Speaker 1: Hey, I'm Michael, a deaf gamer on the Gaming and Disability Steering Committee. I just wanted to take a minute to show you how to make video games more inclusive. Subtitles are text equivalents for speech, and they are one of the most used accessibility features in-game. So commonly used that they should be enabled by default, but if they aren't, then players should have the option to enable them before any type of audio plays. This ensures that players don't get wrapped into a long cinematic introduction without being able to follow along. It's important to think about how subtitles are presented, especially size and contrast. Different people have different needs and preferences, so giving people control is great. You can ensure that there's enough contrast between the subtitle text and background visuals by putting a black box behind them, known as letterboxing, like in Borderlands 3, which also lets you choose how transparent the box should be. For size, aim to have subtitles that can be displayed at a minimum of 46 pixels at 1080p, but ideally larger. And again, let people choose what size they want, as what's readable for some will be too big and for others too small. Life is Strange lets you increase the size from large to hella large. It's also extremely helpful to show a preview of what the subtitles will look like while players are configuring them. Ghost Recon Breakpoint is a nice example of this, showing you the size and opacity of your currently configured subtitle settings. A way of indicating who is speaking can be helpful too, especially if multiple people are talking or if the speaker isn't in view. This is true for any audiovisual media, such as TV or movies, and is equally as important in games. Growing numbers of games give an option for speaker identification. Final Fantasy XV, for example, can show who is talking by displaying the speaker's name along with the subtitle. Some games go to the next level of accessibility and provide full captioning. This is different than just subtitling, which is just spoken dialogue. Captions can include text equivalents for other information communicated through sound. This can include sound effects, music, and even extra information about speech, like emotional inflections. If the direction a sound is coming from is important, you can show that visually too. In Gears 5, captions supply a great deal of information. Players are told when combat music settles, what non-speaking sounds the characters make, what a character sounds like when they're speaking, and where the speaker is located. As always, different people have different needs and preferences. For some, the extra info is essential. For others, it can be overwhelming or distracting, so it's a good idea to let people turn different types of information on and off independently, like in Division 2. So that's it. Thanks for watching and joining us on our journey to make gaming for everyone. To learn more about how to make games better for everyone, visit aka.ms.xga.