more of an issue as the target audience for the AAA developers grows out of a niche market. Recently, Gamasutra published an article on game law that deals with accessibility in games entitled Game Law: Everybody Conga.

In particular, it notes two laws that come into play for game developers. The first is about when game developers must pay attention to accessibility concerns:

So, if there is any potential government sale of your game or technology in your business model, you had better pay attention to making it universally accessible. Section 508 of the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 requires accessibility on all electronic media sold to the government.

The second is about when game developers can benefit from voluntarily adding accessibility controls to their games. Apparently, there's a tax credit of up to $5K to add, say, closed captioning, to your casual games.

For more information, there is also a game accessibility web site.