Steam is introducing accessibility tags to help disabled players discover inclusive games by enabling developers to tag their games and “better describe the way their games support accessibility.”
Steamworks now boasts a new questionnaire for developers to describe the way their games support accessibility, such as gameplay options like adjustable difficulty and text size, color alternatives, high contrast, speech-to-text and text-to-speech, as well as custom volume controls, narrated game menus, and so on.
Valve said that now as part of the “edit store” section for each game in Steamworks, game developers will find the new questionnaire to describe their accessibility support. Later this year, Steam will then enable users to search for games with specific accessibility features.
Accessibility options will also be added to the sidebar on the right-hand side of the store page.
“We’ve been working to gather valuable feedback from developers as well as gamers with disabilities to bring what we hope is a more positive experience on Steam for everyone by making it easier to find games that support Accessibility features,” Valve said.
“Guiding developers through the process of how to share this information about their games is the first step.”
The tags differ from those introduced by ESA’s Accessibility Games Initiative, something blind gamer and consultant Steve Saylor acknowledged “could be confusing down the road.”
Earlier this month, UK technology secretary Peter Kyle slammed Valve’s PC storefront, Steam, for hosting a sexually explicit visual novel in which the protagonist engages in non-consensual sexual contact, sexual violence, rape, and incest.
Shortly thereafter, developer Zerat Games announced it would withdraw its visual novel from Steam after it was removed from sale in the UK, Canada, and Australia, saying: “We don’t intend to fight the whole world, and specifically, we don’t want to cause any problems for Steam and Valve.”