Q.


With accessibility announcements happening earlier in the PR cycle, has the penny finally dropped that accessibility features can help a game gain traction in an age where visibility is a perennial problem?


Cari Watterton: I’d certainly like to think so. Prince of Persia’s announcement is an excellent example and caused a lot of attention. We’re seeing similar situations where developers are keen to highlight the accessibility features they have implemented, like Mortal Kombat’s “Kombat Kast” and their work with audio descriptions and accessibility options. As well as this, we are seeing accessibility achievements  accessibility categories as well as its own dedicated event, the GAConf Awards. Global Game Jam 2024 also had an accessibility  which was just about listing the accessibility features on the submission page. The point behind this being that if we are transparent about what accessibility features are available in a game, it reassures players and helps them make informed purchases.


“If we are transparent about what accessibility features are available in a game, it


reassures players and helps them make informed


purchases” Cari Watterton


One of the most accessible fighting games ever April/May 2024 MCV/DEVELOP | 21


Ian Hamilton: Prince of Persia is a great example of this, for a couple of reasons. The info was provided seven months before release, alongside the initial announcement of the game, and then updated later in development too. This  get in on the hype and feel equally valued as players - it’s hard to justify paying to pre-order when you don’t yet know whether you’ll even be able to play. But also it generated a really substantial amount of coverage throughout the mainstream press, particularly for the memory shards feature (allowing you to pin screenshots   it’s a nice example of how accessibility can lead to innovation for all players, and in turn generate valuable media coverage.


SightlessKombat: I personally don’t think accessibility is being used as that kind of


marketing tool, it’s just being used to allow more players to play rather than to increase sales. Of course, if you do increase the amount of accessibility features, you are going to have that happen as a result (look at The Last Of Us Part II, Brok The InvestiGator and God Of War Ragnarok as examples).


Laura Dale: I think that to some degree, over the past four years or so since the release of The Last of Us: Part 2, studios have been slowly warming to the idea that accessibility settings can be a positive marketing beat for their games, but have been reluctant to discuss those features earlier than necessary. From conversations I’ve had with developers there’s two reasons for this; PR often wants an easy marketing win near release day, coupled with caution about promising features which may not materialise. Those of us working in the games industry obviously understand that game development is a long and complex process, with features getting delayed, not working as intended, or being cut during development not uncommon. In part, some of the larger publishers I have spoken with worry that announcing accessibility features early like Prince of Persia did could come back to bite them if any discussed features run into development issues. The other aspect is that, often, PR teams want to be able to get people excited about a game closer to when they can commit to a purchase, leading to holding back accessibility information as a later stage marketing beat. I think a lot of these worries are unfounded. I think disabled players will understand if you have to walk back a discussed feature, and I think that telling disabled players early whether or not they will be likely able to play your game does  information held back, but convincing devs of that takes time.


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