Enabled Cyber Games
Woon Yee Chia
Director, Technology
The Society for the Physically Disabled, Singapore
Most mainstream cyber games, including PC games, require gamers to have the abilities to control a combination of buttons to play the games. And games controllers available for playing such games are often made for people with good control of their fingers and hands. The need for dexterity to play cyber games has 'disabled' and excluded a large part of the world population, including many people who may just be slower in finger, hand and eye movement.
The Enabled Cyber Games is a project spearheaded by the Specialised Assistive Technology Centre in Singapore. The objective of the project is to develop an adapted game controller which is suitable for most people with limited finger and hand movement.
The project received seed funding from Samsung and was launched at the Grand Finals of the World Cyber Games in Singapore in November 2005.
The project's first adapted game controller was an Xbox game controller with switches. Further research and development is now underway to develop PC game controllers and more Xbox gamer controllers. The project is also seeking research partners and sponsors.
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