#GACONF EUROPE 2023

The hybrid edition of #GAconf Europe 2023 was held on 24th-25th April across Zoom, Discord and the Coin Street Neighbourhood Centre in London.

ALL PREVIOUS CONFERENCES

DAY 1

 

Ian Hamilton

News update

Ian Hamilton

A round-up of some of the great progress made in the past 6 months.

 


Jamie Knight

Can I Do That?

Jamie Knight, Jamie + Lion Ltd

This talk explores the subtle difference between ability, capability and capacity. Join Jamie + Lion as they guide you through these useful concepts and how to harness them to create great experiences.

 


Arthur Theil

Understanding the Perceptions and Experiences of the Deafblind Community About Digital Games

Dr Arthur Theil, Birmingham City University

Digital games, in general, rely heavily on visual and auditory content to present information to players. Deafblind people must confront a series of barriers to gameplay: limited options of self-representation, a perceived lack of complexity in games, the necessity for engagement with decades-old text-based technologies, and fears of being ”left in the dust” by new and emerging technologies. In this talk, I will share the findings of my research with gamers who live with dual sensory disabilities across different European countries. The talk will address different lived experiences of gaming, concerns and habits of Deafblind players.

 


Aidan Bower

The Frontlines of Accessibility QA: Getting Your Hands Dirty

Aidan Bower, Li Brady, Andrei Bogdan Sandru, Lucile Dolbeau

Panelists discuss what Accessibility QA is, how game developers and publishers can implement accessibility in their QA teams, and how this can improve the games they make.

 


Matthew Tomkinson

Everybody dance! Representation in Just Dance

Matthew Tomkinson, Ubisoft

Just Dance 2023 won the award for Best Representation at the Game Accessibility Awards by including Florent, a wheelchair performer. Matthew Tomkinson, creative director, tells the story of the collaboration and shares his insights and how to foster representation within creative processes.

 

 


Topher Winward

Equal Opportunity Piracy: Blind Accessibility in Sea Of Thieves

Topher Winward, Rare

Sea Of Thieves is a live-service pirate adventure game that’s been running for over 5 years. During this time, the team has incrementally improved accessibility, guided by feedback from players. In this talk, Topher will cover both general accessibility learnings, and a deeper dive on how Rare has improved the game for blind and low-vision gamers.

 


Dyspraxia in Game Design: portraying personal experiences through game systems

Ben Wilson, Die Gute Fabrik

A talk about how Ben’s personal experiences with Developmental Coordination Disorder (aka Dyspraxia) have influenced his games and approach to game design. Over the last few years, he has made several small games that explore the idea of evoking how it feels to be Dyspraxic. He wants to offer an alternative approach to expressing personal experiences through games; there have been talks that address this from the angle of storytelling and narrative design, but there’s not much out there that talks about designing game systems and mechanics that are expressive in the same way.

 


Antonio Martinez

Never give up, never surrender

Antonio Martinez, Game Accessibility Nexus

Accessibility is a marathon and disability is not a monolith, but how do progressive disabilities fit in? In this talk Antonio talks about his experience in gaming, adapting to the new challenges with a mix of hardware, software and a bit of creative thinking. And more importantly, what accessibility features can be more impactful when your needs evolve.

 


Christopher McGerr

Building up Accessibility in LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga

Christoper McGerr, TT Games

LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga features more accessibility settings and features than any LEGO game to come before it, bringing the series to a wider audience than ever before. In this presentation, Senior Designer Christopher McGerr will discuss the journey taken to bring accessibility to LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, with a particular focus on what was done to make the game fully playable without audio.

 

 


Mila Pavlin

Accessibility Planning – choosing the right blueberries for your project

Mila Pavlin, Monolith Productions

Accessibility planning can feel overwhelming when a projects starts, but some good decisions early on can make all the difference in getting a pipeline accessible from the start. Learn about accessibility planning methods, how to pick what to work on when, and what it takes to make sure the community is involved in every step.


DAY 2

 

Conor Bradley

Accessibility Driven Development: An inside look into Stories of Blossom

Conor Bradley, Soft Leaf Studios

Through the experience gained while developing Stories of Blossom, Conor will share the best practices we as developers can take to better include accessibility in our development pipelines. We will look at how to identify the barriers that can block players, how to best address them, and how we can work with the disability community to better improve the accessibility of the games we make.

 


Jozef Kulik

Exploring Accessible Player Experiences with Diary Methods

Jozef Kulik, University of York

This talk will outline Jozef’s diary study work with people with motor and perceptual disabilities. The talk details how this type of work provides value to the academic literature through a deeper understanding of the natural (at home & uninterrupted) player experience. As well as how this can also contribute directly to industry in a practical capacity by generating actionable insight into how to improve the accessibility of future titles.

 


Harriet Frayling

Decoding Accessibility Consultancy

Harriet Frayling and Chris Goodyear, Many Cats

How do you go about bringing your accessibility knowledge to games development? There isn’t a standard guide for how to get into games as a freelance accessibility specialist and even for a professional it can be a difficult space to navigate. This talk explores the viewpoints of accessibility consultants and the studios that hire them to create a successful game development experience for both parties and create accessible games. The Many Cats team have experienced life as freelancers and learnt a lot about what new or and experienced consultants can expect. In this talk we’ll answer questions such as – Do you need to have a games design degree? Are you user-testing or reviewing accessibility considerations? Should you get fair pay?

 


Stacey Jenkins

Empowering Gamers with Chronic Pain

Stacey Jenkins, Ru, Arevya, Kolo Jones

Chronic pain can affect many different areas of the body and therefore touches many aspects of accessibility, including things like motor skills, cognitive functions and motion sickness. Join Arevya, Stacey, Ru and Kolo for a frank discussion on life with chronic pain, the important role that gaming plays in their lives and the main barriers they still face.

 


Barrie Ellis

Colin McDonnell: Accessible Gaming Legend

Barrie Ellis, OneSwitch

A talk we planned, but will now never be able to give together.

 


Andy Robertson

Family Gaming Database Accessibility Journey

Andy Robertson, Family Game Database

Learnings from two years of documenting accessibility on the Family Gaming Database.

 


Brandon Blacoe

Standardising hardware accessibility

Brandon Blacoe, ByoWave

Journey to developing the Proteus Controller and ByoWave’s mission to standardising hardware accessibility.

 


Yoann Bazoge

Retrofitting Accessibility in Deathloop

Yoann Bazoge, Arkane Studios

This talk will use concrete examples to show how Arkane Lyon has been able to make DEATHLOOP more accessible, following player feedback at launch, through to the Game Update 3 release. Topics include menu updates, gameplay modifiers, visuals options and more.

 


SightlessKombat

Project Black Kat. Sightless Stealth System

SightlessKombat & Cari Watterton

Cari Watterton and SightlessKombat present Project Black Kat, a fully accessible prototype gameplay experience for blind/low vision players. This talk will showcase Project Black Kat, detailing its origin, purpose and goals, documenting its ongoing development process; focusing on the challenges overcome and successes achieved. Our goal is to share our findings for you to demystify BLV accessibility at your studio and inspire you to start your own prototypes.

 


Tara Voelker

Not Like This: Measuring Accessibility Success

Tara Voelker, Xbox

Did you make an accessible game? Is it more accessible to your last one? What about business numbers and KPIs? In this talk, Tara will talk about how to measure accessibility success and progress in video games, but perhaps even more importantly, talk about how NOT to measure it.

GAconf Europe

22nd - 23rd April 2024

Pullman St Pancras, London

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