Game Accessibility and Advocacy for Participation of the Japanese Disability Community

Abstract

In this paper we examine the recent situation of advocacy through game accessibility of video games for people with physical disabilities and its challenges in Japan. We conducted an email survey among the dominant gaming companies in Japan. We discovered that most gaming companies developing games for those with disabilities have actually attempted to provide some consideration to people with disabilities through setting additional special functions such as “easy mode” and “support for visual disabilities”. One out of five companies could be categorized as having successfully developed games based on the concept of specialized assistive technology, and the remaining companies could be categorized as having developed games for disabilities based on the concept of barrier-reducing goods. We also found out that the major Japanese gaming corporations had a tendency not to be active in communicating with the disability communities. Our results might indicate that stronger interaction with the gaming companies is one direct way to enhance further development of games for people with disabilities. In addition to that, considering that games are a significant form of social participation for people with disabilities, more social understanding is required in the Japanese domestic context.