Excluding other input options for Overwatch on PS4 and Xbox One excludes many players with disabilities.
Last week, Jeff Kaplan, the Game Director of Overwatch, caused a stir with a statement on the official forum. He urged Sony and Microsoft to ban keyboards and mice as input devices from their consoles or to make it more accessible for all players to create a fair playing field.
While a large part of the player base supported this demand, there was also criticism from entirely unexpected quarters.
Steven Spohn from Ablegamers.org (link to the site), which offers players with disabilities various devices to play games using movements of their eyes or other inputs, sharply criticizes this statement from Kaplan. The colleagues from Polygon conducted an interview with Spohn, where he addressed the issues:
“Disabling the ‘Input Conversion’ and banning alternative input devices would render a large part of the assistive technology currently available on the market useless. We’re talking about things like eye-tracking via USB port or a mouth controller that people with certain disabilities use.”
In general, Spohn does not see a major problem in allowing multiple input options.
“Mouse and keyboard allow you to aim more precisely, just as a gamepad lets you mash buttons faster. Do these players have an advantage? Of course. Is it unfair? No. Because if it matters so much to you that you have a slight disadvantage because you’re playing with a controller, then you should just get the input device that gives you a slight advantage.”
Cortyn says: A difficult decision that must be made there. What weighs heavier here: the inclusion of players with disabilities or fairness for a large part of the player base on consoles? I don’t believe there is a clear answer or a definite solution to this problem. However, it shows again that seemingly “simple” issues like keyboard and mouse support can often have complex repercussions for other players that you may not have initially considered.
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