The Challenge and Importance of Gaming to Those With Disabilities

[G.T.Ace]

...featuring: Me!

Maurice Nieske, also known as "GTAce" here on E-mpire Forums, suffers from a rare form of spinal muscular atrophy that requires him to spend his days in his bed. Computers and video games are both his escape and his means of remaining connected with the outside world. The problem is, not all game developers and console manufacturers take gaming with a disability into consideration when designing their games and consoles. Many are now moving towards or even requiring motion control devices, which gamers like Maurice cannot enjoy due to their limited mobility.

Maurice decided to give us a little insight into what it's like gaming with a disability, so he sent us this clip.

Video: http://e-mpire.com/content.php/2125...portance-of-Gaming-to-Those-With-Disabilities

I thought some people would be interested in this, because I think I'm not the only disabled person here. Since this is a pretty important issue, I want to spread it as much as I can.

Sorry for speaking German and the overall unprofessional look of the video. First time I did something like this and I was extremely nervous.

Ironically, I was recording this with a device mainly built for motion gaming, the PSEye.

I hope for some interesting discussions and constructive feedback.

EDIT: Gran Turismo is mentioned too.

 

[killerjimbag]

Maurice a very good friend of mine was also confined to a wheel chair and bed.We went through many systems and also do to comfort and weight stayed with Sony.He was the best at NHL and Madden and we went through countless controllers.Maurice your video was great and it brought back so many memories of my friend Vic.Keep on sending out emails to developers and system makers and see if they can help you out. God bless my friend.👍

 

[Wolfe]

The fact that you've chosen to share something so deeply personal in order to present a message to the gaming community/industry is admirable. 👍

I agree with your ideas, not only with regard to players with disabilities, but also on a matter of practicality. Overall, today's games don't seem to provide as many options or ways to play as they used to, which is mildly annoying in and of itself. To be honest, I had never really considered that players with disabilities could be prevented from enjoying a game because of these design decisions, even something as basic as a lack of freely customizable buttons. I'm sorry that these trends have had such an impact on your ability to enjoy what today's consoles have to offer.

My fiancée is also disabled, and while her disorders don't confine her activities to the same extent, I can relate to at least a small part of what you go through each day, as she often requires my help with certain physical tasks. Again, what you've shared here is admirable and I wish you the best with your message and your ability to keep on playing the latest games. 👍

Weiters, es ist kein Problem, dass Sie auf Deutsch im Video gesprochen. Es gibt eine Chance, mein Deutsch zu praktizieren. Ich tu das genug nicht.

 

[Imari]

So, apart from having a controller that isn't hindered by whatever the player's specific disability is (which sort of seems like it could go either way, and there are third party controllers available for any console), the main objection is the proliferation of motion gaming?

I can agree that where possible, developers should include standard controls as well as motion. But the only game I've ever played where I needed motion control was Flower (and Nike Kinect+, but the whole point of that game is to move so it hardly counts).

Are there examples of more prominent games where not being able to use motion controls is a serious disadvantage? Or is this a pre-emptive move in the hope that Sony and MS don't start making parts of their games motion control only? Frankly, I don't see motion control being a replacement for a controller in something like a racing game, possibly ever.

I don't want to be too negative because it's obviously for the best that as many people are able to play as possible. I just wonder if you have some examples of current games and how they should be changed.

 

[Monatsende]

I`m very impressed. Good job, GTAce. Like it was your 146th video.
Very reflected and focussed. You put it straight. 👍

 

[MXH]

Very interesting, Ace. Thanks for sharing this.

I do understand your concern regarding motion controls. Although, if I were you, I woudn't worry all too much about it. Its future looks pretty bleak, at least in my opinion. And as Imari said, they will probably never replace the controllers.

 

[G.T.Ace]

Maurice a very good friend of mine was also confined to a wheel chair and bed.We went through many systems and also do to comfort and weight stayed with Sony.He was the best at NHL and Madden and we went through countless controllers.Maurice your video was great and it brought back so many memories of my friend Vic.Keep on sending out emails to developers and system makers and see if they can help you out. God bless my friend.👍

Thanks for sharing this! I hope Vic will also be able to game in the future.

The fact that you've chosen to share something so deeply personal in order to present a message to the gaming community/industry is admirable. 👍

I agree with your ideas, not only with regard to players with disabilities, but also on a matter of practicality. Overall, today's games don't seem to provide as many options or ways to play as they used to, which is mildly annoying in and of itself. To be honest, I had never really considered that players with disabilities could be prevented from enjoying a game because of these design decisions, even something as basic as a lack of freely customizable buttons. I'm sorry that these trends have had such an impact on your ability to enjoy what today's consoles have to offer.

My fiancée is also disabled, and while her disorders don't confine her activities to the same extent, I can relate to at least a small part of what you go through each day, as she often requires my help with certain physical tasks. Again, what you've shared here is admirable and I wish you the best with your message and your ability to keep on playing the latest games. 👍

Weiters, es ist kein Problem, dass Sie auf Deutsch im Video gesprochen. Es gibt eine Chance, mein Deutsch zu praktizieren. Ich tu das genug nicht.

