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Episode Summary

Most indie devs know accessibility matters. They nod along, they mean well, and then they file it under “stuff I’ll get to later.” Later usually means never, or it means a frantic scramble after the game is already built, when every change costs more time and money than it should have. That gap, between knowing it matters and actually knowing where to start, is the biggest accessibility mistake indie devs make. And it is quietly costing them players.

That is exactly why I sat down with Zach and Vinny from AbleGamers. AbleGamers is a charity that has been around for 22 years, getting adaptive gaming equipment into the hands of players with disabilities at no cost to them. Zach runs the Able Player One program and works directly with players, figuring out how their body works, what their gaming goals are, and what equipment will get them back in the game. Vinny handles marketing and partnerships and spends his days connecting the dots between players, developers, and the wider community. Between them, they have seen what actually stops people from playing your game, and what tiny changes open it back up.

This episode is not a guilt trip. It is a practical, human, and genuinely doable breakdown of accessibility for people who make games. We get into the disability categories devs overlook most, why controller remapping is the single most requested feature they hear about, how to add an easy mode without “ruining” your hardcore vision, and the business case that should make every studio pay attention: 71 million gamers with disabilities in the US alone, and an estimated 400 million people with disabilities trying to game worldwide. We also talk about the stories that make this work matter, like Carlos, a totally blind fighting game champion who walked up to an AbleGamers booth and proceeded to beat everyone in the room.

If you have ever told yourself accessibility is a nice to have you will get to eventually, this one is for you, friend.

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Meet Our Guest: Zach and Vinny, AbleGamers

Zach Runyan is the manager of AbleGamers’ Able Player One program, which was formerly called Peer Counseling. With a background in teaching and years as an adaptive gaming specialist, Zach meets players from across the US and parts of Canada, works out how their body and their goals line up with the right equipment, then purchases and ships that gear to them at no cost. He follows up, troubleshoots, and reopens tickets whenever a player needs more help. He has worked with players as young as four and as old as their sixties, and he leans on a network of roughly 25 partner facilities, including children’s hospitals, rehab centres, and VA facilities, to reach as many people as possible.

Vincent “Vinny” Santore runs marketing and partnerships at AbleGamers. He is the one bringing players out to events like PAX East and Level Up Expo, building community in the AbleGamers Discord, and making the case to developers that accessibility is good business as well as the right thing to do. Vinny is candid that he is not a coder or a game designer, but his time inside AbleGamers and the APX training has given him a sharp, real-world view of what features matter and why.

Together they make a simple argument that is easy to ignore and hard to forget once you have heard it: accessibility is not charity work bolted onto game design. It is game design.

Website: Able Gamers

Support The Play It Forward Campaign: Play It Forward GoFund Me

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Key Takeaways

“Adding just that single feature of controller remapping is a detrimental change to the amount of people that can play your game.”

