Gaming The System - The Feminist Gaming Podcast

231 - Disability in Games: Beyond the Token Character

• Gaming The System - The Feminist Gaming Podcast

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Alex, Jem, and Matt return to disability in games and examine how disabled people are represented (or not) across game worlds, narratives, and mechanics. As always, the conversation is grounded in lived experience, intersectional feminism, and an openness to complexity.

Key Talking Points 

  • From wheelchairs to invisible conditions—disability is broad, personal, and everywhere, so what counts as disability?
  • Disabled protagonists are rare. When they do show up, the game often edits out the reality.
  • A cool robot arm doesn’t erase the disability. Prosthetics ≠ cure Games love the tech but skip the truth.
  • Hiding disability to “fit in” is real. The pod unpacks shame, stigma, and the pressure to 'pass' is all part of internalised ableism.
  • Disfigured Villains, wheelchair using computer wizards, troubled heroes. Stop rolling out these age-old tropes. Time to move on.
  • In the 90's we were 'colourblind' now we're able-washing. 
  • We want to see disabled characters with agency, not pity. Real stories, not checkbox rep.

Takeaways for Game Developers and Audiences

  • Disabled characters deserve complete narrative arcs, not just backstories that explain away trauma or tech-fixes.
  • Accessibility must go beyond the screen—representation matters not just in gameplay, but in the stories we tell.
  • There’s a huge imaginative gap waiting to be filled by more inclusive, better-researched, and emotionally honest game development.

Next Episode Teaser

In Part 2, the team will be exploring a recent game release—To a T—with a focus on its protagonist, who some argue that their T-shaped existence offers a warm-hearted insight into living with disability. We explore this concept and the accessibility of the story and the game mechanics. 

 #GamingRepresentation #AccessibleGaming #IntersectionalGaming #AbleWashing #DisabledProtagonists #InclusionInGames #IndieGamesMatter #GamingWithDisability #GamingTheSystemPodcast

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Speaker 2:

Hello everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Gaming the System, the podcast where three intersectional feminists examine gaming and games through a feminist lens. Today, I'm your host, Alex, and I'm joined by my friends, gem and Matt, before we get started, if you want to support us, you can subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/gaming the system for some exclusive content. Or you can send us a one-off donation via PayPal to our email address. We are gaming the system@gmail.com.

Alex:

We are back and we're going to revisit a topic that we've discussed previously on the pod, and that is disability and disability representation in gaming. So what I want to do with this first part is think about disability as a whole in gaming. What that says about our perceptions of disability and how it's represented in different ways then part two is gonna be about a really recent release To a t. Which is made by the developers of the Game Stray Ana Anaperna Interactive. I think they've also made a number of other popular games as well. So we'll talk more about that in part two. So I wanna start off with an overview for people. Who might be curious about what disability is and might not have, the knowledge of what disability is. So when we talk about disability, we mean a condition that someone has. It can be physical, mental, visible or invisible, but it's something that impacts upon a person's day to day. And perhaps limits certain daily activities. and under the Equality Act, you have to have had that condition for a year or more to be legally defined as disabled. I. And so disability really covers quite a broad spectrum of lots and lots of different health conditions. They might be long term things, they might be less long term. They, often fluctuate around 83%. Of people who are disabled, were not born with their disability so they might acquire their disability. And I used the phrase with with a slight hint of tongue in cheek to it. They might acquire their disability later in life, and the older we get, the more likely we are to become disabled as well. Additionally, you can have multiple conditions. All at once. So you don't just have one condition and that's your lot. You can have one condition that leads to another condition, all sorts of different things, and they all intersect in lots of different ways. And equally, disability affects anyone, no matter who you are, where you're from, what age you are, what your background is. It's the largest minority group when we think about it in those terms. And. now we are living in a world that is designed for non-disabled people. And so myself as a disabled woman, I'm working to correct some of that and try and make people more aware of, accessibility and accessible and inclusive ways of making the world a little more, welcoming to disabled people and accepting of disabled people. so that's a broad overview of disability and, where I sit. Within it. I have lived experience as a wheelchair user myself and I know that you guys also have lived experience or by proxy experience of disability yourselves as well. so that's where we are coming from this discussion. We don't speak for. Everyone who's disabled, we only speak from our lived experience so with that overview done and dusted, I would like to ask you both, common do you think that disability representation is on your gaming history within the games that you've played?

