Kinect and the Disabled : Part 2

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Published on Monday, 06 December 2010 10:05

Written by Mark C. Barlet

{sidebar id=1}So as I stated at the end of part one. We moved from the play room back to the conference room, where we were given hands-on play time with Kinect Sports, Kinectimals, Dance Central, and Kinect Adventures.  Of course this playtime wasn't for free, Microsoft employees took copious notes on what could and couldn't do.  The price we paid for the sneak peek at this year's must-have technology was access to our knowledge about accessibility.

All of the notes Microsoft’s minions had taken were waiting for us in the conference room and had now been divided up on a giant whiteboard into 6 groups of issues, each with names like “Mobility” and “Cognitive,” for us accessibility experts to hash out.

I joined the group that focused on voice control and communication, along with our friend Daniel Hubbell, Technical Evangelist for Accessibility at Microsoft and the lead developer for the voice control of the Kinect.  In short, the entire group took all the notes and worked out what could be done to mitigate the issue, if possible.

What officially came of this entire event?  Not much, other than the usual “thank you for your input.”

What unofficially came of this event?  I suspect that we will see a little more thought from the developers at Microsoft to the needs of our community. The Microsoft employees that were taking notes, asking for more information, and helping us work on solutions, were the developers of Kinectimals, the project manager of Dance Central and so on. It was a real chance for those on the ground making these games to connect with the community.  Off the record, one of them stated to me that they had “learned much more from us than we did from them.”

But here's the thing; Kinect is a niche mark and not the end of gaming.  It is undeniable that the Kinect is revolutionary, and there are many people hacking it to do some pretty amazing things. However, traditional gaming will continue on for the foreseeable future. I repeat, Kinect is not the end of gaming as you know it.

Yes, the Kinect is the 2010 holiday gift of the year. Best Buy’s and Wal-Mart’s all over North America are sporting empty shelves where Kinects use to be. Parents and grandparents are looking for hardware and games to put under the tree, and I can almost guarantee that almost none of the tiny tots with their eyes all aglow are going to be in a wheelchair.

Unlike some of the others in the game accessibility world, we here at AbleGamers have a reality based approach to game accessibility. We have spent a lot of time understanding the development life-cycle of mainstream games.

In fact, the president of AbleGamers Foundation has 17 years of software development experience, and most of our staff has been dealing with videogames and their own disabilities throughout their entire lives. The staff here understand the balance of accessibility and marketability, and chastise titles that can have both but chosen not to.  We do not, and will not, condemn the manufacturers for putting out items that are inaccessible due to the nature of what they are.

When it comes to Kinect, its very nature leaves a great deal of disabled gamers out of the equation, no matter what Microsoft does.  If you are a C3-C4 quad, the Kinect is going to be as accessible as the Wii and Playstation Move are to you right now.  For SOME disabled gamers SOME games are going to be fully accessible, and for SOME disabled gamers SOME games are going to be OUT of the question, the Kinect does not change that at all.

There will be assistant technology to improve the Kinect’s accessibility. Someone like Ben Heckendorn or companies like Evil Controller or Quasimoto will hack Kinect, enable some switches, invent some controllers, and come up with some fancy devices to help those who really want to play the games exclusively offered on this system.

But, and this is a very big But, this system was designed to get you up off the couch and be more active.  The fact is if you are reading this article, you are probably disabled. There are games you can and cannot play, and if you're like some of our crew, you've given up on entire systems or entire genres because without expensive assistive technology they are inaccessible.

It is imperative that we remember what we are fighting for. This isn't an academic classroom or laboratory where we are trying to make everything completely accessible to everybody. The fact of the matter is those of us who are gamers, who happen to have disabilities, simply want as much access to as many different games as possible. In good conscience, we cannot stand in the way or even attempt to stand in the way of progress for technology.  We simply ask that every developer include as many options so that include as many of our gamers with disabilities as possible.

Things like color blind options, remappable keys, and readable fonts allow a substantial percentage of the disabled gaming community further access to more videogames. However, the largest portion of the disabled gaming community who want to play AAA titles are those with mobility impairments.  For those of us who have muscular dystrophy, multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy, or the use of only one hand, or difficulty standing, running, and jumping - the Kinect was not designed to incorporate us.

And let's be honest, if you have a severe disability that affects your mobility, playing the Kinect is not nearly as important as getting that Xbox setup with the right accessible technology to give you access to the thousands of games Xbox has to offer, not the tens of games Kinect has to offer.

Who cares!

Does AbleGamers think that the Kinect is going to be a success?  We do, even for some disabled gamers.

Do we think that it is going to replace the controller and the Xbox as we know it? Not at all!

At the end of the day the Kinect will be a niche. I have faith that the average gamer, let alone us disabled gamers, won’t want to stand in front of their television for an eight hour “Halo Kinect” gaming session.

We are still going to see the majority of great titles with solid accessibility being developed for the Xbox, or the PlayStation Move.  And you better believe AbleGamers is going to continue bugging developers, schmoozing gaming companies, and blackmailing elves to include all of the accessibility that can be introduced those titles. This isn't a free pass; we hold these companies responsible for using the knowledge they gain from events like the accessibility Roundtable to make all of their games better, not just one niche product.

I also have faith in the laziness of the mainstream gaming community, who is going to keep the core Kinect capabilities and the games that use them checked.

We have already seen that the Wii is great, but we are also seeing more and more titles that are using the controller in a more traditional fashion because at the end of the day, there is still only so much you can do with motion, and frankly most gamers do not want to spend hours on end jumping around the living room… and that is a win for the disabled gamer.

Now, that's not to say Kinect has no value.  In fact, there is a very good chance Kinect will add to the features that improve the accessibility.

What are we talking about? Well, unlike the PlayStation Move and the Wii, the Kinect does add something that could be very useful to most disabled gamers, motion impaired, Deaf, visually challenged, and the cognitively disabled: voice control.

As the development kit for Kinect lands at gaming studios all over the world, programmers and designers are looking at what they can do that they could not do before, add reliable voice control.  So far, only the relatively successful games like World at War have attempted to use voice recognition software. Mostly because it's undeniably unreliable, and most people report incredible frustration attempting to use the “state-of-the-art” feature.

The Kinect has some of the best voice recognition software on the market today, and it will only encourage developers to add these features.  For many games, voice commands might add some great gameplay, and in the process, for some disabled gamers will gain default accessibility - a control scheme that does not use movement or a controller, but just their voice.

How great is that!

Too Long Didn't Read version (TLDR):

• Microsoft reached out to the disabled community before the release of the Kinect to learn what our community needs, and to plan for the future.
• Movement based gaming is, because of its very nature, more inaccessible to those with movement based disabilities than non-movement gaming.
• Not every game on every system is going to be accessible to every gamer. Our goal is and should be to encourage developers to increase the amount of games currently available to every to accessibility.
• You need for a gaming area that is quite a distance from the television; Kinect is not friendly for visually impaired gamers who need to sit close to the display.
• The voice aspects of the Kinect may turn out to be a boon for many disabled gamers, giving then control options not available to gaming studios pre-Kinect.
• If you can't use Kinect in its current form, wait until the assistive technology developed or ignore the Kinect entirely - focusing your energy on making the more popular systems accessible to you is more important for your enjoyment.
• Ablegamers will continue to badger developers to do the right thing and include as many disabled gamers as possible WITHOUT asking them to ignore new technology. Adding smaller changes include more disabled gamers than most developers realize.
• The cake is still a lie

About the Author

Author: Mark C. Barlet

The President and Co-Founder of the AbleGamers Foundation.