— Vincent Santore, Able Gamers Charity

• Controller remapping is the number one feature they hear about, full stop. When Vinny is asked what setting developers overlook most, he does not hesitate. It is controller remapping. The reason is mechanical: adaptive equipment like the QuadStick relies on being able to reassign inputs, and without remapping, that hardware simply cannot talk to your game. He points to Escape from Tarkov, a famously hardcore game, as the model. Every single input can be remapped, holds and presses included, which is why players using mouth-controlled setups can play it at all. Maybe they are sitting in a bush picking people off instead of running and gunning, but they are in the game. That is the whole point.
• An easy mode does not have to “ruin” your hardcore vision. Zach and Vinny hear the same worry from Souls-like devs constantly: if I add an easy mode, my core players lose the badge of honour. Vinny’s answer is that there are ways around the tradeoff. Turn off achievements when accessibility settings are changed. Lock the fancy end-game rewards. Let players who cannot otherwise play simply participate. Most players with disabilities are not asking for the trophy, they just want to experience the game. And plenty of players without disabilities would happily start easy, learn the systems, and work their way up.
• The market you are ignoring is enormous. Vinny cites a 2023 study putting the number of gamers with disabilities in the US at around 71 million, with an estimated 400 million people with disabilities worldwide. That is not a rounding error. That is a massive audience that a developer can reach by making a game slightly more accessible. More people who can play means more sales and a bigger community. The business case and the human case point the same direction.
• Accessibility helps everyone, not just players with disabilities. Zach relays a line from Steven White, who runs the APX training: make something accessible and you make it easier for everyone. Think of the navigation marker you use so you do not get lost, the subtitles you leave on out of habit, the practice mode that lets you learn before you commit. None of those were built only for disabled players, and all of them make the game better for the whole audience.
• Build it in early or pay for it later. The single most repeated piece of advice in the episode is to think about accessibility from the ground up. Vinny is blunt about it: building it in from the start costs vastly less money, resources, and time than retrofitting it after the game is done. The “we don’t have the budget for accessibility” objection mostly falls apart when you realise you do not need a separate budget if it is baked into how the game is made from day one. Bolt it on at the end and yes, then it gets expensive.
• The APX training exists for devs who do not know where to start. Accessible Player Experience, or APX, is AbleGamers’ training program. Zach took it when he joined and still talks about ideas he had never considered, like swapping a spider’s legs and eyes for harmless little shapes for players with arachnophobia, or letting players turn off blood to avoid triggering PTSD. A seat runs around 1,800 dollars, but there are options tailored to small indie teams to lower the cost, plus private trainings built around a studio’s specific game. Every dollar goes back to AbleGamers and helping more players.
• Your donation has a concrete price tag, and it is smaller than you think. When Mike asks where the money actually goes, Vinny breaks it down. An average equipment setup for a player runs about 565 dollars. Factor in the team’s time, shipping, and the back and forth, and the average cost to fully help one player game is around 1,200 dollars. So every 1,200 dollars raised is, on average, one more person who gets to play. Hit a 10,000 dollar fundraising goal and you have helped close to ten people experience games again.

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Show Notes & Mentioned Resources

About AbleGamers

AbleGamers is a 22-year-old charity that provides adaptive gaming equipment and support to players with disabilities at no cost, through its Able Player One program and a network of roughly 25 partner facilities.

Freaking Cool Indies: Play It Forward Campaign: https://www.gofundme.com/f/freakingcoolindies

Tools and Hardware Mentioned

• Xbox Adaptive Controller (Microsoft): https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/d/xbox-adaptive-controller/8nsdbhz1n3d8
• QuadStick (mouth-operated controller): https://www.quadstick.com/
• Hori adaptive hardware: https://stores.horiusa.com/flex-controller-for-nintendo-switch/

Games Mentioned

• Escape from Tarkov (cited as the gold standard for full input remapping)
• Dark Souls / Elden Ring / Sekiro (the difficulty debate)
• The Last of Us Part II (award-winning accessibility)
• Expedition 33 / Clair Obscur (Zach’s 2025 favourite): https://store.steampowered.com/app/1903340/Clair_Obscur_Expedition_33/
• Below the Stone (Vinny’s Play It Forward pick, by Mike Strohlart’s studio): https://store.steampowered.com/app/1170230/Below_the_Stone/
• Hades

People and Creators Mentioned

• Carlos “KH Rattlehead” – blind fighting game champion
• Prentice and the Quad Gods
• Blind Warrior Sven (YouTube): https://youtube.com/@BlindWarriorSven
• David Myers – international adaptive tournament gold medalist
• Rocky No Hands (YouTube): https://youtube.com/@RockyNoHands11
• Steven White – runs the APX training program

Key Frameworks from This Episode

Accessible means better for everyone: Most accessibility features quietly improve the experience for your entire player base, not just disabled players.

Controller remapping first: Make every input reassignable. It is the single highest-impact accessibility feature and the one adaptive hardware depends on.

Participation over perfection: You cannot make a game accessible to everyone, so focus on increasing how many people can play rather than chasing an impossible 100 percent.

Easy mode without the asterisk: Offer lower difficulty but gate achievements or end rewards if you want to protect the hardcore experience. Let people choose to participate.

Accessibility from the ground up: Plan for it during development, not after. Early integration costs a fraction of a late retrofit.

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