Valve concerned about technology of accessiblity in Games
Expressing interest in improving experience for able and disabled gamers.
When it comes to technology of accessibility, Valve is no stranger to experimenting and figuring out new ways of communications and tracking data within video games and the way we’re supposed to control them, Valve is highly-regarded in the disabled gaming community, particularly for their work with adaptive control devices. it might be as simple as closed caption and several ways of customizable controls, or even something bit different as opposed to a colorblind mode.
Valve’s games proved how far they’re being more accessible to most kind of gamers. Mike Ambinder’s Valve Software explained to Gamastura how company’s ambition is to “improve the experience of both able and disabled gamers.”
Valve’s Ambinder expressed an interest in “the potential of eyetrackers and possibility of letting gamers use their eyes as active controller inputs.” this method will let you control the game using your eyes as a main controller and completely hands free.
Ambinder stated “It may be possible in the future to let the eyes act as a proxy for the mouse cursor, letting gamers transmit navigation and targeting inputs via eye movements. If you couple this approach with the use of blinks or other proxies for button presses, you may remove the need for a mouse and keyboard (or gamepad) all together.”
Valve have been already researching in sign up language for Half Life 2, eye tracking technology sounds ambitious and promising, innovation and encouraged game developers will only make accessibility much better and easier for all kind of gamers, and working on something different from eye tracking too from designers will certainly make a game work better for disabled gamers.
