A frequent ask when working in game accessibility is data. Prevalence data, usage data – this post shares some examples, and some reasons why they should be treated with caution.
Background
If you’ve had any kind of involvement with accessibility you’ve likely come up against questions about data. “But how many people are actually Deaf?”, and so on.
It may seem like a sensible question, but actually it’s worth looking at why that question is being asked. It’s often asked when looking for a way to justify deprioritising something. A more sensible framing of the same question is “how many of our players are we comfortable with excluding?“.
As companies and teams and individuals progress along their accessibility journey this thinking tends to fade into the background. Particularly as it moves earlier in development and part of design decisions rather than expensive feature workarounds. Moving more towards accessibility just being part of what day to day development looks like, more towards a success criteria on other work or a choice and how we design by default, and further from it being a separate thing competing for priority on a backlog.
Caution required!
As the old saying goes – ‘lies, damned lies and statistics’. Data can often be extremely misleading.
For example around 2% of the population are Deaf, prioritising based on that would mean that many games just wouldn’t have subtitles. But 60% of Assassins Creed Origins players turned on the off-by-default subtitles, and 95% of Assassins Creed Odyssey players left the on-by-default subtitles turned on.
Around 1% of the population have one hand, yet Uncharted 4’s one handed functionality was used by 33% of their players.
There isn’t any data available on how many people are physically unable to operate a gyroscope, but it would not be large – yet Into The Dead’s non-gyro alternative input methods were used by 75% of their players.
And 8% of males have some form of colourblindness, but 100% of The Outer Worlds’ players made use of the game’s colourblind accessibility – it’s just how the game is designed, by default.
Research data can be misleading too. Was the demographic representative? Was the sample size large enough? Were the questions leading?
And even usage data itself can be misleading. If a feature is used by 2% of players, why is that? Because it’s useful to 2% of players? Or because it should be useful to 10% of players, but it’s poorly executed? Or because it is hard to find? Because the naming and description of the setting itself is unclear?
In all; exercise caution, be careful about what you use, how you use it, and why it is being requested.
But now that those caveats are out of the way, on with the data.
Prevalence data
- Around 30% of players in the USA and UK identify as disabled. This is currently the best source of data as it is a consistent finding across different years.
[caveat: there are many people who come up against accessibility barriers in games who don’t identify as disabled, reasons ranging from low reading age to colourblindness]
Newzoo gamer sentiment study - 38% of Candy Crush‘s players identify as disabled
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3Tc5xxRod4 - 50% of people in their 60s & 70s and 36% people in their 80s play games at least weekly
https://www.theesa.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/2025-Essential-Facts-Booklet-05-30-25-RGB.pdf - In Germany 7.6 million gamers are disabled, 10 % of them use assistive devices
https://x.com/game_verband/status/1395320896697499651 - [MS 60% data] need link
Usage data
Subtitles & captions
- Around 60% of players turn subtitles on when they’re off by default, around 95% leave them on when on by default.
Assassins Creed Origins 60%
The Last Of Us 2 63%
Assassins Creed Odyssey 95%
Lego Star Wars: Skywalker Saga 95%
Sniper Elite 5 95%
Far Cry New Dawn 97%
Guardians of the Galaxy 97%
Zombie Army 4 97% - 12% of The Last Door‘s players who completed the game did so with additional captions for sounds enabled
https://thegamekitchen.com/reducing-accessibility-barriers-on-an-adventure-game/ - 15% of Zombie Army 4 players increased subtitle text size
https://x.com/Rebellion/status/1791089804546851031/photo/3
Text presentation
- 35% of Sniper Elite 5‘s players increased text size
https://x.com/Rebellion/status/1659222800727515142 - 14% of The Last Door‘s players who completed the game did so with easy-read font enabled
https://thegamekitchen.com/reducing-accessibility-barriers-on-an-adventure-game/
Controls
- Over 100,000 Atomfall players modified controller schemes.
https://x.com/Rebellion/status/1923393568237838574 - Into The Dead originally just had gyro controls, but added three other options for people who can’t tilt their device – right handed stick, left handed stick, buttons on either side. Each of the four options was used by roughly 25% of the playerbase, meaning the accessibility options were used by 75% of players.
https://x.com/ianhamilton_/status/916458141553954816 - Uncharted 4’s one handed camera-assist feature was used by a third of their players.
https://x.com/Naughty_Dog/status/1391776743569039360 - More than 40% of CoD: Modern Warfare II players customized their analog stick deadzone
https://www.callofduty.com/blog/2023/12/call-of-duty-modern-warfare-iii-new-accessibility-features-update
Difficulty
- Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown‘s players who made it through to completion did so using the following difficulty settings – rookie (easiest): 19%, warrior (default): 44%, hero (harder): 15%, immortal (hardest): 3%, custom: 19%.
https://youtu.be/dqxkzggHPd4?si=k8qRfruO0yzOCqib&t=882 - 80% of XCOM‘s players played on easy or normal difficulty.
