7-128 Software - Top Web Sites for Accessible Gaming

But First...

Before we present this year's results, we'd like to pass on to you some words that best sum up why many of the people responsible for these sites and for accessible games do what they do.

"I want to talk to you for a second about why I pour my lifeblood into The AbleGamers Foundation.

This is Yasin (picture), a young man dealing with a disease that has taken away his ability to walk, control his arms, and even makes pressing buttons require concentration. That SUCKS.

Imagine not being able to control your body. Imagine not being able to use it to do the things that you want to do when you want to do them. You're trapped.

Have you ever felt alone? I mean really alone. Stuck wherever you are with no one to talk to and nothing interesting to do. A place or time in your life when getting to go out is a treat-- an escape from the walls of your home that you've stared at for so long they may as well be prison bars.

But look at the expression on Yasin's face. That's nothing but pure joy. He's driving a race car. And he's free.

Sometimes people say to me 'Steve, I love what AbleGamers does, but let's face it, these are just video games, you aren't saving lives.'

Aren't we?

I take one look at Yasin and I know we are. I know the everyday struggles he goes through. And I've never met him. I know what he goes through because I've been alone.

I don't need to have a disability as severe as he does (or at all) to understand what it's like to be alone. At one point or another, all of us have experienced being alone in a room full of people. All of us have experienced the joy of freedom. These are universal feelings.

Videogames give people a way to be free and AbleGamers gives people in situations like Yasin's a way to experience video games.

If that's not saving someone, I don't know what is."

Steve Spohn, AbleGamers

7-128 Software - Top Web Sites for Accessible Gaming - 2016

Our objectives with the Top Web Sites project are to:

Provide useful information to the accessible gaming community
Recognize contributions to accessible gaming

The criteria for ranking are available at the end of each individual list.

Some rankings may not precisely follow those criteria because some Web sites have exceptional strengths or weaknesses.

Our expertise is in what we ourselves do. We build and market games that:

Are single user games
Run on Windows
Are playable by adult and child gamers who are blind, vision impaired, color blind, motion impaired, deaf, or hard of hearing.

Therefore, we can reasonably rank only Web sites that relate to those areas.

In addition, we recognize though do not rank, Web sites that:

Are Shout Outs from the accessible gaming community
We personally think the coummunity would like to know about

Responding to considerable interest from the accessible gaming community, these now include mention of:

Web sites featuring mobile games

Here are our selections for 2016. Many thanks to the folks in accessible gaming who helped us. Any errors are strictly our own.

Top Web Sites for Accessible Gaming Industry and Community Leaders

This category celebrates Web Sites, and their creators, that are influencing the accessible gaming industry and serving the accessible gaming community.

To learn about the top Web sites for accessible gaming industry and community leaders, click HERE.

Top 25 Web Sites for Gamers who are Blind

First, we must note the passing of two very influential people in this community: Jim Kitchen and Thomas Ward. They produced good games, helped a lot of people, and were hugely entertaining, especially when discussing the best way to build games. They will be missed.

Despite the loss, we are in a period when the blind gaming community is thriving.

There are a bunch of new blind-accessible games.

There are a bunch of new web sites for gamers who are blind.

There are lots of active forums for gamers who are blind or visually impaired.

And, though we don't rate them, we include some web sites for blind-accessible mobile games.

Special thanks to Dark for making us aware of new sites.

To learn about the top sites for gamers who are blind, click HERE.

Top 22 Web Sites for Gamers who are Motion Impaired

Wow! Major activity here. A bunch of sites went away. Some new, really excellent, sites appeared. And some existing sites got markedly better.

Women gamers are now represented; see their sites.

Some major awards were earned.

And two long-time industry influencers went to the White House.

To learn about the top sites for gamers who are motion impaired, click HERE.

Top 16 Web Sites for Gamers who are Deaf

Not a lot of web sites offer games specifically for gamers who are deaf. However, there are a bunch of AAA games that are deaf and hard of hearing accessible.

And there is a healthy set of absolutely outstanding web sites offering reviews of those AAA games where the reviews specifically address hearing accessibility.

There is also a growing number of web sites offering guidelines to developers who want to make their games deaf-accessible.

And finally we've added three sites written by women.

There does not appear to be a single noteable site for gamers who are deaf to go to for community. Specifically relevant forums have gone away or are not very active. Probably the best place to go would be the Game Critics forum.

To learn about the top sites for gamers who are deaf, click HERE.

General Observations on Accessible Gaming Web Sites

The world of accessible computer games is alive and well.

New accessible games: commercial and FREE, AAA and indie, are being made available.

There are some really good review sites.

There are developer guidelines for vision, audio, and motion accessible games.

There are effective advocates in the US and UK.

At last, women in games have three strong review sites.

The nature of the accessible gaming community appears to be changing.

The vision accessible gaming commmunity continues to have forums where folks can help each other. However, gamers who want help for motion impairment issues may have to contact their advocacy organizations, as motion specific forums seem to be gone. Gamers who are deaf might also check gamecritics.com.

Maybe some people are shifting to Facebook and similar social media.

508 Compliance: C'mon people! Almost every site we tested failed to be 100% 508-compliant, including ours. Partly that that appears to be due to more stringent scanning software. But we all oughtta get our acts together on this.

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