Jem:

I think it isn't very common. Certainly severe disability is, is uncommon

Alex:

Mm-hmm.

Jem:

I think minor disabilities. I say that, it what is minor? I, I have hearing loss and have to wear hearing aids and in some ways it is extremely minor, you know, I mean, I can get by and it's not a problem, in other circumstances it can be really problematic

Alex:

Mm

Jem:

So, so I think, when I say minor, I mean, in a very broad term, but yes, minor things like people wearing glasses

Alex:

mm.

Jem:

Hearing aids or walking with a limp and things like

Alex:

Yeah.

Jem:

So I think they're quite common in games, but usually not as a protagonist,

Alex:

Mm.

Jem:

a side character, rarely a playable character. So mental. Health issues and disabilities are probably more common

Alex:

Mm.

Jem:

because they can often provide a good motivator or plot, um, driving tool.

Alex:

Mm.

Jem:

But yeah, physical disability I think is quite rare in, in games. But I do think we are seeing a little bit more as time

Alex:

Mm-hmm.

Jem:

so

Alex:

Yeah.

Jem:

It's, it is getting better, but it's, it's by no means, Representative of the numbers of people, living in our societies with disabilities.

Alex:

I think it would be super interesting if there was like a study of like percentage of disabled characters based on the genre of game as well. if you think about certain environments, like say a game with a lot of. Monsters. You might have a lot of people who have limb differences'cause they've been attacked by monsters or something like that.

Jem:

Yeah.

Alex:

There's all sorts of ways it can sort of manifest itself, but yeah, there's a study out there for someone who wants to look into it. Definitely. What about you, Matt? How common do you think it is based on your gaming history?

Matt:

I think it's tricky to, to assess that.'cause I am, I'm glad you started off talking with a, a, a refresher on what disability is.'cause it's another one of those things. It's, it is, it's, it's not a simple. Concept for things to be, and it means different things to different people and people. People can, like you say, Jem, what is a minor disability? What's minor to some people is a massive deal to others. And it, I think there's a, the toxic element people having something in their life that. On paper counts as a disability, but it's hard to say that about yourself if you can. It's like you can pass for not being disabled if it can be invisible, you can hide it.

Alex:

And I think there's a lot of stigma behind the wish to sometimes hide it as well. because that's what society tells you is that disability is something to perhaps be afraid of or be ashamed of even. Because we all want to fit in. And so we all think, well, actually no, I'll be okay. If I just try and fit in and maybe mask some of this stuff.'cause if I look like this or behave in this way, everyone will think that I'm normal we, we can all get on just fine. There's a lot of stigma attached to as disabled and it's a massive hurdle for a lot of people to get over that internalized ableism and also external ableism as well.

Matt:

There's that challenge with it of you can say to like every character that your play is meant to be the powerful character that is in command of themselves and their environment. And you are the one that shapes the world through what your character can do. And you can. You can retrofit disabilities onto that. You can say that they've got mental health stuff or some sort of physical stuff, but then when the way that that character moves through the world, it's it exactly the same as if they didn't have any. If you're including a disability, so one of the most common ones, which we'll talk, talk about in a bit is prosthetic limbs. There. They've been used forever. So like, oh no, you've lost your arm and now you've got this extra cool, awesome new arm that can do more cool things. That doesn't, it just doesn't, it counts, but it's, it's different. Because it's going, oh, yeah, you've, they're not disabled.'cause they can do what they could do before. That means that it's not any of you. You can do what you did before then. Is it a disability? And then there's the, the bit that I think is what needs to be expanded into is. The kinds of disabilities where you can't just put them in a mech suit or put another, put another arm on them and make games for people in that situation. Because you can have people who, in a, in a wheelchair, and you could have, there's an awesome silly clip of, from a mod of one of the Batman games where Batman's in a wheelchair. And they've got, he's just, it is just basically a stationary figure in the wheelchair.

