30-01-2025
Assassin's Creed maker Ubisoft praised at gaming accessibility awards
Assassin's Creed publisher Ubisoft was the big winner at an awards ceremony celebrating accessibility in the gaming industry.
The French company, which has offices all over the world, was named Most Dedicated Publisher by GAConf.
The organisation works to make gaming more inclusive for people with disabilities - something companies have been focusing on more and more.
This year its awards show handed out prizes to games released in 2024 for features including those aimed at helping deaf and blind players.
Ubisoft was also recognised for two games it released last year.
Star Wars Outlaws won the AAA Excellence award - for a big-budget title - for its long list of accessibility features.
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown - a 2D platformer released last January - was recognised for its "memory shards" feature.
The game requires players to navigate a large, complex map, often revisiting areas much later on in their playthrough.
Many titles in the genre allow a user to place small pins - or icons - as reminders of points of interest, but The Lost Crown lets them take a screenshot to aid their memory.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 also won an award for its automatic movement features, and Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred won for its blind and low vision accessibility.
GAConf also honours individuals in the games industry for their accessibility work.
Cari Watterton, who works for Sniper Elite developer Rebellion, won the MVP Award for Unsung Hero.
Speaking to BBC Newsbeat before her win, the senior accessibility designer said being recognised by others who work in her field "hits a little bit differently".
"They understand the amount of work that goes into accessibility and the challenges that you face," she said.
Newsbeat previously spoke to Cari about her work on accessibility in 2023.
At the time she said it had been a really great year in the space and more companies were looking to recruit specialists.
She says the progress could have looked "slower" over the past 12 months, but games take time to make and developers are working on new things.
"The important thing is that we are seeing something new, in hardware, features, in games adopting their first accessibility features," says Cari.
"And we're seeing the quality of these features improve as well, which is fantastic."
Cari's currently working on Atomfall - due for release in March - which took the rare step of announcing its accessibility features when the game was first revealed.
GAConf co-director Ian Hamilton told BBC Newsbeat that "whittling down the longlist into the finalists for each category was by far the hardest yet" in the history of the ceremony.
Ian, who's worked in the accessibility field since 2006, says the "landscape is really unrecognisable compared to even just five years ago, let alone ten".
He said awareness of different players' needs and the number of specialist roles in the games industry had vastly increased, and a number of mainstream game awards now have an accessibility category.
He said a dedicated ceremony allows the organisers to celebrate progress across the industry, giving awards in areas including advocacy, journalism and specialist resources.
"But there's still a long way to go," he said.
"And we're a very long way off from where we really need to be - where anyone can pick up any game and have a reasonable expectation that they won't be unnecessarily locked out."
The games industry's troubles in 2024, including studio closures and layoffs, have been widely reported.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard maker Bioware - which won an award at GAConf for best representation - announced a studio restructuring just after the ceremony.
It said some staff had been moved elsewhere, and though its post didn't mention job losses Newsbeat understands that about 20 people were laid off.
And Ubisoft's accessibility wins come just days after it announced the closure of its Leamington Spa studio and staff reductions at other international offices, totalling 185 job losses.
Late last year the company also said it had disbanded the team behind award winner The Lost Crown after reports suggested it did not hit sales targets.
The publisher, which employs an estimated 13,500 people worldwide, has also delayed the upcoming game in its flagship Assassin's Creed series twice.
But they are far from the only company affected.
Cari says the impact has been felt across all areas of the industry, but she hopes developers will continue to push forward on accessibility.
"I don't think accessibility will be singled out," she says.
"I think it's going to be part of it. Something that we're all going to have to go through together.
"It's a shame, but I know that so much has been proven with reaching more people."
GAConf co-director Ian said the current climate had affected accessibility efforts, with dedicated roles cut and the scale of job losses meaning wider expertise has been lost.
However, he said that new positions were also being created and some teams were getting bigger.
"In terms of dedicated headcount we're in a relatively stable place compared to the wider industry," Ian said.
"Which I think is a strong statement about how much accessibility is now valued."
AAA Excellence - Star Wars Outlaws
Indie Excellence - Another Crab's Treasure
Best Deaf & Hard of Hearing Accessibility - Star Wars Outlaws
Best Physical & Mobility Accessibility - Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
Best Blind & Low Vision Accessibility - Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred
Best Cognitive Accessibility - Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown
Best Mental Health Accessibility - Life Is Strange: Double Exposure
Best Representation - Dragon Age: The Veilguard
Best Journalism - A Prominent Accessibility Advocate Never Actually Existed, by Grant Stoner
Best Academic Research - Surveyor
Best Assistive Technology - ByoWave Proteus
Best Accessibility Resource - Game Accessibility Workshop Toolkit
Best Comms & Marketing - Access-Ability Summer Showcase
Most Improved - Diablo IV
Greatest Accessibility Innovation - Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown
Most Dedicated Publisher - Ubisoft
Most Dedicated Studio - Ubisoft Kyiv
The Advocacy Award - Matthew "TheWobblyGamer" Allcock
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