Gamers With Disabilities Battle Indifferent Industry

Chuck Bittner would love to saddle up and lasso some lawbreakers in Red Dead Redemption. But the videogame’s controls are impossible for him to use.

Bittner has quadriplegia, a type of paralysis that limits the functionality of his arms. His hands can only reach certain buttons on standard Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 game controllers — he can’t use two joysticks at once, for example.

It’s not that Bittner, a New Hampshire resident who grew up on Nintendo and Sega, can’t play games at all. The 36-year-old gamer can do battle in Bethesda Softworks’ first-person shooter Brink, for example, which is just as complex as Rockstar Games’ Wild West adventure.

By Jason Schreier

Full Story: http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2011/07/accessible-games/