Insider Q&A: AbleGamers founder Mark Barlet on the importance of making gaming accessible

Mark Barlet founded AbleGamers in 2004. It’s a nonprofit that works to combat social isolation among people with disabilities using “the power of video games.” Most recently, his organization worked with Sony to help create its new Access controller for the PlayStation, designed to make it easier for people with disabilities to play. Question: When did you begin consulting for Sony on this controller?  

Answer: We’ve had a relationship with Sony for other projects for a while. Sony has been on the forefront on the software side of creating accessible experiences. But about five years ago, they reached out to us and said, we have an idea. Can we talk to you about what this idea is? Q: And what was the idea?  

A: They wanted to create a controller that really supported players with disabilities and wanted to learn from our organization on what the experience was like — what were they solving? When they came to us, they were looking at what do we need to worry about — this disability or this disability? And we talked to them about how disabilities, you know, show me a person with multiple sclerosis and I’ll show you a person who can be, hard of hearing, I can show someone who has a visual impairment or a motor impairment. So thinking on the label of a disability is not the approach to take. It’s about the experience that players need to bridge that gap between a game and a controller that’s not designed for their unique presentation in the world. Q: How are gamers with disabilities playing without these controllers?  

A: I mean, oftentimes it was cobbling things together in order to play. It was making compromises on how they could position a standard controller in a really unique way or 3D printing a solution that helped them reach this button over here or over there or gravitating away from consoles and maybe moving into PC gaming where there were many more options at the time for USB type things to plug in. It was really about compromising and finding what best got us there. Those solutions oftentimes came with drawbacks like fatigue, discomfort and various things like that. Q: Why are video games important for your community?