Let's Do More, Let's to Better

Prologue: A Little Social Experiment

Ok, we're going to play a quick word association game. I'll leave a word for you to read, and I want you to hold tight to the first VISUAL CUE that pops in your mind in response. For example, if I say "fruit," and you picture an apple, you'd keep that appple in mind for discussion. Ready? Scroll down to the word, then scroll some more to get to the rest of this newest rant of mine. As you read, remember what popped into your head, though, ok? It's going to matter in a while, I promise. 

ACCESSIBILITY

Main Post

First, a little vocab/slang lesson: "Git gud" is a phrase in the gaming community to indicate becoming/getting better at a game. As the Dictionary.com definition elaborates, it is often said to people in online forums who may be experiencing difficulty with a game and (arguably making the mistake of) soliciting tips from their brethren. In the worst cases, it's flung as an elitist, intentional insult at these people looking for help, and often paired with the noun "casual," meant to imply they don't really care about or play games much, as in, "Git gud, you f***ing casual, and gtf outta here with that blubbering!" The implication with all of this is that the person struggling with the game either isn't trying hard enough/ is looking for a shortcut, don't deserve any help, since they only play games "casually," not serious like these real gamers, and/or isn't good enough at video games to warrant any consideration (or even to play the game in question). 

I'm trying to finish Bloodborne for the first time, and I almost gave up yesterday. I was stuck on a boss fight in the DLC (extra stuff you can download, sort of like an epilogue), the last one of the DLC, in fact. My boyfriend assures me that since this is the last DLC boss, and the next two bosses are the last two of the official, original game, they'll be easier. But given the slog I've gone through to get to this asshole and how GODDAMNED FLUSTERED I got with a few of the other bosses, especially the DLC ones, the idea of having nothing but bosses left really deflates me. A lot. I've loved the game so far, for the most part- it's gothic/Lovecraftian (with a little H.G. Wells, imo) horror at its finest, and five years later, the graphics and sound design are still uncannily beautiful. Boss fights I did enjoy, I was elated every time I was victorious. But I only beat the boss before this one because she glitched and somehow got stuck in a wall, and if I'm honest, I didn't feel as disappointed with this outcome as I wished I had- part of me wished I'd noticed the glitch in time and had beat her outright, but I was mostly relieved I didn't have to try anymore. And that flies in stark contrast to this "git gud" culture- I didn't earn that victory, after all. But the boss before her? I wasn't happy when I beat him, I was relieved. Relieved it was finally frakking over with him. So this one I just finally beat yesterday? I had to have tried close to 100 times, based on the number of consumables I went through. And when I finally did win, I was numb, unexcited, and attributed it more to luck than anything else (a similar feeling I had two bosses ago). And like I said, the trouble is, now that I'm finished the most recent, all that's left is two more main game bosses. And the idea of more boss fights, more dying to the exact same dude over and over and over again is just flat-unappealing to me. "Sense of accomplishment" be damned. I'm centimeters away from having none of that so much as just strait-up solace that I'm finally fucking done.

For the uninitiated, Bloodborne is by From Software, whose games are notoriously brutal- not just in the gore, but in their difficulty. In fact, there isn't even a difficulty setting in their games- you just start and that's that. So I'm certainly not the first person that had a hard time getting through this or any of their other titles. And I don't think it's a coincidence that if you Google Image Search "git gud," roughly half of the images/memes, from what I can tell, feature various characters/images from their main series, Dark Souls. (Same if you look for "git gud meme," too.) The image I linked to in the above paragraph features two, and if you can't read it, the post at the bottom of the clipboard is an actual tweet from PCGamer, where they posted a link to this article here, which is about beating the final boss in From Software's newest title using a modification to actually slow the game itself down- and being unashamed of the fact.

This game in question, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice led to a lot of debate in the gaming world over "gitting gud." It started, arguably, with this piece by Dave Thier, calling for an easy mode because, basically, a game's difficulty is only one part of its experience, and by making a game, any game, so difficult that only "serious" and/or "talented" gamers could get through it excludes a huge portion of people from enjoying the rest of what the game has to offer. Remember how I said Bloodborne had a great setting, sound design, etc.? That stuff. The story, us N00bs and "casuals" would miss out on stuff like that. Thier's colleague Erik Kain wrote his own, direct rebuttal of Thier's article the next day. A big part of his argument is that the creators at From Software want to teach players about overcoming obstacles and triumphing in the face of adversity. That the sense of accomplishment after beating a boss on the umpteenth try is an integral part of the games themselves, so it absolutely cannot be removed. And while there were lots of pieces on Thier's side and others on Kain's, FromSoftware kept pretty quiet about the whole thing. 