Alex:

Hmm.

Matt:

so they've replaced his figure model with that. But all of the movement of the character is the same. So it's just this chair swinging around and just beating the shit out of all the enemies around him. And it looks ridiculous, but. It's one of those things where you go, what would happen if Batman did lose both his legs or whatever? There's so much opportunity'cause the stereotype is that disabled people have nothing to do.

Alex:

Hmm.

Matt:

There's nothing they can do. There's nothing they want to do. All they want to do is just not be disabled, and that's just not true.

Alex:

No, it's not. It's based on an assumption.

Matt:

Yeah, I haven't seen anywhere where that has been fully mined for what it can be.

Alex:

Yeah. Yeah, I wanna touch on something you tapped into, Matt, when you talked about prosthetic limbs enabling people to not be disabled anymore. interesting that you said that I'm not saying that you have this point of view, you're just saying this is what games do. It taps right into something I talk about in my current job, I talk a lot about the medical model of disability when an individual is medicalized and tried to be fixed and cured. Within that model, a lot of people talk about the benefit of assistive technology. And prosthetic limbs are assistive tech because they're enabling people to do something they wouldn't. be able to do without it otherwise, and then if you take that right to its next conclusion, you would say, well, that means they're not disabled anymore. But actually the truth is that they still have to live with their condition and manage it. They still have to manage phantom pain or having to manage the prosthetic, taking it off, putting it back on and managing any stumps that they might have or whatever. And, outside of using that prosthetic limb, they've got to manage that. So the assistive technology is very good for enabling independence and in the games case, perhaps enabling certain abilities and effects, it doesn't take away. that disability. So that's a really interesting point that you touched on there, Matt.

Matt:

Yeah.

Jem:

me think about, The idea of sort of colorblindness

Alex:

Hmm?

Jem:

comes to race,

Alex:

Yes.

Jem:

that's something that we've moved away from now. This idea that, you know, I don't see color is outdated now because we have recognized that race and skin color and all that goes with that. Is, is a, lifelong well, generations long impact. And it can't just be washed

Alex:

away. Yeah.

Jem:

can't just be ignored like that because it does have an effect. And I think that what we're seeing perhaps here is a similarity to that, because we don't like it, do we? As,

Alex:

No.

Jem:

human beings. We don't like the discomfort. We don't like the fact that somebody else maybe has a tough time. We don't want to think about stumps underneath their,

Alex:

Yeah.

Jem:

prosthetic limbs or the fact that, their lives are harder because of the. Disability that maybe when we interact with them, it's not present. But then, we don't see them in their home environment dealing with all of that

Alex:

Yeah,

Jem:

think we have, we're getting a, a greater understanding when it comes to em, emotional and mental health that, you know, how somebody presents in public might then mean that they need to take two days.

Alex:

exactly.

Jem:

bed to recover. And I think we need to maybe be thinking some along similar lines with physical disability that just because somebody manages. To get around with their tech and, doesn't mean that they're not disabled and doesn't mean that they don't have challenges in, in their day-to-day lives. And also, I follow a guy on Instagram who's basically had. A condition that meant that he progressively lost his legs And he was given prosthetic limbs and he never got on with them. So he doesn't use them. He uses a chair or he uses a, he just, he gets around on his arms and he's living a very full life.

Alex:

It's not the solution for everybody. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, yeah, exactly. Gem. But yeah, it's definitely one to think about, isn't it? With that in mind, what examples of disability in games have you encountered, if any? What do these tell you about perceptions of disability?

Matt:

I think the prosthetic limb thing is probably, it's the most common'cause. It's the simplest thing to just go. Oh, is something his arm's gone? Oh no. What's he gonna do now? He's out of the game entirely and they give him this, this new arm, and then they're off. So in Metal Gear solid five and in Call of Duty, advance warfare, like, oh no, your soldiers had an arm, lost an arm. That means you can't be a soldier anymore.

