The collection Gaming Disability: Disability Perspectives on Contemporary Video Games co-edited by Katie Ellis, Mike Kent and myself was published by Routledge in 2023. It is widely available in paperback, hardback and ebook formats. This collection was a while in coming, significantly held up by the COVID-19 pandemic, but we are delighted that the full collection is now available, showcasing a range of important perspectives on people with disability and videogames, reinforcing the relatively simple but important point that good game design should always aim to be as inclusive as possible! You can read the first chapter online here.

Here’s the Table of Contents:

1. Introduction: Gaming (and) Disability by Katie Ellis, Tama Leaver & Mike Kent

Part One: Representation

2. A History of Disability in Video Game Character Design by Jennifer Dalsen

3. Dis/abling Androids: Gaming, Posthumanism, and Critical Disability Studies By Mark A. Castrodale

4. Outliers as Heroes: Disability, Representation and Inclusion in Blizzard’s Overwatch By Kai-Ti Kao and Denise Woods

5. The Dis/ability of the Avatar – Vulnerability versus the Autonomous Subject by Simon Ledder

6. Crashing through Capitalism: Happy Wheels, Debilitation and Disability Representation by Leanne McRae

7. A Missile to the Face Scarred Characters in Mass Effect 2 by Gabriele Aroni

8. Representations of Ability in Digital Games by Diane Carr

Part Two: Digital access and Design

9. A Spectrum of Real: Augmented Reality and Social Scaffolding by Craig Smith and Heath Wild

10. Towards Inclusive Game Design by Patricia da Silva Leite and Leonelo Dell Anhol Almeida

11. The Ultimate Medium for People with Disabilities? Re-Centring the Human in Virtual Reality Visions of Play, Care, and Empathy by Marisa Brandt, Mitchell Reddan, and Morgan Kiryakoza

12. The Sociological Accessibility of Gaming by Michael James Heron

13. A Life-course Analysis of Third-age Digital Game Players in China by Chen Guo and Katie Ellis

14. Gaming with Blindness in Audio Virtual Reality: Making BlindSide by Mike Kent, Michael T. Astolfi and Aaron Rasmussen

Part Three: Inclusive Communities

15. A (dis-)abling gaming model for playful inclusion: Playing (digital) games with persons with and without learning difficulties and dis/abilities by Gertraud Kremsner, Alexander Schmoelz, Michelle Proyer

16. Online Games Players in Darkness: A Study of the Blind Gaming Community Tingyou by Huan Wu

17. Pokémon Go and Urban Accessibility by Kathryn Locke and Tama Leaver

18. Crip Twitchology: You’re already one of us by Katie Ellis and Lachlan Howells

19. Minecraft as an Online Playground: Reframing Play and Games in a Minecraft Community for Autistic Youth by Kathryn E. Ringland