INTERVIEW WITH STEVEN SPOHN OF ABLEGAMERS

STEVEN SPOHN IS THE CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER AND director of peer support at AbleGamers, a world-renowned charity that aims to improve access to video games for people with disabilities. He is also an advocate, streamer, and influencer. In February 2021, I had a call with Steve using Google Meet, which, as an aside about accessibility, has a top-end live subtitles feature. Besides being one of the most influential people in gaming culture, Steven knows more than most about the current state of accessibility in gaming. The following is an edited version of that interview.

QUESTION: Have you noticed a shift in attention toward issues of accessibility and disability in gaming culture? If so, what have you noticed?

STEVEN: Fifteen years ago, when I joined up with Mark Barlet and his vision for AbleGamers, we went to GDC (the Game Developers Conference) and asked people a one-question interview: “Have you ever considered people with disabilities?” We got a resounding bunch of no’s, a couple of yeses, and one person who laughed at us and walked away. So things have changed a lot in a lot of ways. We used to have run-ins with companies like Blizzard where they weren’t super happy with how we were representing their brand (when we had their logo next to the word “accessibility”). But now they’re probably one of our best friends in the industry, because they’re actually trying to make changes. Things have definitely changed from a developer standpoint. Things have also changed from a journalism standpoint. I used to have to get very friendly with editors and show them the reasons why they should care about accessibility (often using myself as a guiding star, like saying, “Hey, I couldn’t play this game, but now I can! You should really cover that because it’s cool!”). Now journalists understand the general need for improved accessibility for the forty-six-million-plus people with disabilities in America alone without me having to lean on my personal experience.

QUESTION: How would you evaluate typical game players’ knowledge of disability and accessibility subjects?

STEVEN: Poor, generally speaking. It wasn’t that long ago when things were much worse. It’s complex: yes, things are getting better by leaps and bounds in some ways but not necessarily in others. The average player didn’t necessarily grow up around people with disabilities. It really took a change in the general game industry for knowledge of accessibility issues to start getting out there. We really are at the point where we’re just starting to learn how to deal with a disability as an inclusive part of our culture rather than this subset of people that exists parallel to “regular” culture. So when I say “poor” it’s not an insult to them or their intelligence, it’s that society, in general, has done a really great job of keeping people with disabilities in the shadows. But there are quite a few of us now trying to shine as brightly as possible to change that situation. Once people have gotten to see what it’s like to be disabled, make friends with disabled people, and understand where they’re coming from, then able-bodied gamers will be more likely to understand the challenges disabled players face.

QUESTION: Are you optimistic about the future of accessibility in gaming? Is there anything you would feel cautious about for the future?

STEVEN: I am optimistic because I have seen things change. When AbleGamers started fifteen years ago we barely had three or four accessibility devices, and they were mostly very rudimentary mom-and-pop, MacGyver-style devices made out of parts of other controllers that were affecting someone’s ability to play a video game. Now we have dozens of different options! We have adapters, we have controllers, we have buttons, and we have large companies like Microsoft or Logitech who have come to us to ask, “Hey we know you’re tapped into the disability community. We want to make this device for the disability community. How do we do it right? Come consult with us.” And, when we’re working on those projects, two other groups have been working on something else! As things progress, we’re going to continue to see more and more of these big-name companies getting on board because they realize that there are forty-six million potential players with disabilities in America alone. That’s a big market: billions of potential dollars that they could be capturing. It’s a consumer-driven world. At some point, we had to make the argument that people with disabilities have money, and we want to buy stuff! In that aspect, I’m very optimistic.

At the same time, as things become more accessible, they become less accessible. I’m referring to mobile gaming: if your game only works on iOS devices, then you just locked me out, and I can’t play. But if you bring it to PC then suddenly I can play again. Also, virtual reality is something that we are all constantly thinking about right now. I can’t wait for it! But it’s not nearly accessible enough yet. We hope that the people making the assistive technology are able to keep up with the people making the cool technologies (like VR). I am somebody who is in a wheelchair and on a ventilator, and it doesn’t matter what assistive technology you make for me: I’m not going to be able to grab the wands that are needed to do virtual reality and wave them around above my head. That’s why AbleGamer’s motto has never been “make it so everyone can play every game.” Instead, we intend to bring as many games as possible to each individual, as much as they can play them.

Regarding game development, AbleGamers’ APX (the accessible player experiences program) is really taking a lot of strides toward making the industry a more accessible place. In 2020, AbleGamers trained 113 practitioners of APX which means that there are 113 developers at top-end studios who now know as much as AbleGamers for developing for people with disabilities. In fact, they took our knowledge, they applied their years of experience in developing games, and now they’re probably doing better than we are! By imparting our years of experience helping people with disabilities, and matching it together with these super-smart developers who know how to design great games, we now have 113 more people who will then go and teach other people. It starts spreading throughout the industry, and you start seeing people get excited about accessibility: “Hey that’s really cool! Disabled people aren’t yelling at us because they hate our games; instead, what they’re saying is we wish we could play your games! And if we take this APX course then we can learn how to include them in our games. Then we have more customers! And more players! And people are happy! What a good investment!” It took a while to get the industry to realize that, but, now that they do, I’m super optimistic about the future.