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Steam will soon list what accessibility features games support on store pages
(www.gamingonlinux.com)
This would be an absolute win. Gaming is the only form of media where skill or ability can act as a hard gate towards the rest of the media.
If you purchase a movie, you get to watch the movie. You can pause it, rewind it, etc, and view it at your own pace. Maybe you have a disability that makes processing spoken words difficult, so you turn on captions. You can still enjoy the movie as intended. Or maybe you have issues with focus, and need regular breaks. You can pause the movie and come back to it later. You can still enjoy the movie as intended.
But now let’s say you purchase a game. Maybe you have a disability that changes how you’re able to use a controller; you’re only able to push one or two buttons simultaneously, or use one analog stick at a time. Many games will simply lock you out of 99% of the game, and you’ll never get to experience the rest of the plot (without resorting to watching a Let’s Play.) You’ll never get to actually enjoy the media you purchased, because your disability stops you from progressing. And considering the fact that many players use gaming as a form of escapism, it’s downright cruel to constantly remind a player that they’re disabled by locking them out of content due to their disability.
I say this because every time the topic comes up, there’s always some “just git gud” soulslike thudfuck in the comments, crying about how accessibility will ruin their favorite games by making them too easy. But all they’re really doing is admitting that if a godmode or boss-skip feature exists, they wouldn’t be able to stop themselves from using it.