Abstracts Language, Literature, and Linguistic

La accesibilidad a los videojuegos: Estado actual y potencial de la audiodescripción para mejorar la experiencia de las personas con discapacidad visual

by María Eugenia Larreina Morales

The main barrier faced by persons who are blind or have low vision when playing video games is access to visual stimuli. Audio description (AD), an accessibility service that verbally describes visual elements, may be a way to overcome this barrier, although currently it is only available in a limited number of video games. This thesis explores the potential of AD in video games through three objectives: describing and analysing the current state of game accessibility for people with visual disabilities (2020-2024); identifying the difficulties and benefits of implementing game AD, and developing a set of guidelines to improve accessibility in video games. To that aim, three studies are conducted using a mixed-methods approach: a descriptive analysis of the accessibility of the five best-selling video games in Spain in 2020; a survey, and a series of semi-structured interviews with people with visual disabilities living in Spain. The survey was distributed between October and December 2020 and received 106 valid responses. The interviews were conducted in March 2021 with 15 volunteers who had previously completed the survey. Firstly, the state of game accessibility is described through a literature review and an analysis of the five best-selling video games. To that aim, an analysis tool in two steps is developed. The quantitative step consists of completing a checklist of the accessibility features available in a video game, while the qualitative step analyses users' opinions on these features. Results show that current games present accessibility barriers, as confirmed by survey participants (93.4%), although they offer customisation options during gameplay. Secondly, the availability of AD in video games is analysed, which started being implemented into games in 2022. The great majority of the persons with visual disabilities who participated in the survey would be interested in using AD in video games (89.6%), as it would improve their understanding of the action, characters, and scenarios (42.2%), and their socialization with other players (26.4%). Statistically significant differences were found between interest in game AD and regular use of AD in other media (p = .017*), but not between interest in game AD and gaming habits (p = .205). However, the use of non-probabilistic sampling methods limits the generalizability of these results. Regarding implementation challenges, interview participants claim that the AD of non-interactive content could follow the same technical and linguistic conventions as film AD. In interactive content, dynamic AD would need to adapt to player actions and be synchronized with the variable game duration. Therefore, AD would be particularly useful to describe actions, characters, and scenarios when there are no time restrictions. Screen readers could be used for texts, while additional auditory cues could be applied to mechanics requiring a quick reaction from the player. Finally, ten guidelines to improve video game accessibility based on the results of the doctoral thesis are…