[games_access] Car cup holders and Game Accessibility (!)

[Dimitris Grammenos]

Not so many years ago, most cars - especially in Europe - did not have cup
holders. This was mainly due to the fact that cars were built by engineers,
and engineers "knew" very well what people were looking for when buying a
car: speed, low consumption, passenger safety, low noise levels, large
baggage spaces, alloy wheels, etc. Who would care about a cup holder in a
car?

 

To their great surprise, at some point in time, car companies kept getting
reports by car retailers with a recurring pattern: in practice, car buying
decisions were heavily influenced by cup holders! And not just their
existence. People would be concerned about their number, location, size and
ergonomics. As a result, at present, it is very hard to find a car without
one, while most of cars have much more than you'd expect (even hidden,
folding ones).

 

To some extent, I think that the case of game accessibility shares some
common ground with that of cup holders. Game developers / companies believe
that they know all about what gamers want and what affects their buying
decisions and - currently for most of them game accessibility is not in
their list. On the other hand, there are also several (potential) gamers out
there that are not aware either that there are games which are (more)
accessible to them, or even that accessibility is an option. 

 

Thus, what I believe that we need to (metaphorically) do is three-fold:

(a)    Inform people that it is technically and financially possible to have
cup holders in cars;

(b)   Help towards making cars that do have cup holders to stand out from
the rest, so that people can easily spot them;

(c)    Advise potential buyers to ask about cup holders when looking for a
car.

 

Cheers!

 

Dimitris

 

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