No Barriers to Fun!

We met our friend Giddeon at the AbleGamers Accessibility Arcade in Atlantic City, New Jersey. When he first sat down with the AbleGamers crew, Giddeon didn't want to play any games. He told us that with his disability gaming was difficult. Giddeon has a rare disease that caused the growth of his arms .. Read More
A Window to the World

Shepherd University invited the AbleGamers Foundation to come on campus and do one of our Accessibility Arcades for the students and local disabled community. The event was a roaring success with hundreds of children and adults coming out to see the technology and in some cases experience gaming the first time. Read More

About the AbleGamers Foundation

Since 2004, the AbleGamers Foundation, a 501(c)(3) public charity, has served more than 56 million members of the disabled community by advocating greater access in video games. Today, AbleGamers is a leader in the development of equipment, programs and services to those living with disabilities, hardships, and quality-of-life issues that are a result of chronic illness or trauma. It is our goal to ensure that all people, regardless of their disability, can use gaming as a tool to have enriched social experiences with friends, family, and the world at large.

Direct 2 Drive Begins Offering PC Video Game Rentals

Written by Steve Spohn

Published on 27 January 2011

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In an interesting new development, Direct 2 Drive has announced the beginning of video game rentals for the PC. The rentals will be five dollars for five hours of gameplay with the five dollar rental fee applied to the purchase price of the game should you decide to buy the game after your trial.

To launch the new section of the business three games are currently available for rent:

Divinity 2, an RPG from 2009
Silent Hill Homecoming, a horror FPS
Grid, a semi popular racing title

Although the selection is extremely thin, the second most popular download site beginning to offer rentals is a good sign. Far too many times do gamers purchase video games only to find out the game is an un-enjoyable; disabled gamers not only have to fear the game being un-enjoyable but inaccessible as well.

Direct 2 Drive is still in the highly contested battle in the downloadable games market with Amazon as well as the current champion Steam. Many users, even on D2D’s own site are commenting in favor of the move but say without competitive pricing this may just be too little to win the war. However, if more popular titles are added to the rental catalog it just may tilt the scales in favor of the underdog.

silent_hill_splash Some people are already disgruntled with the way Steam handles its business including making returning games nearly impossible and the possibility of being banned from the service for using single player trainers, which in turn loses the user access to every game ever purchased on that account.

Proponents for Steam argue its ease of use and deep discounts of up to 75% off current games during sale pricing is just too much to overcome.

Regardless of which of the three services you prefer, the idea of renting PC games before purchasing is exactly what many gamers, let alone disabled gamers, have been asking for. The ability to check the accessibility of a game (not yet listed on AbleGamers) may very well be worth the rental price.