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Palgrave Macmillan

Disability and Video Games

Practices of En-/Disabling Modes of Digital Gaming

  • Book
  • © 2024

Overview

Editors:
  1. Markus Spöhrer

    1. International Center for Ethics in the Sciences and Humanities (IZEW), University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

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  2. Beate Ochsner

    1. Department of Literature, Art, and Media Studies, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany

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    You can also search for this editor in PubMed   Google Scholar

  • Offers practical & critical perspectives, overviews, applications on accessibility technologies, practices, & histories
  • Provides suggestions for academics, educators, teachers, digital game designers, and developers as well as gamers
  • Functions as an introduction to the field of disability and digital games, and features in-depth analyses & case studies

Part of the book series: Palgrave Games in Context (PAGCON)

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Table of contents (12 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xix
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  2. Dis-/Ability, Accessibility and Video Games: Chapters in the Context of a Research Overview

    • Beate Ochsner, Markus Spöhrer
    Pages 1-23

  3. En-/Disabling Interfaces: History and Present

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 25-25
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    2. Game Interfaces as Disabling Infrastructures

      • David Parisi
      Pages 27-41

    3. Who Can Play? Rethinking Video Game Controllers and Accessibility

      • Mat Dalgleish
      Pages 43-71

    4. A History of Disability and Voice-Enabled Gaming from the 1970s to Intelligent Personal Assistants

      • Markus Spöhrer
      Pages 73-116

    5. Playing with the Eyes. A Media History of Eye Tracking

      • Philipp Macele, Jan Mueggenburg
      Pages 117-143

    6. Interview with Mark Barlet (AbleGamers)

      • Mark Barlet, Beate Ochsner, Markus Spöhrer
      Pages 145-161

  4. Problematic Aprioris and Ableist Ideologies: (De)Constructing Dis/Ability

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 163-163
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    2. Dis/Enabled Playing: Ableist Ideologies and Abledness Consolidation in Video Games’ Mechanics and Infrastructures

      • Axell Fontaine
      Pages 165-192

    3. The Mediality of Dis/Ability: Producing ‘Disability’ and ‘Ability’ in the Realm of Digital Games

      • Simon Ledder
      Pages 193-223

    4. Intersections Between Gaming and Dis/Abilities (Roundtable)

      • Tom Bieling, Diane Carr, Ursula Fischer, Laura König, Beate Ochsner, Ulf Dietrich Reips et al.
      Pages 225-256

  5. Accessibility: Guidelines, Practice and Legal Issues

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 257-257
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    2. Accessibility by Numbers: A Critical Review of Game Accessibility Guidelines

      • Alexander Horowitz
      Pages 259-294

    3. Providing Access

      • Beate Ochsner
      Pages 295-317

    4. Interview with Sandra Uhling: “Against Homogenization and on Becoming Aware and More Sensitive Towards Human Diversity”

      • Sandra Uhling, Beate Ochsner, Markus Spöhrer
      Pages 319-344

  6. Back Matter

    Pages 345-357
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Keywords

About this book

This collection intends to fill a long overdue research gap on the praxeological aspects of the relationships between disabilities, accessibility, and digital gaming. It will focus on the question of how Game Studies can profit from a Disability Studies perspective of en-/disabling gaming and issues of disability, (in)accessibility and ableism, and vice versa. Instead of departing from the medical model of disability that informs a wide range of publications on “disabled” gaming and that preconceives users as either “able-bodied,” “normal” or as “disabled,” “deficit,” or “unable to play,” our central premise is that dis/ability is not an essential characteristic of the playing subject. We rather intend to analyze the complex infrastructures of playing, i.e., the complex interplay of heterogeneous human and non-human actors, that are en- or disabling. 

Editors and Affiliations

  • International Center for Ethics in the Sciences and Humanities (IZEW), University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

    Markus Spöhrer

  • Department of Literature, Art, and Media Studies, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany

    Beate Ochsner

About the editors

Dr. Markus Spöhrer is a Postdoc research associate in the project “The Interactive Gaze: On the Status and Ethics of Surveillance Images in Digital Games” at the International Center for Ethics in the Sciences and Humanities (IZEW, University of Tübingen,Germany). He studied American Studies, German and English literature (University of Tübingen), and Media Studies (University of Miami). He has a doctorate in Media Studies from the University of Konstanz, Germany. His main research areas are dis/ability and digital Media, digital games, and Science and Technology Studies (STS).

Prof. Dr. Beate Ochsner is a Professor of Media Studies at the University of Konstanz. Before, she was an assistant professor at the University of Mannheim and a guest professor at the Universities of Innsbruck, Basel, and St. Gallen. In 2002, she habilitated with the thesis DeMONSTRAtion. Zur Repräsentation des Monsters und des Monströsen in Literatur, Fotographie und Film. Also she is spokesperson of the research unit “Media and Participation” and principal investigator of subproject 2 “Techno-sensory processes of participation: App-practices and dis/ability.”

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Disability and Video Games

  • Book Subtitle: Practices of En-/Disabling Modes of Digital Gaming

  • Editors: Markus Spöhrer, Beate Ochsner

  • Series Title: Palgrave Games in Context

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-34374-2

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham

  • eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-031-34373-5Published: 19 December 2023

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-031-34376-6Due: 19 January 2024

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-031-34374-2Published: 18 December 2023

  • Series ISSN: 2731-5029

  • Series E-ISSN: 2731-5037

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XIX, 357

  • Number of Illustrations: 35 b/w illustrations

  • Topics: Popular Culture , Media and Communication, Education, general, Digital/New Media

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