Disability and Video Games

This collection intends to fill a long overdue research gap on the praxeological aspects of the relationships between disabilities, accessibility, and digital gaming. It will focus on the question of how Game Studies can profit from a Disability Studies perspective of en-/disabling gaming and issues of disability, (in)accessibility and ableism, and vice versa. Instead of departing from the medical model of disability that informs a wide range of publications on "disabled" gaming and that preconceives users as either "able-bodied," "normal" or as "disabled," "deficit," or "unable to play," our central premise is that dis/ability is not an essential characteristic of the playing subject. We rather intend to analyze the complex infrastructures of playing, i. e. , the complex interplay of heterogeneous human and non-human actors, that are en- or disabling.

1. Dis-/Ability, Accessibility and Video Games: Chapters in the Context of a Research Overview. _ Part I En-/Disabling Interfaces: History and Present. _ 2 Game Interfaces as Disabling Infrastructures. - 3 Who Can Play? Rethinking Video Game Controllers and Accessibility. - 4 A History of Disability and Voice-Enabled Gaming from the 1970s to Intelligent Personal Assistants. - 5 Playing with the Eyes. A Media History of Eye Tracking. - 6 Interview with Mark Barlet (AbleGamers). - Part II Problematic Aprioris and Ableist Ideologies: (De) Constructing Dis/Ability. - 7 Dis/Enabled Playing: Ableist Ideologies and Abledness Consolidation in Video Games Mechanics and Infrastructures. - 8 The Mediality of Dis/Ability: Producing `Disability and `Ability in the Realm of Digital Games. - 9 Intersections Between Gaming and Dis/Abilities (Roundtable). - Part III Accessibility: Guidelines, Practice and Legal Issues. - 10 Accessibility by Numbers: A Critical Review of Game Accessibility Guidelines. _ 11 Providing Access. - 12 Interview with Sandra Uhling: Against Homogenization and on Becoming Aware and More Sensitive Towards Human Diversity . -