Alex:

Mm.

Matt:

And then they just stick the arm on. And that, you made me think of that.'cause I was gonna say like di diversity, like skin color and gender and sexuality is easy, actually. Easy to implement. Nothing structurally needs to change. You just need to have different individuals there With disa, the. Diversity of disabled people. Everything needs to change. Everything needs to be different. You can't just stick, you can't have like a Right, we've got a scene in this tower block and we gonna have someone in a wheelchair there. Then you go, oh, okay, well how did they get in there? How are they gonna get out of there? And they go, ah, we just, we'll just put them in a, in a mech suit and it'll be fine. We'll just do that rather than. Taking the mindset of the, and again, I'm sure you've, you've, you've touched on this a lot and you've mentioned it before, the, the perception of disabled people as they, they don't have anything to offer. They're just there to be cared for and pitied

Alex:

Yeah.

Matt:

rather than you can take, say for example, someone who, if you're taking the real world, if you lose your arm, there are a billion ways to lose a limb. All different kinds of, you could, you could pull someone from a burning building and your arm gets stuck. You could be doing a trick on your skateboard and land on a fence or whatever, any number of things. And that the story of how that happens and the story of how you, you recover after that and then go on with your life. And once you've come to service with that, that is such a rich area for creating someone's a character.

Alex:

Yeah.

Matt:

you are, if you're doing something, having someone who, who needs to, they could need, they need to wear this artificial limb for their work or whatever, but they hate it and they, phantom pain is such a, a fascinating thing to, to consider of the, like you can. Your, your body still has the, like, the neural pathways that are telling you that your arm's there and it's still, it's still painful. And so when game designers think about including something that could be considered disabled, they're immediately thinking, oh, right. How do we make them be able to behave as if they're not disabled?

Alex:

Hmm.

Matt:

We get the, the initial shock of going, oh no, an arm's missing. And then, oh, but we've got this new cool toy, and then we could go on, go on killing probably the best, example of prosthetic limb, like being based in the story as well,

Alex:

Hmm.

Matt:

is Barrett in final Fantasy seven

Alex:

Yeah.

Matt:

because I, they've done a really good job with the character development of all the characters in that, in that, in those games'cause. And they chose fantastic voice actors from him as well. And start off, you just see this massive black guy with a massive canon on his arm and you think, oh, that's awesome. You have no idea what that's from, but you just assume he's just this big hard guy and it's just a cool thing that he's got. And then you find out that, so spoiler alert for Final fantasy seven. You find out that years before. He's a, an eco terrorist. Now. That's what the story is, the shinra, is mining all of the planet's natural resources, and he's leading the terrorist group that you are part of to try and bring them down and you find out that. Years. Previously he lived in this mining town and the mining town was going under'cause they were mining for coal and he was the one that convinced the town to let Shinra come in and install a new beautiful reactor obviously that's not gonna go well, but he's the one who talked them into it and then the reactor exploded and he had to run into town to try and. Help people. And Shinra came and were killing all of the villagers'cause they needed to make sure that no one found out about what had happened. And Barrett goes in there with his best mate and his best mate falls off a cliff and they're all under fire and Barrett's holding onto his arm as the guy is suspended over this cliff. Trying to pull him up and they see the bullets going. Someone with a gun is shooting towards them and the bullets come closer and closer and closer and closer, and then shoots his arm off and his friend drops to his apparent death and so you see Barrett having that thing on his arm the entire time you go, God, can you imagine how heavy that arm must feel? You feel feeling your friend holding onto your friend's hand, you can still feel his hand in your grip. It's not just a neutral thing. A weapon of destruction and that's what can be done. That's the kind of richness that you can have with disabled characters and. That really touched me when, when I played it.

Jem:

I really struggled with

Alex:

Yeah.

Jem:

thinking about it because very few. Games came to mind, or characters came to mind? George in Stardew Valley

Alex:

Yeah.

