My Football Game - And They said it Could not be Done
AbleGamers has had the privilege to meet with many major names and corporations in the gaming world regarding expanded accessibility for people with special needs. While many support the notion of greater access for gaming clients of all ability levels, game creators often struggle to meet the needs of gamers with cognitive disabilities, an umbrella term used for people with conditions originating in the brain. These people require game features that cater to their vast range of cognitive abilities, which vary according to their respective conditions. At AbleGamers, we have been told "There is no way you can make a game that takes all these factors into account."
Chuck Bergen, President of VTree LLC, disagrees. "That cannot be further from the truth," he states. We have been developing virtual reality software for the special needs communities for 10 years now. What we have learned is that if you put in the effort and work with parents, teachers, and care givers they will give you the formula for success. When you have cognitively disabled and physically disabled gamers as part of your development team, they will help you develop software that is both fun, and provides inclusive participation for most children and adults with cognitive and physical difficulties." The result of this thinking led to the creation of My Football Game, a high quality game designed with the special needs gamer in mind.
When we asked Mr. Bergen about the motivation behind My Football Game, he answered: "I have been involved in software development for over 30 years. One thing that struck me many years ago was that almost all the popular software video games were strictly designed and developed for the mass market; the physically and developmentally challenged individuals and families were excluded from using these systems because of their design. So 10 years ago, we decided that we needed to try and break through this wall and do whatever we could to design a game for the 53 million Americans with a disability."
So what did Mr. Bergen and his development team come up with? "Let's do a football game!" they said. And why not? Football is the most popular sports in America, and the football-based video games are a proven best seller. The next challenge was getting from the idea of a football game for the special needs community to the finished product. "I was at a trade show in California for accessibility technology and it just so happened that EA SPORTS also had a booth at this show," explains Bergen, "Through a mutual colleague, I was introduced to Rob Moore, CTO of EA SPORTS. I pitched my idea right there at the show. I explained that our military men and women who have grown up playing EA Sports video games and many of those fans of EA Spots are now seriously injured in the current conflicts and could no longer enjoy the games they grew up with."
Mr. Moore stated: "We started thinking about licensing EA SPORTS' game engines, we were interested in the physical training market. Then we met several companies that were interested in rehabilitation, which had some similarities to training. When we met with Chuck Bergen and VTree, he felt strongly that our sports games could be used for both cognitive and physical rehabilitation. Bergen had written some software himself and VTree had a good track record of meeting their customers' needs, so that started us off."
The pieces started to fall in place. EA SPORTS had the knowledge about making football games, and VTree had the idea and the know-how to develop software with the disabled community in mind. Mr. Moore took the idea to the executives at EA, where it was met with eager response. Moore said, "The main concern our executives had was that we create a quality product and that it actually helps people, so we worked hard with VTree to develop a product that used our technology in a way that would really make an impact on the users. That is a continual goal for us, so we will be getting the feedback from VTree and continually making improvements to the product. " The development process started, and EA SPORTS was right there to help. Moore explains, "We visited a VA facility earlier this year to get their rehab experts' feedback on the changes we were making [to the game engine]. They were enthusiastic about the product. The Veterans asked if we could create teams for each branch of the service and even the special units of each branch [like Seals, Rangers, and Special Forces]. We said yes, if they can get us permission to use those names and logos we will make custom teams for each of them. I think our soldiers have the toughest job out there in protecting our nation. If we can help our veterans recover a little faster, or even just have a little fun sometimes, that would be a great outcome for us."
My Football Game is Born
{rokbox title=| My Football Game :: Name your player Image| size=|640 480| album=| MyFootball|}images/MyFootball/action_shot_1.jpg{/rokbox}{rokbox title=| My Football Game :: Name your player Image| size=|640 480| album=| MyFootball|}images/MyFootball/action_shot_2.jpg{/rokbox}{rokbox title=| My Football Game :: Play with your friends Image| size=|640 480| album=| MyFootball|}images/MyFootball/playing_with_fam_1.jpg{/rokbox}
{rokbox title=| My Football Game :: Build your ring as you gain the skills Image| size=|640 480| album=| MyFootball|}images/MyFootball/ring_of_champions.jpg{/rokbox}{rokbox title=| My Football Game :: Step up as you learn to play Image| size=|640 480| album=| MyFootball|}images/MyFootball/level1.jpg{/rokbox}{rokbox title=| My Football Game :: Learn to kick Image| size=|640 480| album=| MyFootball|}images/MyFootball/screen0014-f.jpg{/rokbox}
When Chuck Bergen called the AbleGamers headquarters (my iPhone), to talk about My Football Game, I was skeptical of his claims. Although I believed that it was possible to make a game that catered to people with cognitive disabilities, it was hard to believe that a game with such high production values had been made with this community in mind. While we have seen some good, clever games made in the past, they all had three things in common: rough around the edges (and sometimes in the middle), overly simple, and learning opportunities disguised as games. Sensing my reaction, Bergen offered to hold a demonstration. He drove down to Washington, DC, where I had arranged about an hour to spend with him. Once I saw the game, I was floored, and we spent almost 3 hours in the meeting. The VTree/EA Sports partnership turned that whole idea of games for the cognitively and severely disabled on its head. My Football Game is a high quality, full depth production that puts fun first. My Football Game does everything right, from the design of the box (it looks like every other game) to the feature that it has built in, this game proves that you can make a game for the special needs community that looks and feels like a game.