Thank you, most people aren't aware of this. There are actually some websites focusing on this matter, but no one knows them, including myself (well, I didn't, now I kinda do). Thanks again for your kind words and keep up with the German.

So, apart from having a controller that isn't hindered by whatever the player's specific disability is (which sort of seems like it could go either way, and there are third party controllers available for any console), the main objection is the proliferation of motion gaming?

I can agree that where possible, developers should include standard controls as well as motion. But the only game I've ever played where I needed motion control was Flower (and Nike Kinect+, but the whole point of that game is to move so it hardly counts).

Are there examples of more prominent games where not being able to use motion controls is a serious disadvantage? Or is this a pre-emptive move in the hope that Sony and MS don't start making parts of their games motion control only? Frankly, I don't see motion control being a replacement for a controller in something like a racing game, possibly ever.

I don't want to be too negative because it's obviously for the best that as many people are able to play as possible. I just wonder if you have some examples of current games and how they should be changed.

Good points, but yes I can name you some.
Heavy Rain was impossible for me to play, unfortunately I forgot to mention it in my video. A friend of mine played it for me, so I could watch it like a movie. I'm not really angry at this though, the game kinda needs these controls for the immersion.

Also, most Wii games use motion controls, the whole console wasn't usable for me. The WiiU should be the same, haven't tried it so far.

But yeah, like I mentioned in the video, there weren't many games, so far, that were unplayable. Uncharted 1 and The Last of Us have mandatory motion gaming too (balancing on trees in U1 and the flashlight shaking in TLoU), but fortunately that stuff was easy to handle. Resistance: Fall of Man was a bit more exhausting, you had to shake the controller when on fie.

I know these are all Sony games, but I still think they used the best compromise. They offered motion gaming for people who cannot use a standard pad and offered normal inputs for all major games except Heavy Rain.

Kinect on Xbox One will be mandatory and they already said that some games will use gestures etc. (even Kojima announced that for MGSV on the One).

I`m very impressed. Good job, GTAce. Like it was your 146th video.
Very reflected and focussed. You put it straight. 👍

Thanks!

Very interesting, Ace. Thanks for sharing this.

I do understand your concern regarding motion controls. Although, if I were you, I woudn't worry all too much about it. Its future looks pretty bleak, at least in my opinion. And as Imari said, they will probably never replace the controllers.

We will see, Occulus Rift, while being pretty awesome, could also boost another controller-free trend.

 

[sesselpupser]

There's a charity in the UK called Remap which exists to make disability aids which aren't commercially available, some of the projects I've seen have been gaming controllers, all completely bespoke, designed and manufactured by either current or retired engineers. Does such a thing exist in Germany? I wanted to get involved with building stuff for the charity but I'm on the very bottom rung of the engineering ladder at the moment, somewhere between 'child with lego' and 'potato battery' so I don't think I'm what they're looking for in a volunteer!

 

[G.T.Ace]

Hmm, thank you for the info.
Nothing likes this exists here, or at least I don't know about it.
Charity projects and special stuff like this are rare and always hard to reach in Germany, unless you know the right people.

 

[Imari]

There's a charity in the UK called Remap which exists to make disability aids which aren't commercially available, some of the projects I've seen have been gaming controllers, all completely bespoke, designed and manufactured by either current or retired engineers. Does such a thing exist in Germany? I wanted to get involved with building stuff for the charity but I'm on the very bottom rung of the engineering ladder at the moment, somewhere between 'child with lego' and 'potato battery' so I don't think I'm what they're looking for in a volunteer!

I wonder how much it would cost to get an engineer or electrician to rewire a DS3 to remove the sixaxis accelerometers and replace them with some physical controls.

http://community.us.playstation.com...rdown-and-rebuild-tutorials-56K/td-p/19716233

If you have a look through this, the sixaxis unit seems to be a separate part connected to the board.

I can't imagine that it'd be terribly difficult to string an additional analogue stick or two to provide the inputs that the sixaxis does. Whether that proves to be an acceptable solution in gameplay, and probably there are better ways of packaging it, but I think there's some fairly simple options to be tried there.

I'm neither an electrician nor an engineer, but I suspect that if you took the time to read up on the internet and had a spare DS3 or two around that you didn't mind potentially breaking, you could even have a go yourself.

 

[sesselpupser]

Hmm, thank you for the info.
Nothing likes this exists here, or at least I don't know about it.
Charity projects and special stuff like this are rare and always hard to reach in Germany, unless you know the right people.

Yeah, I imagine it's quite a difficult thing to find, I mean I'd never heard of Remap until I spent some time Googling around for volunteer work one summer, and it turned out their HQ is in my town! It's a national charity too, so it's puzzling how they managed to stay hidden that long. I hope there is something similar nearer to you though, to get in touch with Remap you just have to phone them and usually they send someone to you as soon as there's someone free, at least that's what I gathered.


As for Imari's post: The accelerometer varies from revision to revision, in the original Sixaxis it was on a separate PCB embedded in the case between the analogue sticks (as you said), but in later revisions it has been soldered on the main board as a small BGA, another one I've seen - which was a bit bizarre - was the accelerometer on a separate tiny PCB, slotted through a tiny hole on the main PCB and then soldered.

