Modern technology opens up whole new worlds to those who play video games, and that includes people who depend on modern technology to be a part of the real world as well at those fantasy worlds in video games. And it's been that way a lot longer than you may know. Almost from the beginning, people with disabilities have been participating in video games up to the professional and tournament level. However, that's not because of the early efforts of the video game manufacturers. The players came first, and the accessibility technology followed.
Rob Marince was 17 years old when he became paralyzed from the neck down in 1977. His brother Gary put his heart and soul into finding a way for Rob to play video games, and invented an interface that was controlled by his mouth. Gary made his invention available to others, and with a bit of publicity, game developers became interested in accessibility features. Now games come with whole spectrum of features that bring accessibility to people with a wide variety of disabilities. Read how all that happened at the Conversation. -via Geeks Are Sexy
(Image credit: Rocky Stoutenburgh)