Jem:

probably the first one'cause he's, but he's sort of cantankerous old man in, in in his wheelchair, but obviously you can't play hi him there was a game and I was trying to re recall it, that I played where it was similar graphics to Stardew Valley and you could choose to have your character in a wheelchair. and I think that's the first time that I'd actually had that as an option. And I've been really intrigued by the fact that. It's only very recently that you can add any kind of prosthetics or hearing aids and things in the sims Games like that.

Alex:

That's right.

Jem:

so yeah, I did really struggle and, what I came up with, was a long list of characters who have various. Mental health struggles and disabilities. But as I said, I think that's because it's easier to write in write in and Matt makes this really good point about the fact that if you have a character who just goes on with it all as normal, but happens to have a disability, then that's a sort of. Ableist washing of their disability. And so if you want to then write the disability into the story, then that complicates it more. But if it was done from the start, that would be fine.

Alex:

Hmm.

Jem:

know from the fact that we have Paralympics, we know that there are already many scenarios where a of guidelines has been put in place to deal with the sort of very personal nature of disability that, aren't simple categories that you can put people into with

Alex:

No, that's very true.

Jem:

That's already been tackled. So there's no reason why we couldn't do this within the game world. So there is a lot of opportunity within gaming for a lot of interesting and fun experiences

Alex:

Mm

Jem:

you know, exploring this sort of diversity of humanity. And I think you made a really good point earlier, Alex, when you said. Often, in these environments and these worlds, you would see a lot of

Alex:

mm.

Jem:

with disabilities because usually playing in quite dangerous settings,

Alex:

Yes.

Jem:

so that's one thing. And I think the other is that it. We've talked in the past about how gaming gives us insight, gives us opportunity to walk in somebody else's shoes and explore another perspective. And this is an opportunity for people to, for able-bodied people to get some sort of insight into what it might be like to be disabled and for disabled. To be able to play a character that's like them

Alex:

Yeah. Feel seen or, yeah. Yeah, definitely. interesting also is when I try to think of answers to that question as well, I had a difficult time they're mostly. NPCs or companion characters that aren't playable I think I talked about this in previous episodes on the pod, but one that sticks in my mind is from the Barbie Detective series. You've got Barbie's friend Becky who is wheelchair using Barbie, who has her snazzy laptop that does all the crime solving the crime computer. but they don't obviously her day-to-day life, because role is to be there with the crime computer, and help solve the crime, which is good. In, in some ways, but also if you were to make a a multilayered story version of Barbie Detective, which would be a pretty cool game, let's be honest. If you were to delve into those stories, that would be a really cool one to look into as well. That made me think how many of these characters are your token disabled person? What common tropes mean for bad disability representation, do you think?

Jem:

Mm. there's quite a lot actually, when I started thinking about this, I've made, made some notes it is quite stereotypical. It's the motivating factor for the villain.

Alex:

Yes.

Jem:

that's, that's probably the most obvious scenario or it's the terrifying nature of the villain. You know, they have some visual visible disfigurement that makes them scary or makes them horrific in some way

Alex:

Yeah. Well, they, could be quote insane or crazy. That's often a, a big reason behind villainous, intent, isn't it?

Jem:

yeah. So I think that's one, that's one thing that often the, the, the fig, the, the villains. And if not, then it's like, oh, they're so inspirational. You

Alex:

Yeah.

Jem:

they manage to do this thing so they, they inspire you. I mean, one character who, I liked was in Disco Elysium

Alex:

Oh, yes. Yeah.

Jem:

because he's got memory loss and he's an alcoholic an addict and has severe depression and various other things going on and hear voices. So, you know, his mental health is, definitely debilitating. And he's neither of these things. The mental health issue for him, the disability for him is, is sort of just part of his personality. It's not. The root cause of

Alex:

Yeah.

Jem:

of his story? And then obviously you mentioned about the token representation and this idea of like, oh, well we're ticking that

Alex:

box off. Yeah.