Features of My Football Game
Customizable playing speeds allow nearly everyone to enjoy regardless of experience or physical and/or developmental disabilities. Need the game to go at half speed so that your reaction time is compensated for? Okay, there is a slider that gives you the option to run the game at full speed, all the way down to 20%.
VTree has reached out to as many accessible technology providers it could find to make sure that the game was compatible with most USB devices. You can also play with a USB XBOX 360TM game controller or just the keyboard.
A gradual "Step up" using skill drills: this allows the gamer to practice running, passing, tackling, and kicking at a comfortable speed to improve skills before moving into full game competition. It does so using positive feedback and clear instructions for the gamer, as well as the caregiver.
The full game plays like the most popular traditional video football games, just not has complicated. Things like the play clock and deep dive menus have been removed to allow the gamer to take in and react to the game.
My Football Game has many personalization features, like being about to name your player avatars. The effect is engagement, ownership, and recognition.
It used familiar themes to reward achievement, VTree Capitalizing on cues from real life football, players earn a full set of diamonds in My Championship Ring reflecting success as skills improve.
And most importantly, socialization and fun. At the end of the day, My Football Game is a football game. The gamer is going to see on the screen the same basic game that they see in a commercial for Madden. They are going to hear familiar sounds that they have heard when their brother or sister was playing an EA SPORTS title. This is so important because at the end of the day, this very special game does not feel like one. To the developmentally disabled person, this game will feel like a game plucked off the shelf at GameStop or BestBuy. In short, there is nothing SPECIAL about this special game.
Now that the product is out, we again met with Rob Moore of EA SPORTS and asked him some final thoughts on the game.
AbleGamers: Mr. Moore, what do you think of the finished product?
Rob Moore: We've only had the game in a few people's hands so far - but so far, so good. We are really looking forward to feedback from this community so we can continue to improve the experience. There's a lot of potential here, and we're happy to be a part of it.
AG: What was EA SPORTS hoping to accomplish in this endeavor?
RM: In general, EA SPORTS always hopes to entertain people and give them a direct connection with the excitement and passion of sports. For this product though, given some of the tough circumstances VTree's customers are dealing with, I think every smile we can put on someone's face will be especially sweet. It's an opportunity to take the technology we've developed, apply it in a different environment, and create some great benefits for a really important group of people.
AG: Have you taken any lessons learned now that you have seen the final product, and do you see any of those lessons filtering into the mainstream titles at some point?
RM: We've learned a lot about just how hard our games can be to play for people if they don't have the right controller or interface to the game. Also, we've worked in ways to really slow down the game to accommodate different reaction speeds. The games are still challenging though, we didn't make it any easier...you still have to accomplish the task.
DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/2
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You know, I think it's great that they're catering to such a group of people because their voices are often unheard and when they speak, they're either ignored or bashed. I support the idea behind this game, but I fear that it'll be far too stigmatized to be commercially successful.
I think that it can be, the numbers are staggering when you are talking the cognitively disabled community as well as the severely physically disabled community. I also think that because VTree teamed up with EA SPORTS a lot of the expensive R&D is paid for when EA does the main games like Madden and such. VTree is taking that work and making a new game for the community.
I think these guys will be JUST FINE!
Similar to what kwonstein stated, my gut reaction was "Will it actually sell?" and more importantly, "Will it actually be fun."
While I think this is a great first step, would it not be an even bigger step forward for EA Sports to begin incorporating these adaptations into their actual titles? I know for NHL10 they extensively use the sliders to allow the user to customize the speed and difficulty to their ability level, so perhaps this is a good next step--rather than having 2 games, why not have 1 game that works for everyone? That's the whole point of universal design.
Disability theory aside, good on ya VTree! Keep fighting the good fight 
I used to play both the Madden and Game Day series since their conception in the 90s, until about 2002. After that my disability limited my ability to use a platform controller and thus my days of throwing passes were over. This is why I love AbleGamers, thanks to some people who think outside of the box, I'll be able to play a game that I thought I would never be able to play again.