There are a few problems with it, though; while the analogue sticks started off as potentiometers, they're now hall effect sensors which feed their signal into a separate IC which converts it back into the potentiometer signal, so that's easy, you just connect up a potentiometer at that IC's output. The accelerometer on the other hand is a serial digital device, it gives a value for the X, Y and Z axis rotation and translation (i.e. movement along the axis instead of around it) in binary along one single-ended signal wire or trace, I think; the first revision only had one signal connection beside the power and ground. Anyway, you'd have to decode that binary, work out how to get other devices to encode in the same fashion AND work out how to get them all working quickly so there's no lag. Actually that's technically just one problem, but yeah, it's complicated enough to make something that technical a no-go, unfortunately.

So yeah. Truth be told it would probably be easier to program a completely different HID controller.

 

[Imari]

There are a few problems with it, though; while the analogue sticks started off as potentiometers, they're now hall effect sensors which feed their signal into a separate IC which converts it back into the potentiometer signal, so that's easy, you just connect up a potentiometer at that IC's output. The accelerometer on the other hand is a serial digital device, it gives a value for the X, Y and Z axis rotation and translation (i.e. movement along the axis instead of around it) in binary along one single-ended signal wire or trace, I think; the first revision only had one signal connection beside the power and ground. Anyway, you'd have to decode that binary, work out how to get other devices to encode in the same fashion AND work out how to get them all working quickly so there's no lag. Actually that's technically just one problem, but yeah, it's complicated enough to make something that technical a no-go, unfortunately.

So yeah. Truth be told it would probably be easier to program a completely different HID controller.

Wow, and here was me thinking I was being clever.

I guess that's why when you see something and think "how hard could it be?", the answer is usually "very".

 

[Wolfe]

There are a few problems with it, though; while the analogue sticks started off as potentiometers, they're now hall effect sensors which feed their signal into a separate IC which converts it back into the potentiometer signal, so that's easy, you just connect up a potentiometer at that IC's output. The accelerometer on the other hand is a serial digital device, it gives a value for the X, Y and Z axis rotation and translation (i.e. movement along the axis instead of around it) in binary along one single-ended signal wire or trace, I think; the first revision only had one signal connection beside the power and ground. Anyway, you'd have to decode that binary, work out how to get other devices to encode in the same fashion AND work out how to get them all working quickly so there's no lag. Actually that's technically just one problem, but yeah, it's complicated enough to make something that technical a no-go, unfortunately.

So yeah. Truth be told it would probably be easier to program a completely different HID controller.

And here I've only worked with cherry switches and potentiometers on old arcade cabinets, so this was interesting to learn. 👍

 

[sesselpupser]

Wow, and here was me thinking I was being clever.

I guess that's why when you see something and think "how hard could it be?", the answer is usually "very".

Yeah, tell me about it. Before I started studying electronic engineering I tried to convert a NeGcon to work with a PS3, after a few weeks I managed to get it working but there was a good half-second delay between pressing a button and the game reacting... I think I'd be able to do it properly now (as I'm out of the 'put an Arduino in everything!' phase, which was the problem) but I don't have the time now. That project is what got me thinking about all sorts of non-standard controllers, hence how I became interested in making devices for handicapped gamers.

Anyway, I don't think G.T. Ace envisaged this thread being filled up with technical talk so I apologise for the off topic!

 

[G.T.Ace]

Eh, no problem, it's interesting and wasn't too off topic either.

 

[Wolfe]

By the way, G.T.Ace, my fiancée reminded me that she has issues with certain button combinations herself, which is why she prefers playing something like Guild Wars 2 on PC (our favorite way to spend gaming time together). Before we met, a couple MMOs and a few PC games from her youth were all she had ever played.

Ironically, the Wii has been the most flexible console for her, with several games allowing a choice of controller -- Wiimote, Wiimote+Nunchuck, Gamecube controller -- and homebrew emulators that allow total customization of the controls on classic games. There are also more "old-school" style games with simple inputs, such as the Kirby series, which she loves. 👍

 

[G.T.Ace]

Well, if she can use the WiiMote, that's great of course. Like I mentioned, motion gaming isn't something bad, we just need options. She should try the Move on the PS3, if she likes the WiiMote, she should also like the Move.

 

[Wolfe]

The sort of games I was talking about actually ask you to hold the Wiimote sideways, like a traditional controller. There are more of those games on my shelf than the motion-centric ones. She can also do some of the motion stuff, but harsh movements hurt her joints (eg. Wii Sports tennis), and balancing stuff like tilting the Wiimote just frustrates her, as a more casual player.

 

[G.T.Ace]

Ahhh all right, I understand. Well, I couldn't use the WiiMote like that unfortunately, but it's nice to know that she can enjoy some videogaming this way. 👍

 

[Ellis]

Although a disability on not quite the same scale I can sympathise. I have a condition which has left me deaf in my left ear. Which when it comes to gaming headset is an absolute farce!

Something as simple as a mono option on the game options or the headsets would be fantastic!