2024

Hassan, Lobna; Buttler, Pekka; Vesa, Mikko

In recent years, the digital game industry has grown from a niche market to a multi-billion-euro business with influences that extend beyond entertainment to education, socialization, marketing, and even management practices. During that growth, the industry’s sustainability has faltered, especially in terms of accessible games that can foster the inclusion of gamers who do not possess presumed ‘ideal’ gaming bodies or abilities, for instance, due to disabilities or more common or contextual limitations to their hearing, sight, or other abilities. Most games currently on the market are inaccessible and exclusionary. This situation is not just a threat to human rights and equality but is a threat to the long-term sustainability of the gaming ecosystem as the gaming population continues to age and diversify in terms of needs and abilities. This chapter examines game accessibility and inclusion of people with atypical abilities and disabilities in various aspects of the digital game industry and digital gaming ecosystem. It employs sustainability transitions theory to chart multi-actor interventions, from government to developers, gamers, and players, to transition the industry and ecosystem towards greater inclusivity.