Future Design of Accessibility in Games : A Design Vocabulary

Games represent one of the most significant cultural artefacts of this century. They are a massive force in economies around the world and are enjoyed by millions of players worldwide. With their cultural significance firmly in place, it is important to ensure that all people can participate in and play games in order to feel included in our wider society. For people with disabilities, games in particular provide a cultural outlet where they can be included with everyone else, and enabled to do things on an even footing with their non-disabled peers. However, this only happens if we create the necessary design environments that provide inclusive opportunities to game alongside the rest of the player base. Guidelines have been successful in raising awareness of accessibility in games and still function well for evaluating finished games. However, they are not the generative design thinking tools that developers need. Further in being divided to address specific disabilities, they are not capturing the diversity of needs of players with disabilities and the personalised and idiosyncratic adaptations that they make in order to play. We therefore propose developing a vocabulary and language of game accessibility which is no longer about whether someone can perceive or operate an interactive technology, but instead as to whether they can have the experience they want to have. We propose the structure for such a vocabulary showing that it needs to distinguish between access to controls, enablement to meet the challenges of the game and the player experience itself. We show how the intermediate-level knowledge embodied in guidelines can be reformulated in this way to be more generative and so support designers to develop games that deliver accessible player experiences

Monitor Energy Markets 2007 - Analysis of developments on the Dutch wholesale markets for gas and electricity

The Dutch wholesale markets for energy are still impeded by various bottlenecks, as a result of which the costs for energy consumers are higher than they should be in well-functioning markets. Simply making more efficient use of the import infrastructure could save energy consumers several tens of millions of euros. The bottlenecks occur primarily in the gas market, where various impediments are impeding the quicker introduction of competition.Monitoring, electricity, gas, competition, infrastructure

The Play Experiences of Disabled Players : Dealing with accessibility barriers and solutions

This thesis examines the play experiences of disabled players, the different barriers they encounter, and solutions to alleviate said barriers. As the game industry is slowly transforming to a more inclusive mindset at large, the thesis intends to discover whether the experiences of disabled players correlate with this change. It seeks to find out if disabled players still encounter barriers and exclusion while playing and if there has occurred an evolution in game accessibility or accessible game design to tackle these issues. An extensive online qualitative survey was wielded to produce rich data from which the appearing outcomes were drawn. The survey reached globally 95 participants with various disabilities and playing experiences. The data was analyzed by comparing quantitative statistics as well as by thematic analysis through coding and dubbing these into two distinct theme sets – one to evaluate the barriers and another to examine strategies to overcome barriers. The findings indicate that disabled players constitute a diverse and passionate segment of the player community. Despite the existence of structural barriers within commercial games, disabled players adopted various strategies to engage in their gaming activities. In addition, this thesis reveals a recent improvement in game accessibility, with disabled players showing proficiency in utilising available accessibility settings. Many also resorted to software and hardware solutions to address built-in accessibility challenges. Nevertheless, persistent accessibility obstacles persist, primarily arising from game mechanics, hardware compatibility issues, and toxic multiplayer environments. Notably, the latter had a significant impact on respondents, hindering their ability to participate in multiplayer gaming

A Way to a Universal VR Accessibility Toolkit

Virtual Reality (VR) has become more and more popular with dropping prices for systems and a growing number of users. However, the issue of accessibility in VR has been hardly addressed so far and no uniform approach or standard exists at this time. In this position paper, we propose a customisable toolkit implemented at the system-level and discuss the potential benefits of this approach and challenges that will need to be overcome for a successful implementation

"Lend Me a Hand" – Extending the Reach of Seated VR Players in Unmodified Games Through Remote Co-Piloting

Playing virtual reality (VR) games while seated can be challenging because many games are designed for a mobile, standing player. Sitting down not only limits mobility but also the reach of the player. This is particularly problematic if the player does not have a choice in whether they play seated or standing because it then becomes an accessibility issue. We have taken the concept of co-piloting (controls shared across multiple input devices and players) and applied it to VR with the aim of extending the reach of the VR player. To demonstrate the feasibility of the concept, a software prototype was developed that allowed a second, remote, player to take over the VR player’s controllers and help them reach out. Because the prototype manipulates the SteamVR middleware and not the game, it can be used with any application that runs on SteamVR. A small formative study was conducted to inform further research and proof the concept

Choosing to see: designing accessible video games for visually impaired players

As players when thinking of playing video games some memories come to mind, and those images and memories involve people playing around a screen, something very normal when performing such action. But what happens to those that can’t see properly? Or those that can see at all? How can they play? The word video game already includes “video” on it, something that involves the use of the sight. And in their origin video games were something that was created having in mind that the players would be able to use the visual feedback as a way to interact with the game itself. But technology and science have evolved in the last 50 years and nowadays it is possible for a completely blind player to play and finish a 30 h long video game. Of course this is not the case for the great majority of video games. Most video games developed in the last 20 years have little to no accessibility options, and even the ones that are currently released by big companies and studios rarely meet the expectations. Living in the 21st century in an advanced and technologic world where even VR games can be played at home, not having proper Accessibility options for the players seems wrong. As developers Accessibility is something that should be taken into account in each game and project worked on from now on. The objective of this paper is not to expose or criticize video game studios in the industry but quite the opposite. The goal of this paper is to inform and educate others and myself on a topic that must concern every developer and that should be something to take into account from the beginning of the development, how to make a video game more accessible for all players, especially for players with visual disabilitie

Competition on European energy markets: between policy ambitions and practical restrictions

This Document describes the background and the rationale of the European Union for pursuing liberalised energy markets, explains why this policy goal is not achieved yet, and discusses recent developments and some of the future challenges faced by political decision makers. Read also the accompanying press release .Five years after launching the process of electricity liberalisation, dominance of large utilities, lack of international transmission capacity, and national energy policies hinder the creation of competitive energy markets in Europe. Consequently, the expected downward convergence of electricity prices for EU business and EU consumers has only partly been realised. Established utility companies still have a strong position on some national electricity markets. By means of (inter)national mergers, they increase their market shares at the European level. As a consequence, the price of electricity remains at a higher level than the costs of generating the electricity. In addition, producers lack strong incentives to decrease costs and to develop new techniques of generation owing to missing fierce competitive market forces. The document shows that liberalising electricity markets increases competition provided that adequate institutional arrangements have been made. This requires, in general terms, combating dominant positions of producers by splitting up large established utility companies and implementing adequate surveillance on mergers, increasing capacities of interconnectors among the several member states, establishing spot markets at an international level, and encouraging encouraging transparency of national policies regarding production, transmission and trade.

Communicating the Past in the Digital Age: Proceedings of the International Conference on Digital Methods in Teaching and Learning in Archaeology (12-13 October 2018)

Recent developments in the field of archaeology are not only progressing archaeological fieldwork but also changing the way we practise and present archaeology today. As these digital technologies are being used more and more every day on excavations or in museums, this also means that we must change the way we approach teaching and communicating archaeology as a discipline. This volume presents the outcome of a two-day international symposium on digital methods in teaching and learning in archaeology held at the University of Cologne in October 2018. Specialists from around the world share their views on the newest developments in the field of archaeology and the way we teach these with the help of archaeogaming, augmented and virtual reality, 3D reconstruction and many more