The Washington DC-based Entertainment Software Association on Monday announced six companies are adopting the Accessible Games Initiative (AGI) tags, which it said helps “players find accessibility features in popular video games.” The adoptees include industry heavyweights in Electronic Arts, Nintendo of America, Ubisoft, and Xbox.
“The growing adoption of the Accessible Games Initiative tags means that more players can identify the best games for them based on accessibility features,” the ESA said in its press release. “The Accessible Games Initiative tags currently describe 24 features, including large and clear subtitles, narrated menus, button remapping, and difficulty levels, among others. Each tag is backed by a definition and criteria to give players clear expectations as they search for games across product pages, digital storefronts and catalogues.”
“Finding a game with the accessibility features you prefer should be straightforward,” Daniella Decker, executive director of the Accessible Games Initiative,” said in a statement for the announcement. “As more companies adopt the Accessible Games Initiative tags, we are providing a shared language that makes accessibility features easier to recognize and games easier to discover. It’s a win-win for players and for business. We invite the entire industry to help more people discover ways to play.”
I’ve covered the ESA and AGI here on Curb Cuts a handful of times in the past, most notably in April of last year when I published an interview with Aubrey Quinn, the organization’s senior vice president. She explained, in part, the driving force behind the creation of the AGI tags was to “help consumers identify specific accessibility features in individual video games, so that players buying games can make better informed purchasing decisions” because the burden was placed on individuals to “interpret existing tags in the marketplace from platform to platform, game to game.”
“We hope to change that,” Quinn said.
