Everybody plays: how Special Effect helps people with disabilities enjoy games

Bill and Mick Donegan talk custom controls.

Most games offer “normal” difficulty settings, and there’s an unfortunate (and unintended) element of social exclusion to that. Easier difficulty settings aren’t labelled “abnormal”, of course, but in the often-forbidding world of online games enthusiasm, those who’d rather not sweat for the privilege of enjoying themselves risk being tacitly branded as such. Thus, a player’s sense of self-worth becomes in some way dependent on questions of skill, and in particular manual skill. This is obviously sad in itself, but what happens when you don’t have the full use of your hands? I spoke to Oxfordshire-based charity Special Effect for more.

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