Given what I've said about Bloodborne, you can probably guess where I fall. I'm kind of bitter that these "great" games are pretty much out of my reach because I'm not "gud" enough to play them, no matter how long I play and how hard I try. How much I've struggled to get through Bloodborne has made me earnestly reassess if I should play a few other games, games I watched my boyfriend play parts of that had me on the edge of my seat because the stories were so beautiful and rich, stories I wanted to experience for myself. And that makes me genuinely sad, and yeah, like I said, bitter. 

And if you've looked at those (and maybe looked at other?) articles I linked, you'll see the word "accessibility" in some more than others. And my issue is that even the Reddit post by the person with a fine motor disability assumes everyone else can learn to play difficult games without any adaptations, and by implication, any video game out there. That every person who wants to experience the world-building, character development, design, etc. has the same level of capability, and not just when it comes to how "gud" they are, but physically. That any "can't" they encounter is one of the mind, basically. Kane uses the word "anyone" four times in his essay, which is a lot, considering really isn't all that long (certainly shorter than my stuff, womp-WOMP). And I sympathize with that Reddit user and am excited they have figured out how to get around their disability. But not "everyone" and not "anyone" can, and, the truth is, a lot legitimately can't- at least, not without help. 

ANYONE GETS TO PLAY

That's the rub with this "git gud" culture- it assumes everyone is on equal footing when it comes to the capability of completing a game (and having fun at it). As that definition I linked above goes on to say, it's implicitly ableist because of this- it disregards the possibility that the individual may have a disability by assuming "git gud" is what errbody should be doin'. Plus it can be just plain rude, too. I mean, I understand sometimes it's a joke between friends, but when someone earnestly asks for help online and a stranger says something like, "Huh, I thought that boss was super easy, beat 'im on my first try, I just ran in and whomped his ass, so maybe just git gud?" is not only super showoff-ee, but also extremely dismissive. But anyway, the ableist aspect is what I'm more focused on, here.

"Git gud" isn't the only ableist rhetoric in gaming. The erroneous and unfounded diagnoses of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) and Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) were frequently thrown at the women and people of color demanding more inclusivity in video games during GamerGate, as were countless insults involving "crazy" and "batshit," and threats of violence against some of the more outspoken members of the feminist community referenced being sure not to leave the victim "too retarded to be afraid of us." And as this great article in Disability Studies Weekly points out, using mental health diagnoses and rhetoric to discredit one's opponents is nothing new in general. But it's clearly nothing new to the gaming community specifically. I'm a "crazy-ass bitch" for saying games need more POC and women leads (true story), and "anyone" can "git gud," so inclusivity and accessibility aren't actually important- people are just using people with disabilities for their oppressive and "narcissistic" agendas.

Think back to the start of this post. What image popped in your head when I flashed "ACCESSIBILITY" in front of you? I think a lot of people would picture ramps, big bathroom stalls, curb cuts, maybe even the International Symbol of Access.

Was it anything like this, though?

If not, that's ok! It's why we're here. That right there is the XBox Adaptive Controller. It is designed to interface with assistive technology the user may already have (or can conveniently also purchase from Microsoft, 'natch!) in order to help people with physical/mobile disabilities play video games more easily. 

You see, accessibility in gaming goes so. Much. Farther. Than just difficulty level. It has to do with sound, with color, with text, with how the controls themselves work, with core aspects of functionality and gameplay in a lot of instances. Adaptive controllers can do wonders for helping people that cannot hold a standard controller correctly or (or use it efficiently or for very long as-is) play the same games as everyone else. Importantly, stuff like this isn't just beneficial for people with severe conditions that lead to paraplegia - I've had a few friends with various and severe conditions like chron's disease, different forms of arthritis, and other conditions that can lead to joint pain, fatigue, and nausea. Adaptive tech like this could help them play more games, and for longer stints. Adaptive tech can also help blind people play games, as well.

Which brings me to the highly anticipated The Last of Us Part II. CNet reported a few days ago that it is going to include massive accessibility customization, over sixty different in-game settings players can customize in order to accommodate a range of disabilities- visual, aural, mobile, and whatever combination present- so options go beyond just increasing subtitle size and changing the contrast, but completely altering what the buttons on the control do and which ones are even required. Players can choose from a handful of preset mods, then go into those and tweak them to tailor the game even closer to their needs. All of this will make Last of us II the most accessible game ever. 

For real, tho

This isn't the first time game studio Naughty Dog stepped up and made an exceptionally accessible game. As the story goes, one of their developers met Josh Straub, a game lover and game accessibility consultant with Cerebral Palsy, at a conference. At the event, he told this developer, Alexandria Neonakis, that while he loved the Uncharted series, he had been unable to finish Uncharted 2 because of a QuickTime sequence toward the end where button mashing was necessary to progress, but his CP made it impossible for him to do so. The experience of being unable to finish that game without help from an able-bodied friend led him to start his website where he and a colleague review games with a heavy emphasis on accessibility in mind. Telling Neonakis about it led to him being a consultant for Naughty Dog and, ultimately, one of the first AAA games to include an accessibility menu at all in 2016's Uncharted 4: A Thief's End (the honor of first goes to 2014's Destiny). 

