Playing With Others: Depicting Multiplayer Gaming Experiences of People With Visual Impairments
David Gonçalves, André Rodrigues, Tiago Guerreiro · 2020 · Proceedings of the 22nd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS) · doi:10.1145/3373625.3418304
Summary
This study investigates the multiplayer gaming experiences of people with visual impairments, an area largely unexplored despite growing research on game accessibility. The researchers conducted semi-structured interviews with 10 blind adults and 10 visually impaired minors, collected 140 responses to an online survey from people with visual impairments across 22 countries, and gathered 17 responses from a second survey targeting sighted people who play with someone who has a visual impairment. The study focuses specifically on group play and mixed-visual-ability scenarios — situations where sighted and visually impaired people play together. The findings reveal a stark lack of intersection in gaming habits between sighted and visually impaired players. Games accessible to blind players (audio games, text-based games) are generally considered unappealing by sighted players, while mainstream visually-rich games are inaccessible to blind players. This creates parallel but separate gaming communities, with significant consequences for social inclusion. Survey data shows 19% of respondents with visual impairments never play digital games with others. When they do play with others, they mainly play with other visually impaired people. Mixed-ability gaming with family and sighted friends is infrequent and often comes with compromises — either the visually impaired player struggles with an inaccessible game or the sighted player finds the accessible game unstimulating.
Key findings
The research identifies seven key themes in mixed-ability gaming experiences. First, people with visual impairments are frequently excluded from group play because the games others want to play are inaccessible. Second, the accessibility burden falls disproportionately on visually impaired players, who adapt analog games themselves (adding braille to cards, using different textures for game pieces) and carry custom-adapted versions to social gatherings. Third, sighted players find accessible games — particularly audio-only and text-based games — boring and unappealing, lacking the visual stimulation they expect. Fourth, fairness is a persistent tension: visual games give sighted players advantages, while purely audio games may disadvantage them differently. Fifth, synchronous real-time gameplay is particularly problematic because visually impaired players need more time to process information through assistive technology. Sixth, assistance from sighted players during gameplay can be both helpful and diminishing, requiring trust and sometimes revealing private game information. Seventh, asymmetric gameplay — where players have different roles, interactions, and challenges based on their abilities — emerged as a promising design direction, with participants citing games like Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes as positive examples of interdependent play across abilities.
Relevance
This paper has significant implications for game designers, accessibility practitioners, and anyone concerned with social inclusion of people with disabilities. Gaming is not just entertainment — it is a social activity that builds relationships, and inaccessible multiplayer gaming contributes to the broader social isolation of people with visual impairments. The findings challenge the assumption that making games accessible is sufficient; the real goal should be making games that are enjoyable for groups with mixed abilities simultaneously. The paper suggests several design directions: asynchronous or turn-based gameplay to address timing disparities, asymmetric roles that leverage different abilities, complementary audio and visual feedback channels, and alternative game mechanics like auto-navigation. For accessibility practitioners, the key takeaway is that inclusion requires designing for the group, not just the individual — a game that only blind people want to play still leaves them playing in isolation.
Tags: game accessibility · visual impairment · mixed-ability interaction · social inclusion · multiplayer gaming · audio games · blindness