Video games have become a prominent form of entertainment and cultural expression, as well as influential tools for education, health, and serious applications. As complex, multimodal global products, video games have successfully adapted to economic fluctuations and crises, establishing themselves as the most profitable entertainment industry today. This success is partly due to their multilingual and multicultural localization, enhancing access for diverse global audiences. However, only within the past decade have accessibility features become more widespread, initially driven by scattered efforts from select developers, user and professional associations, and academia. Recently, larger developers have increasingly recognized the importance of accessibility, integrating comprehensive options into AAA games, creating dedicated accessible devices, and advocating publicly for inclusive gaming through official websites and guidelines. Concurrently, scholarly interest in video game accessibility has expanded, producing a growing yet nascent body of research from user, industry, and academic perspectives. This chapter employs a scoping review methodology to systematically analyze existing research on video game accessibility. The review identifies key concepts, categorizes existing knowledge, and highlights limitations. Findings reveal video game accessibility as an inherently interdisciplinary field, primarily influenced by Computer Science but significantly enriched by Translation Studies, Disability Studies, and Media Accessibility. The review also identifies limitations in prior systematic reviews, such as narrow disciplinary scopes and insufficient consideration of gray literature. Practical implications stress the urgent need for proactive accessibility integration by industry stakeholders and robust regulatory frameworks informed by interdisciplinary insights.

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From Global Play to Inclusive Play: A Scoping Review of Video Game Accessibility Research

  • Ximo Granell

摘要

Video games have become a prominent form of entertainment and cultural expression, as well as influential tools for education, health, and serious applications. As complex, multimodal global products, video games have successfully adapted to economic fluctuations and crises, establishing themselves as the most profitable entertainment industry today. This success is partly due to their multilingual and multicultural localization, enhancing access for diverse global audiences. However, only within the past decade have accessibility features become more widespread, initially driven by scattered efforts from select developers, user and professional associations, and academia. Recently, larger developers have increasingly recognized the importance of accessibility, integrating comprehensive options into AAA games, creating dedicated accessible devices, and advocating publicly for inclusive gaming through official websites and guidelines. Concurrently, scholarly interest in video game accessibility has expanded, producing a growing yet nascent body of research from user, industry, and academic perspectives. This chapter employs a scoping review methodology to systematically analyze existing research on video game accessibility. The review identifies key concepts, categorizes existing knowledge, and highlights limitations. Findings reveal video game accessibility as an inherently interdisciplinary field, primarily influenced by Computer Science but significantly enriched by Translation Studies, Disability Studies, and Media Accessibility. The review also identifies limitations in prior systematic reviews, such as narrow disciplinary scopes and insufficient consideration of gray literature. Practical implications stress the urgent need for proactive accessibility integration by industry stakeholders and robust regulatory frameworks informed by interdisciplinary insights.