Last Thursday, in the Carrera de San Gerónimo in Madrid, 312 congressmen approved a reform of Article 49 of the Spanish Constitution and the abolition of the term “disabled”. Coincidences of Life, 137 kilometers away, in Cuenca, the first International Festival of Inclusive Video Games (FIVI) opened (as far as the author knows) and lasted until Saturday.
There are more than 3 billion video game players in the world. Of them, around 200 million suffer from a disability. It's a juicy market that big companies are increasingly paying attention to (the great accessible Xbox controller has just been added to the Play Station) and is having real-world implications. Because we've already talked about how games are often about technical advances that are then transferred to the real world. In the present case, it is as simple as asking an association that promotes inclusive video games (Ga11y, ArsGames, ONCE itself…) how the technological advances that develop video games for the disabled not only help them to spend their free time like everyone else not only to enjoy other people, but also how they help them to develop many skills and abilities that will later be useful to them in their family, at work or in social life.
During these three days, the Fermín Caballero Library in Cuenca was host to all kinds of workshops and presentations on gamification and consciousness with inclusive video games, interactive workshops with hundreds of participants, tournaments with accessible works such as the driving game Forza Motorsport and the fighting game Mortal Kombat I. Of course, there were also awards for the works that performed best in this area last year. It was a success.
Some of the participants play with their eyes covered and an audio guide; and play with your elbows.
“The commitment of the people was wonderful, that the press was talking about the issue, that there were so many volunteers,” says the organizer of the event, Sergio Vera, a teacher, blind since the age of 18 and one of Spain's most tireless fighters if it's about the spread and fight for accessibility in video games. After successfully completing the first edition, Vera is already starting to examine the games, peripherals and programs that will have a place in the second edition of the festival. And this year, the games and consoles used for this first edition will be kept by another promoter of the project, Delia Millán, to create an inclusive video game club in Cuenca that anyone who wants can join.
The awards presented also helped to know what the major advances in accessibility were in 2023. If you ask Vera which game has done the most for accessibility in the last few months, it's clear to her: Forza Motorsport. “Being able to play Forza with no hands, just your elbows; that there is also help for the blind… including disabled people in the driving experience is really a big step,” says Vera, but points out that Forza is not about arriving and knowing how to play, but rather So that it succeeds requires patience and skill. Quite the opposite of another winner of the event: Mortal Kombat I and its fights for blind and sighted people with their eyes covered. The accessible tournaments of these two games made for some of the best moments of the entire festival.
Morning The GAconf Prize winners will be announced (Game Accessibility Conference, one of the most influential initiatives internationally regarding video games and accessibility) last year. Vera, Millán and everyone else involved will be excited to see what they bring to next year's edition of FIVI. I hope all video game lovers in the world are also paying attention.
Some of the festival's speakers, with Sergio Vera in the middle (in blue).
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