Today we welcome the announcement of the Game Accessibility Association of Japan (GAAJ), a great step for game accessibility in Japan. This latest addition to the global family of accessibility organizations aims to spread awareness to the Japanese industry and players.
Breaking the language barrier
There have been great accessibility developments in Japan in the recent and even distant past. But still it often feels like there is still a lot to gain compared to the rest of the world. Despite the great strides game accessibility makes globally, most of the resources and communities are English. This poses a language barrier that we should not underestimate. Having an organization to spread awareness and resources in a language that is accessible to those it involves is invaluable.
For players, GAAJ will use their platform to spread information on games’ accessibility. They will also run events for players to try out games and adaptive equipment. This all to enable a mentality change that focuses on what is possible, instead of what disabled people can’t do. Nurturing mutual respect and bringing gaming to disabled players can help with social isolation as well. Through gaming they also intend to increase understanding and break misconceptions of disabled people in the workplace.
People with disabilities can easily become isolated due to mobility and speech difficulties, but with the rise of game accessibility, these challenges can be overcome.
Game Accessibility Association of Japan (translated from GAAJ website)
For the gaming industry, GAAJ will provide services and resources in Japanese. For example, this includes translating the Game Accessibility Guidelines. Aside from consultancy, GAAJ also plans to work with disabled players to provide testing services to developers. For industry members GAAJ can help with planning accessibility related events and providing in-house training.
The list of directors of the Game Accessibility Association of Japan includes people with professional and lived experience in accessibility. The organization also receives support from well-known names from the global accessibility community. This inspires confidence in the future of game accessibility in such an important country for the gaming industry. We are excited to see what the future holds!