Jem:

Yeah.

Alex:

What are your thoughts, Matt?

Matt:

The common thing of it's a bad thing that is inflicted upon an NPC. A classic example of that is Bat Girl in the Batman universe. The joker shot her in the spine and she was bat girl. She was doing all the stuff that Batman and Robin and at that lot we're doing. And now she can't walk. She's paralyzed from the waist down. And her main thing is she's a computer whiz. So that's another trope of people in wheelchairs, them being technical wizards.

Alex:

How, what?

Matt:

Yeah, and one thing that frustrates me a lot is the misuse of mental illness. And misunderstanding of what mental illness is. Not all things that people are, they want to see necessarily represented all over the place.

Jem:

Yeah.

Matt:

So as someone with anxiety and depression, it's, those things are rooted in self criticism. And that, that criticism itself is going, oh, there's nothing wrong with you. You just lazy or weak or stupid. All the messages that come with those things. And so it's very easy to go, the way you are feeling is it's just normal. Everyone feels like this. You're just reacting to it like this because you are weak, lazy, et cetera, et cetera. It's very hard to, to represent them and actually capture them in a, an an interesting and genuinely impactful way. And then there are things like the film, the Joker, where it's just this. The, the non-disabled person's idea of a disabled person, the person who doesn't have mental illnesses, coming up with this ridiculous, extreme, fantasy version and going, oh, we're, we're, we want it to be like realistic and grounded and having him just be this, this delirious just. Caricature and then them going, oh yes. It's amazing. It's amazing. It's art, it's, it's real, it's real amazing stuff. And the only place to, to do it, I think, Senua's sacrifice, obviously did an incredible job. And that was with, with schizophrenia, you are not in command. Senua has got this task she's doing, but she is rendered completely incapacitated at multiple points along it, and they feel organic. You can't turn it on and off. You can't turn mental illnesses impact on and off. But you can use that impact like they do in. In Senua's sacrifice, and then what you can't do is go into a sequel and then go, oh yeah, she's just, she doesn't have, she doesn't have that anymore. She's just got these interesting voices in her head. And then no other, no other impact of it whatsoever. It's just utterly rubbish. So the, the misuse and the mischaracterization of mental illness is particularly. Frustrating.

Alex:

mm-hmm. Yeah, definitely. It's the abled lens, so to speak. yeah.

Matt:

liked able washing Jem.

Alex:

That's an

Matt:

That is a great phrase.

Alex:

definitely. I wanna head towards the ideas of what makes good disability representation. And if you can't think of any games that you've played with good disability representation, what sorts of games would you like to see in the future? That feature that, or that maybe feature a disabled protagonist or a disabled led story? Big question. know,

Matt:

I just want the rich, I just want the richness. The richness of experience that can come.

Alex:

there's so much potential for so many different stories, isn't there?

Matt:

Yeah. And it, it takes, just takes imagination and investment.'cause there are, and especially as the Unreal Engine have just released their latest state of Unreal where they did a.

Alex:

Did you see

Matt:

I don't know what to do about watching Witcher stuff at the moment.

Alex:

It's not gameplay'cause it's a tech demo, so I'd

Matt:

nah,

Alex:

allowed to watch it.

Matt:

nah, nah, I think I'm in a place with it where you just go, I, it's better to just not look. Wait for it to come.'cause if I'm waiting for new updates on it, then it'll take even longer to come out but at any rate, they've unreal engine you can do. Literally, there is no limits to it in terms of Unreal

Alex:

have Neite foliage now.

Matt:

Yeah, it's fucking ridiculous, stupid, new, crazy words that are gonna that, and in the next 10 years, it's gonna get even, even more incredible. So there are no excuses for lack of creativity, and that means that anything, anything that you can imagine can be done. But because no one's done this kind of stuff yet, people don't think it can be done. And it takes something Senua's sacrifice shows that you can center someone with a severe disability and have an extraordinary experience from the point of view of that character playing as that character. And that's really a daunting thing to try and. To try and make something of when it's much easier just to take a game template and make a shooter or a fighter or whatever. It just comes down to good writing as well. You need to create a character and then it doesn't matter what happens to that character. You want to continue finding out what happens.'cause people's lives don't stop when they acquire a disability. Again, that's another trope of going, oh, now they're just wheelchair ridden

Alex:

Yeah.

