Special Effect, a disability charity, is leading the way in making all video games accessible to people with low mobility issues.

The charity has transformed the lives of people with physical challenges worldwide by developing specific controller hardware to meet any individual need.

Maddy Meeson, 23, the events and fundraising co-ordinator for Special Effect said: “We have such a cool and important role here, where we make variations of different controls, which are tailor-made to a range of different disabilities.

“We have a team of trained occupational therapists that will go out and help each individual to basically let them play whatever they want to in whatever way they can.”

The company’s mission is to optimise inclusion, enjoyment and quality of life for disabled people by allowing them to control video games to the best of their abilities, which can include setups that have buttons on the ground so gamers can play with their feet, or joysticks which are moved by the chin.

According to Scope, another UK disability charity, the most common barrier for disabled gamers is the affordability of suitable assistive or adaptive technology, followed by the knowledge or time required to set up assistive hardware.

Maddy, wearing a blue and orange Special Effect t-shirt, explained how the charity began in 2007: “Our amazing CEO, Dr Mick Donegan’s background is in special needs education and assistive technology, and what he released is that a lot of children that he was helping had the assistance that they need when they were at school. 

However, when they were going home, there was no support, and they weren’t able to play with their friends. There was nothing for them. And so, he said I want that to be something for them. 

He made it so that everything was free of charge because technology is expensive and not everyone can afford to buy all the latest things.”

The basic accessibility controllers for the Xbox and PlayStation are both priced at £75, but many of the add-ons, which are crucial for different needs, can range from an additional £50 to £200. 

Many people who come to the charity require even more specialised controllers, where the vital test alone for them costs £250.

Maddy added: “Because of the high cost, we send everything free of charge to people and ever since it’s just grown and grown and grown and we’re so lucky to have such an incredible group of people supporting us.”

The charity has made a big difference in the lives of people suffering from complex needs, and is at the forefront of adapting technology, such as eye tracking to suit a range of disabilities, 

Meeson said: “We’ve helped the wonderful Sam, who has a progressive disease, called motor neurone disease, a rare condition which affects the brain and nervous, and we worked with him for the past few years, as his disease unfortunately progressed.

“He can now really only use his eye gaze and he came to us and said that he wanted to play a version of Fallout Four that is accessible for him, which is not something you can just buy out of a box. 

“It unfortunately isn’t a normal thing with many big games, but we are really, really lucky that we got some brilliant occupational therapists that specialise in eye gaze and we were able to create a unique set-up for him, where he can just use his eye movement. 

It is awesome and the smile is on his face every time plays it and now, he is a serious gamer. He’s played games for the whole of his life so he will spend hours on this thing, and it is just phenomenal to see how much he loves it.”

According to Samsung’s research, 39% of disabled gamers were forced to abandon their favourite games because of accessibility hardware barriers.

The charity also sometimes liaises with game developers, providing some support in making their games more accessible.

“We’re trying to push accessibility more from every kind of basis, and we’ve got something called the dev kit, which we send out to lots of developers, and it’s basically a series of really short videos, which they can look at and it’s all the really basic things so it’s nothing really scary or something that would put them off.

“I think in the last few years we’ve seen a change in the way that accessibility is viewed more and more people are getting behind it and realising it is worth investing in early on because it’s easier to make something as accessible from the get-go than it is to kind of make your game and then go, oh, I want to make it accessible in two-three years. 

So yeah, we definitely get a lot of support and it’s lovely because more and more kind of bigger game studios are coming to us and going. What you’re doing is pretty cool and we want to get involved which is awesome and all we could ask for.”

The charity was recently presented with a BAFTA Special Award, which recognised its outstanding contribution to games, films and television.

In a press release CEO Dr Mick Donegan said: “With a background in special education, I realised how much people with severe physical disabilities were missing out by not being able to play.

“ I started SpecialEffect not only to help individuals to play video games but also to collaborate with the games industry to make their games more accessible ‘at source’. 

‘Since then, we have been privileged to be invited to share our ideas with more and more developers all over the world. Now, 17 years since Special Effect began, it’s an absolute honour for our work to be recognised by BAFTA.”

Special Effect also have an array of streamers who raise money for them. One of those is Darren – Daz300 – who has raised over £1000 for the charity through his channel.