24/03/2025
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
LONDON, March 24th, 2024 – The line-up has been announced for accessibility conference GAconf Europe, taking place on April 14th-15th.
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 Europe 2024 event is hybrid, both a free to attend online event held through Zoom and Discord, and an in-person gathering in London.
Topics include deep dives on individual features, processes and considerations like accessibility implications of porting a console game to mobile, accessibility user research, how to integrate with system level accessibility functionality, and design for children with profound & multiple disabilities; case studies on games like Atomfall, Pine Hearts and Candy Crush; panel discussions on how accessibility relates to UX design and lived experiences as disabled advocates; and many more sessions, including representation of ADHD in games, the research process behind the AbleToPlay resource, how to talk about inclusion in a hostile climate, a look at a new colourblindness simulation tool, and a retrospective on the past 7 years of the Xbox Adaptive Controller.
Speakers include indie accessibility superstars like Hyper Luminal, Sun and Moon, Alexander Horowitz and IO Interactive, through to AAAs and publishers like Ubisoft, PlayStation, King, EA and Tencent; service providers like Player Research and Everyone Can, through to disabled gamers, advocates, and specialists such as Mathew Allcock, Lauren Radford, Melody Powell and Amy Kavanagh.
Line-up - http://www.gaconf.com/schedule
Conference registration - http://www.gaconf.com
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.
“When I read GAconf was the best conference in the industry, I didn’t believe it. Now it’s your turn to not believe it, because I also think it is.”
- Riccardo Galdieri, Technical Designer & UI Programmer, Directive Games
“So happy to have first hand accounts from players about their gaming experiences”
- Nikki Crenshaw, UX researcher, Blizzard
"This was the most inspiring conference I've ever been to"
- Jess Hider, Technical Designer, Rare
“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:
BlueSky - https://bsky.app/profile/gaconf.bsky.social
Twitter - https://twitter.com/GA_Conf