Att riva och resa barriärer: En analys av tillgänglighetsanpassningar i spel

Sammanfattning: To tear barriers down, and erect new - an analysis of accessibility features in games. The purpose of this study is to gain understanding of the informants experiences of working with, and playing, accessible games. By basing this essay in the informants' experiences, the aim is to gain insight into what features can be applied in games and how they affect the player. This is done by recounting accessibility measures mentioned by the informants interviewed for this study, and completed with additional information from developers kits and netnographic observations. The material for this study consists of two semi-structured interviews, one phone interview, one observation, and emails as well as netnographic material that largely consists of dev-kits and guidelines from charity organisations regarding how to create accessible games. The analysis is divided into three chapters, correlating to three research questions. The first chapter lists accessibility features represented in my material, the second describes the Game Developers experience of creating a game focused on accessibility. In the final chapter of the analysis I question why and how accessibility features designed to bring barriers down sometimes end up creating new ones. A recurring theme in the material for this study has shown that in the efforts of making games more accessible for a broader public, certain aspects of the features have instead limited certain players. The theoretical framework for this essay is made up from Crip Theory (McRuer 2006) as well as Merleau Ponty’s theories regarding phenomenology and the bodily schema (Merleau-Ponty 2005).