And game developer behemoth Electronic Arts (EA) is dedicated to improving accessibility in its games, having gone so far as to create a position called "Accessibility Lead" in the company hierarchy itself. And what started as just a portal to provide accessibility feedback has led to an entire information warehouse, discussion board home, and troubleshooting community on their website. 

So this is great. A few steps forward for inclusivity and accessibility in video games.

But what sucks is it's taken this long for it to happen, and Naughty Dog's extensive accessibility menu shouldn't be unique or special, but the norm. And as awesome as it is for them and EA to go to such great lengths, not enough studios are doing so. Not enough games have options to change or get rid of QuickTime events like the one preventing Straub from finishing a game he had loved up until that moment. Not enough games have ways to change how the controller is used to accommodate mobility issues. Not enough games have ways to modify gameplay/combat in order to require less fine motor dexterity or allow for one-handed control use. And far too many games wait until months (or even years) after the original release to patch in mods as simple (and dare I say obvious?) as subtitle size changes, options that should be available from the start. 

Limited options, ironclad gameplay, minimal changes to controller configurations- stuff like this leads to people with disabilities either not playing, or having an experience much like Straub's, where they encounter a game mechanic/sequence they can't get past because its demands are outside the scope of their range of capability- and they have to quit. If you've ever rage quit a game because it was too difficult and don't have a disability, imagine how crappy people with disabilities feel when a game they were enjoying suddenly does a thing or has a sequence they just can't get past. 

Now THAT'S what I call a 
"SCREENSHOT'

Imagine knowing you can't even try a video game you were looking forward to because you're aware you won't be able to finish it.

So when talking about making an "easy" mode for a game, it isn't just about difficulty per se. If it can make gameplay less physically demanding on a player, more (not every, of course) people with disabilities may be able to give it a feasible try. Add to that the need for more adaptive hardware, and the issue becomes even more frustrating.  

So let's circle back to that XBox controller. Did you look at that price? Or the price of the accessories that go with? This is another huge problem: The lack of industry development revolving around accessibility means officially-licensed products are prohibitively expensive- and as of now, that XBox controller is the only one, although some ingenious people figured out how to make it work on the Nintendo Switch. And tools that aren't licensed (so, y'know, literally everything else) are entirely custom-made by individuals with disabilities themselves, those that care about them (as this article elucidates), or charity organizations specializing in making adaptive controllers and setups- so, again, pretty damn expensive. In other words, access to these accessibility tools is, ironically, extremely limited. 

And this is something that really needs to be worked on, too. Mods and settings in-game can only go so far to help people with severe enough physical disabilities play video games, and why should they be excluded from enjoying the same stories as "anyone" else? Adaptive and assistive technology is absolutely paramount to increased accessibility in video games. 

The good news is, Josh Straub isn't the only disability consultant out there specifically working with video game developers. One of the other most influential consultants is Ian Hamilton, who apparently got started after seeing kids playing a game he had been working on using adaptive/assistive technology, and now he has become a huge name in the industry. And these free-to-use Game Accessibility Guidelines are up and available for any developer to reference as they design their games. 

And as mentioned before, there are charities that offer adaptive and assistive technologies. AbleGamers is an American group that even has grants to help gamers pay for equipment; Special Effect is a UK-based charity that does the same. And there are lots of different reviewers focused on accessibility. Straub's website is focused on physical disability and console gaming; this gentleman, also with CP, focuses more on PC games and has just started consulting. Brandon Cole plays and reviews games (his current method of choice is PS4) as a blind player, and has also done lots of consulting (including with powerhouse Ubisoft), and he also co-founded a great site to help bring gamers with disabilities and their allies together. 

I do want to clarify something, here. I'm not saying me being a mediocre gamer is the same as having a disability and needing accommodations. (And like, come on, really? If you think that, you really need to read more of this blog because we obviously don't know each other in person and thus you have no idea who I am and what I'm like.) But what I am saying is creating more accessibility in games will allow far more people, disabled or not, enjoy them. And honestly, if nothing else, all that will do is increase profit margins for developers and studios, so aside from the humanistic perspective, there's the capitalist angle, too!

What can you do? Well, donate to those charities and anybody trying to freelance as a consultant or disabled game reviewer, for one. Also, be vocal, be it in person or online. If you see a feature in a game that would be great for someone with a particular disability, let the studio know! If you see something that wouldn't, let them know that, too. If you're a gamer and talking about development with a friend or group of friends, bring up accessibility. Educate them. And just...