Article: A Brief History of Video Game Accessibility in the 1970’s

[Thanks to Barrie at OneSwitchGaming for the tip]

When it comes down to what sets arcade games apart from video games in other areas of the spectrum, the controls certainly stand out as a key feature. Developers have come up with some revolutionary designs over the years and many times it’s the controls that bring the “true” arcade experience, even in classic gaming (take QBert for example – as simple as the controls were for that, you never had a diagonal control quite like it at home). The controls are important to every single person who approaches the game and something to complex can turn some people away or it can even prevent them from playing, as might be the case with players who have a disability of some form. Arcades have been able to provide disabled players with the opportunity to experience gaming in many forms over the years and in case you are curious to know some of the history on that then below is a link to an article that discusses the history of video game accessibility in the 1970’s, which naturally includes a number of arcade games like Atari’s Touch Me or SteepleChase (the latter of which I will have at my new arcade location and it is an absolute blast to play, in part due to it’s simplicity). It is a very interesting article that also includes some non-arcade one-switch solutions but it only goes through the 70’s so perhaps we will have to wait to see what else they dig up beyond that.

[A Brief History of Video Game Accessibility in the 1970’s – AbleGamers]

UPDATE: It has come to our attention that the original article is no longer posted on the AbleGamers website. In doing a little digging, I found an archive of the page at archive.org. Click here to read the archived article!