I found out about SpecialEffect through my friend, Short. You’ve heard about her quite a bit by now, and some of you have probably even met her when her internet cooperates enough to allow for stream hangouts! She’s a lovely lady, a great friend, and the best guild leader around! We wanted to share her story about how she encountered the wonderful people at this organization, and why we believe so strongly in what they do.
“ I love video games. I play with my friends, my family, and new people I meet every day. Sometimes it is something competitive like Overwatch and sometimes it's a MMO like World of Warcraft. Personally, I think it is a great hobby to share with people you love. Unfortunately about a year ago something threatened this hobby.
I am a gamer with a disability. I have Spinal Muscular Atrophy which is a disease that will progressively get worse. A little over a year ago I had a progressive growth spurt of sorts. In about two weeks time I went from right clicking my mouse with ease, to struggling to press it, then finally I couldn't at all.
This was terrifying. I was already a mouse only gamer but now I was down to one button. Do you know how much you even need to right click for? I didn't realize until I couldn't. No more easily running through World of Warcraft. No more making jumps in Rocket League. Heck, I couldn't even right click to save goofy pictures on the Internet! It was awful. I knew it was time to start looking into accessibility equipment like switches but I had no idea what I needed, where to get it, or how to make it work. Lucky for me I had met some pretty amazing people on Twitter that were experts. One of the staff from Special Effect, Barry Ellis, came to the rescue and walked me through everything via email. I got a switch working and I was happily playing again.
This got me thinking, what else can I do? I always had one game that was my nemesis. Minecraft. Then one day on the Special Effect twitter feed I saw something that might help me play. I tweeted for more information and Special Effect went above and beyond to get me in touch with people who could help. Any time I have been confused or had questions, someone has always answered. They serve the United Kingdom, yet here they were with information anytime I asked for information here in America.
This is Special Effect. They help gamers with disabilities keep playing. They understand the importance of people playing games. They know that sometimes it's not just a game, sometimes it's so much more. It's playing with your friends. It's going on a grand adventure. It's conquering enemies. It's about having fun. For many gamers with a disability these things can be a challenge. For some of us it's an ever changing challenge.
Special Effect helps gamers get the tools they need to keep playing the games they love. They help find solutions with hardware or software and get each gamer a personalized setup to play. Gamers can come to them to try different equipment but more importantly they will go to a gamer with a disabilities house who is unable to travel. This is all for one purpose... inclusion. After losing the ability to right click and seeing how much I was going to have to give up I know firsthand how important being able to game is. The thought of missing my World of Warcraft guild's raids was just, well, sad. Raiding was 2 nights a week where I was with some of my best friends and the only thing I was worried about was if we could kill a boss before it killed us. Learning more about how to make controls more accessible gave me hope for games I thought were no longer possible. All this was thanks to some amazing tutors (thanks, Barry) and the amazing organization Special Effect”.
