Catch the free video game accessibility conference

If you make games, or are interested in the making of games, you might fancy dropping in on GAconf Europe this week. Running today and tomorrow, it’s a free online conference for developers, with 20-odd sessions discussing accessibility issues. Talks from devs, players, and other experts touch on many forms of accessibility problems and how games can approach them, with topics ranging from “accessibility in first person games” to “integrating accessibility into team culture”.

With the overall goal of “advancing accessibility for gamers with disabilities”, GAconf Europe started at 10 this morning. lake the schedule for the full list of talks and sessions coming. A lot of interesting stuff. While it’s clearly meant for devs, it’s an interesting and important topic for many more people.

You can register on Eventbrite to join the conference through Zoom, or without registering can join onYouTube (which has a rolling archive you can scrub back through). Seeing as the conference is running on UK time, that YouTube stream is probably the way for most folks.

I’m particularly interested in today’s Make it a Pillar: Prioritizing Accessibility in the AAA Market from the lead designer of Forza Horizon 5, a game whose efforts won recognition from the 2021 Video Game Accessibility Awards. I’m making a note about Tuesday’s panel on low-vision gaming too.

The conference is hosted by the Game Accessibility special interest group of the International Game Developers Association.

You might also be interested in reading Geoffrey Bunting’s recent post for us, on how making Souls games accessible isn’t the same as making them easy.