Matt:

bedridden. Rather than going, oh yeah, they were doing this thing before. What would happen to your beloved character? What would happen to Kratos if he had both his legs chopped off or. Or, or, yeah, Batman, if he had his legs chopped off. Having your legs chopped off is a very blunt

Alex:

Hmm.

Matt:

idea of what a disability might be. People think, oh, it's not gonna happen to me

Alex:

mm.

Matt:

I'm me. They're going, it wouldn't happen to Batman'cause he's Batman. That would never happen, even though Batman gets his back broken at one point, and then of course recovers from it in a cave somehow and goes back to normal. And again, it's, it's a recognition of the value and substance of disabled people going. They have just as much to offer. It's just in a different way,

Alex:

Exactly.

Matt:

and that's what I want.

Alex:

Well said.

Jem:

I did a, a web search,

Alex:

Hmm

Jem:

on this, and what came up was a long list of indie games that have explored disability in a more.

Alex:

way. Yeah.

Jem:

and Yeah. And engaged. Engaged within the story. I haven't played them, so I can't really vouch for them one way or another, but I think the fact that it's indie games that are doing this as opposed to the, the sort of triple

Alex:

Yeah.

Jem:

is. Is a a an issue in itself is a, is tells us something about it. But I think we're also seeing a shift away

Alex:

From aa.

Jem:

the sort of

Alex:

Yeah.

Jem:

games towards this broader game developer world. And I think that is something that is only going to get faster and more prevalent with ai. Coming on board because, it can help people get their ideas into actual products that they can take to somebody and, and get produced and get on the market. So think it will come But I don't think that it is there yet.

Alex:

Mm-hmm.

Jem:

some characters who I think have, have been done quite nicely, but we've already talked

Alex:

Mm.

Jem:

A lot of those. What I would like to see is characters for whom their disability is a part of who they are. But it isn't all

Alex:

Yeah.

Jem:

are and it isn't able washed

Alex:

Mm-hmm.

Jem:

It needs to be a realistic representation and in order to, to achieve that, they need to bring in people who are. Who have experienced disability, who have knowledge of what it's like to live day in, day out with the, with a disability. So, you know, I'm really hoping that'll happen and we're always pushing for more diversity

Alex:

We are

Jem:

industry and I, and that's one of the reasons why we think that's so important.

Alex:

definitely. Well, thank you, Jem. I think you've raised a really good point with it being perhaps more prevalent within the indie sector of gaming. I think in a way it is actually a really good fit for. less able led stories to be within the indie sphere as it were. Because disability is a marginalized group and indie is the place where lots of other people go to share stories of their lived experience and where you will find games that tell those stories. So in a way, it is fitting for at least it to start getting bigger there. I think actually indie games can. more accessible. does depend on obviously how accessible games are as a whole, and that varies widely from game to game. In the second part of this two-parter, I'll be talking about a particularly recent release, which. Does have a protagonist who you could argue is disabled, but the game itself isn't the most accessible that I've played. I don't think so. I'd like to talk about that the next episode. I definitely think that it's getting better, as you say, and that I'd keep your eyes on the indie space for. Games that tell these stories a bit more. They're usually a lot more fun and they're in short little bursts as well, so in a way that makes them look accessible as well. If you don't have a lot of time for various reasons, or you only can play in short chunks, then that's definitely somewhere to look. But thank you both so much for deliberating on this topic. It's brilliant to revisit it with you both. I look forward to the second part where we're going to be talking all about To a T which came out just earlier earlier this month, or in fact, might have been at the end of last month, but it was very recent. So we'll look forward to that. And thank you so much for watching and listening, and we'll have another episode next Thursday. Alright, bye.