Interview with Arman Nobari from Accessibility-first Discovery Platform AbleToPlay
Discovering new games to play likely isn’t a big struggle for many of us. We can find a game that looks good and seems fun, and grab it without worrying whether or not we’ll be able to play it comfortably. But for millions of gamers with disabilities around the world, finding games that are sufficiently accessible is an incredibly challenging struggle. While accessibility is becoming more of a focus in games recently than it has in the past, there still isn’t really a good tool for those with disabilities to use in order to find the perfect game for them. And that’s where AbleToPlay Comes in.
AbleToPlay is an accessibility-first discovery platform for gamers with disabilities that empowers them and their families to instantly find games that fit their needs. I had the opportunity to speak with the project’s founder, Arman Nobari, to ask some questions and get more details about their upcoming platform and their plans for the future.
Q: Can you tell me more about the team behind AbletoPlay?
A: Hi folks! The AbleToPlay team is a diverse crew of gamers who either know what it's like to live with a disability, or have supported friends and family members with disabilities. Outside of gaming, our careers have included shipping award-winning games, building privacy-first technology, and working in disability advocacy. Outside of our immediate team, we're also supported by some incredible organizations doing impactful work, such as Child's Play Charity, Games For Change, and the Neil Squire Society.
Q: What is the overall goal of AbleToPlay? What made you first realize that there weren’t any good tools to help players find out a game’s accessibility options?
A: We want to be the trusted go-to resource for finding accessible games. Gamers with disabilities spend a ton of time doing research to figure out if a game is accessible enough to play - sometimes as much as 4 or 5 hours per game! There's no one-size-fits-all model of accessibility since it's so nuanced and personal, so even though we have lived experience with disabilities on our team, we wanted to incorporate as wide a range of perspectives as possible. Over the course of a year, we spoke with thousands of gamers with disabilities to learn about the headaches and challenges in finding accessible games, and we used that as our "north star" when creating AbleToPlay.
Q: AbleToPlay isn’t just about giving gamers a place to go to find a game with options that are great for them, it’s about getting feedback directly from them so that this platform can be as accurate and as helpful as possible. What are some ways that players/users can utilize the features of AbleToPlay?
A: Imagine that instead of doing hours of research, every single game would just tell you whether or not it meets your exact, personal needs? That's AbleToPlay. You make a completely private profile with your accessibility needs, and then when you browse games you'll get a Personalized Score that says how well that game meets your needs. When you view any specific game, you'll get a full deep-dive into every single accessibility feature, with helpful highlights for where your needs are (or aren't) being met, as well as the degree to which your needs are met. Your score is *your* score, my score is my score. You might have a 100/100 for Balatro, I might have a 90/100, someone else might have a 70/100, and so on. Powering our scoring system, we've done the hard work to build the most robust dataset on games accessibility in the world, to research what features games have.
Q: Oftentimes, accessibility feels like an afterthought in games. Some games won’t have accessibility options at all while others, like this year’s Rift of the NecroDancer for example, have a huge number of options. Something as simple as being able to turn on motion blur can help someone with motion sickness. What are some examples of great accessibility options you’ve seen in games that help players with disabilities?
A: There are, of course, great examples of comprehensive accessibility, where a very fully-featured big game also has great accessibility options. Insomniac Games has made outstanding AAA examples of accessibility excellence in their Spider-Man and Ratchet & Clank games. God of War Ragnarök by Santa Monica Studio is incredibly supportive for a very wide range of needs. That being said, there's some great examples of indie games with great accessibility as well. Celeste is a good example of a game designed to be challenging, which still has supportive options to fine-tune gameplay to fit your needs, whether that means slowing down time or being immune to damage. Disco Elysium is an awesome option if you want an incredible story and a game you can play with limited inputs or only one hand. Beyond accessibility "options" though, some games just have incredibly accessible core designs. For example, The Vale is an indie ARPG from developers Falling Squirrel and Creative Bytes Studios. It's fully blind-accessible, with stunning audio design.
Q: AbleToPlay will certainly help players with disabilities find the perfect game for them, but can the platform also help Developers?
A: Absolutely! One of the biggest points of feedback we've heard across thousands of testing sessions is "Oh! I didn't know I could play this game!! I'm going to go buy it now that I know it fits my needs." For millions of gamers with disabilities, the biggest problem is just knowing a game fits *their* needs. And let's be real, the last few years have been incredibly tumultuous in the games industry. So we're building entirely new kinds of tools and resources for Developers and Publishers to help their games get discovered and launch successfully, even if they don't have "comprehensive" AAA-levels accessibility. And to be honest, that's just the start - we have some really exciting updates planned for both gamers and studios in the year ahead.
Q: Can you share any details about those future plans?
A: Definitely. We're adding thousands more games, so basically any title you can think of will have a full, detailed page on AbleToPlay in the coming months. We're also launching new ways for gamers with disabilities to provide moderated feedback directly to developers and publishers, to drive impactful feedback for patches and future developments - while also giving developers and publishers totally new ways to work with that feedback without getting overwhelmed. We always share our product updates on our Discord first!
We can’t wait to see AbleToPlay up and running so that more players can enjoy the ease of discovering a game that is perfect for them. Video games are what bring everyone in this industry together every day and it is incredibly important that no matter what kind of gamer you are, you can enjoy the many stories that games have to tell. A huge thank you to Arman and the rest of the AbleToPlay team for not only answering our questions, but for striving to make a huge difference in this industry.
AbleToPlay will be publicly launching March 10th! Players that want access before then, can join the AbleToPlay inclusive Discord Community to grab early access.