Guest Opinion: VR Shouldn't Leave Disabled Gamers Behind

My friends are sick of hearing about virtual reality. My family probably is, too. I’d be embarrassed to admit how many virtually-identical videos of people going hands-on with the Vive Pre at CES I’ve consumed. Without question, I’ve spent more hours watching the developers play Fantastic Contraption with the system than I ever did playing the original game itself. My holodeck fantasies, decades in the making, are finally coming true.

Surely, then, I was first in line to preorder the Oculus Rift. Or, perhaps I’m holding out for the aforementioned Vive? I wish I could be that definitive, but instead I’ll be waiting to see if this new realm will be open to people like me.

Since the day I was born, the cells in my eyes have been dying. With each that perishes, I’m robbed of a tiny sliver of my central vision. After more than a quarter century, the result of this inexorable march is that sports scores most can comfortably read from their couch are a struggle even when sitting just a foot or two from my big-screen TV. You’d never notice if you met me on the street, but I live in a world in which all but the largest of text is covered in a smear of Vaseline.

The kicker is, I’m by no means alone. In the last census, more than eight million Americans reported they had trouble seeing. A great many of them number among our nation’s elderly, but legions more face such a hardship for much of their lives. And failing sight is just the tip of the iceberg: nearly one in five US citizens report suffering from some degree of disability.

Despite the decline of my vision, I remain an avid gamer today. You can bet that—eyes six inches from the screen—I’ll spot your proxy pylon or sniper perch. Rarely had the people of Skyrim seen a Dragonborn so dedicated to preserving the realm before I arrived on the scene.

The irony of virtual reality is that the very thing that makes it great might thrust it out of reach for people like me. After all, when you move your head in VR, the screen—and all its tantalizing text—moves with it. There’s no getting closer to get a better view. There’s no moving something to your peripheral to catch a glimpse.

The recent past shows us that this is not an insurmountable problem. A decade ago, the unveiling of the iPhone brought similar consternation. Here was a technology so remarkable that few could doubt it was the future of computing and yet it was all but a black box to the blind. Generations that grew up learning to touch type and find the buttons of a mouse were confronted with a flat, featureless slab of glass. How could they ever hope to interact?

All was not lost. Although computers had developed for decades before efforts at accessibility became serious, smartphones were imagined almost from their inception as tools for everyone. The first major revision to the iPhone, the 3GS, arrived with a breakthrough feature known as VoiceOver. With simple swipes on the touchscreen, the visually-impaired could navigate the entirety of iOS by audio alone.

Today, virtually every app of any quality supports VoiceOver. Text can be enlarged and bolded systemwide. Those with low mobility can navigate by flipping a switch and the hard of hearing can pipe sound directly to their hearing aids. The lesson is unambiguous: focus on inclusivity from the beginning and nearly any disability can be overcome.

Despite eight generations of consoles and decades on the PC, gaming still lags far behind what smartphones have accomplished in just ten years. Only after updating to version 2.5 did the PS4 gain basic features like adjusting the size and face of the system font and remapping the controller’s buttons. Many of these features work only in the system menus, not inside games themselves, and the options offered by the Xbox One are even more limited.

The move to VR is forcing developers to rethink every paradigm in game interaction. What worked in two dimensions might be disorienting or even sickening in three. A mechanic that challenged players with a joystick might bore them with a motion controller. Right now, as we’re building the norms for interacting in new, alternate realities, is the time to think about how to make sure everyone can come along.

We did it with our last transformative technology and we can do it again. Careful consideration can ensure that those who might most wish to escape the real world have that chance the same as anyone else. Virtual reality is the future of gaming; let’s not leave anyone behind.