For the Western game developers a stable consumer identity with a narrow, clear set of values and tastes was ideal. The emergence of a normalised gamer identity was carefully cultivated by magazine publishers, with advertisements and articles strongly suggesting that a gamer was a particular kind of person – male, young, skilled at ‘gameplay’ and technologically competent. The selected audience Keogh explains was white, male and skilled at gameplay: The transition from consumption of video games in arcades towards home consoles and microcomputers in the 1980s and 1990s represented a pivotal moment for Keogh, and one that the industry had to respond to in order to retain an audience. He highlighted a number of key moments in the history of ICT to demonstrate the impact of the entrenched patriarchal structures through which video games emerged and currently operate. In his 2015 article Hackers, gamers and cyborgs, Brendan Keogh reflected on the way the construction of the typical gamer paralleled the masculinisation of information communication technology (ICT) in general. The paper concludes with reflections about the ways disabled gamers engage in open literacy to bring accessibility to the forefront and change the rules of the game. For example, therapeutic and educational contexts dominate while recreation is considered less important. This theoretical synthesis leads us to draw attention to the alternative ways in which games can be played and the impacts this has for the disability community.Ī secondary aim of the paper is to consider the contexts in which disability appears in gaming in popular culture and everyday life. The paper brings into dialogue research and conceptions of disability and digital media (especially the work of Gerard Goggin, Meryl Alper, Katie Ellis and Elizabeth Ellcessor) with accounts of gamers with disability, and how we might understand digital access as a cultural practice (for instance, the work of Foley & Ferri). This paper aims to put the topic of gamers with disabilities on the agenda for Open Literacies. Despite this, research dating back to 2008 suggests 92% of gamers with disability continue to play games despite these obstacles. While this group represent a large portion of the gaming population, inaccessible interfaces and consoles may prevent people with disability from playing games.

People with disability represent a significant but under researched gaming demographic ( Beeston et al., 2018). Video games are an expanding area of popular culture spanning traditional age, gender and socioeconomic divides and appealing to a diverse market.

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