https://x.com/SolomonJake/status/1113618231560998912 - Without settings, 10% of Scourgebringer players were finding the game too easy, 10% too hard. With settings it was 5% too easy, 5% too hard – halving the % of players who were not experiencing the intended level of challenge from 20% to 10%.
https://youtu.be/BMiNlf9s5MM?si=_R64ao148ZJWMmlO&t=1806 - 64% of Evil Genius players used easy or custom difficulty, 33% medium, 3% hard
https://x.com/Rebellion/status/1791089804546851031/photo/4
Visuals
- Over 250k Madden 22 players used colourblind settings
https://caniplaythat.com/2022/05/20/ea-reveals-over-a-quarter-million-madden-22-players-use-colorblind-settings/ - In some regions League of Legends‘ colour control settings were used by 10x as many players as expected.
https://x.com/ReinaSweet/status/1483907162644443136 - 15,000 Atomfall players turned NPC highlight colours on.
https://x.com/Rebellion/status/1923393568237838574 - 12% of Sniper Elite 5‘s players turned off motion blur.
https://x.com/Rebellion/status/1659222800727515142 - More than half of CoD: Modern Warfare II‘s players adjusted graphical accessibility settings, like motion blur, FOV, and camera movement
https://www.callofduty.com/blog/2023/12/call-of-duty-modern-warfare-iii-new-accessibility-features-update
Assists
- 8% of Sniper Elite 5‘s players enabled aim assist, 92% moderate aim assist sensitivity, 6% aim assist snap, 6% auto perk unlock, 2% auto climb.
https://x.com/Rebellion/status/1659222800727515142 - 99% of Zombie Army 4 players played with auto reload on
https://x.com/Rebellion/status/1659222800727515142 - 15% of Scourgebringer‘s players used the game speed setting.
https://youtu.be/BMiNlf9s5MM?si=U23o5ADO_ViJ5Lhl&t=1255 - Of Control‘s console players who completed the game, 23% used immortality, 20% ammo recovery, 20% damage reduction, 20% energy recovery, 18% aim snapping, 20% enhanced aim assist. On average players who used assists used four features together. Of players who only used one, 75% of the time it was immortality. Immortality was more used towards the end of the game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZv3u350Xd0 - 50% of Evil Nun‘s millions of players used its no death mode.
[source not publicly available] - Scourgebringer‘s invincibility setting made no difference at all to achievement stats, players only used it when they absolutely needed to and not to cheat achievements.
https://youtu.be/BMiNlf9s5MM?si=pAsHaUjH-qeQkM5t&t=1518
Menu narration
- Cosmonius High had 9.1 million TTS requests on the Quest 2 platform alone in the 6 months after launch
https://youtu.be/AsFK1tC5plU?si=KnDuvLugLGv7nsRG&t=1853
General
- Half of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6‘s players accessed the accessibility menu.
https://www.callofduty.com/blog/2024/10/call-of-duty-black-ops-6-accessibility-updates-features - 9.5 million of Uncharted 4‘s players used an accessibility option.
Uncharted 4 GAconf case study
Financial/business data
- In the two weeks following Brok the InvestiGator‘s blind accessibility patch, the game had more sales than in the 6 months before the patch.
https://x.com/COWCATGames/status/1638163640808349698 - Solara‘s blind accessibility work took 1 week. 1% of their players were blind as a result, they played for considerably longer and spent considerably more on microtransactions than other players.
https://x.com/ianhamilton_/status/1120215536707805184 - Candy Crush‘s disabled players played for 12-19% more hours and 5-9% more active days than other players
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3Tc5xxRod4 - The work to make MUDRammer blind-accessible took 1 day. After the work was done, 16% of their players were blind. And the game retailed for $5, meaning instant profit.
https://x.com/ianhamilton_/status/1639416728550617088 - Epic Eric‘s configurable high contrast mode took 15 minutes to implement, most of which was making the slider
https://x.com/ianhamilton_/status/1225818779386597378 - Celeste‘s much lauded and imitated featureset took a few days to implement
https://x.com/ianhamilton_/status/1225844723379822593 - Infernium sold as many copies in the 2 days following its accessibility patch as the two weeks beforehand
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ipiwguupvI - Puzzle Retreat‘s accessibility-first approach differentiated it enough from the competition to obtain a front page listing on the iTunes store
[source no longer available] - After discovering a game through the Accessibility in Games marketing channel on the Xbox store, more than 10% of visitors go on to purchase that title.
https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/games/resources/whats-new/ - 66% of gamers more likely to play socially responsible games
https://x.com/TisserandDavid/status/1388164111452807169
Other data
- After FC 26’s accessibility workshop, 88% of studio attendees said they would highly recommend it to their colleagues, and 96% said that hearing directly from disabled players was highly insightful and enhanced their understanding of accessibility challenges within FC.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhtRi5BW_Qc - After Rebellion’s accessibility workshop, 88% of studio attendees said it was applicable to their role, and 82% could apply the learning to their process.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuCyDCP-Pvk&t=1640s
