FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
REDMOND, October 7th, 2024 – The line-up has been announced for accessibility conference GAconf USA, taking place on October 28th-29th.
GAconf is a game development conference dedicated to making games more accessible to gamers with disabilities, hosted by the IGDA's accessibility SIG. The event features talks and networking for all disciplines of the games industry, exploring recent and future advances in game accessibility. The USA 2024 event is hybrid, both a free to attend online event held through Zoom and Discord, and an in-person gathering in Redmond.
Topics include deep dives on individual features, processes and considerations like how to effectively linebreak subtitles, cognitive accessibility of in Jedi Survivor’s UX, and how to avoid excessive load for people with memory loss; case studies on games like Assassins Creed Nexus VR, Mysteques, and Periphery Synthetic; panel discussions on blind gaming and accessibility in live service games; and many more sessions, including representation of Tourette’s in games, modifying the original Doom to be accessible to blind players, the role of community, game development as blind programmer, ADHD Vs open worlds, avoiding burnout, and a look at the development of the new Xbox Adaptive Joystick.
Speakers include indie accessibility superstars like ShiftBackTick, Team Toby, Dark Horse and Lemonade Games, through to AAAs and publishers like Blizzard, EA, Maxis, and Xbox; service companies like Player Research and Easysurf, through to disabled gamers, advocates, and specialists such as Kennedie Griggs, Erik Johnson, Tess Grossman, Pat O’Leary, Carlos Vasquez, Michael Feir, Shaylyn Baker, Ross Minor, and Shell Little.
There are also two fringe events – a full day accessibility 101 workshop at Digipen on Sunday 27th, and tours of the Microsoft Inclusive Tech Lab on the evening of Monday 28th.
Line-up - http://www.gaconf.com/schedule
Conference registration - http://www.gaconf.com
Workshop registration - https://www.eventbrite.com/e/game-accessibility-101-workshop-tickets-933811273657
Awareness of the importance of game accessibility has increased hugely in recent years, with ever growing numbers of developers seeing the benefits. Attendees will take home practical knowledge of how to ensure their vision can reach as wide a range of players as possible, allowing more of those players to benefit from the access to culture, recreation and socializing that gaming brings.
Attendees can expect a wide range of topics from all sectors of the industry and an abundance of networking opportunities, leaving with inspiration, new contacts, and practical tips to ensure any game can reach as many people as possible. So no player is unnecessarily excluded from everything that games have to offer.
"This was the most inspiring conference I've ever been to"
- Jess Hider, Technical Designer, Rare
“So happy to have first hand accounts from players about their gaming experiences”
- Nikki Crenshaw, UX researcher, Blizzard
“Fantastic day at GAconf celebrating and getting tons of hot game accessibility tips!”
- Jenny Lay-Flurrie, chief accessibility officer, Microsoft
“The most informative conference I've been to in a very long time!”
– David Tisserand, Senior Manager of Accessibility, Ubisoft
About IGDA-GASIG:
The IGDA Game Accessibility SIG is a special interest group of the International Game Developers Association. The IGDA-GASIG volunteers have worked since 2003 to aid the game industry in making games accessible to all players, regardless of impairments or other limitations. For more information, visit http://www.igda-gasig.org .
Press contacts:
Tara Voelker / Ian Hamilton
gameaccessibilityconf@gmail.com
Social:
Twitter - https://twitter.com/GA_Conf