The Accessibility Paradox: Platform Standardisation and the Legitimacy of Play

2026. CHI PLAY Companion '26: Companion Proceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play.

Jack Burnett.

Platform standardisation improves accessibility across contemporary gaming ecosystems, but it also shapes which forms of accessible play are recognised as legitimate. This Perspectives on Play paper introduces the accessibility paradox of platform standardisation: the same infrastructures that support accessibility can constrain adaptation and community-led solutions. I argue that accessibility is not solely a technical challenge but also a question of authority, legitimacy, and governance.

Full paper

https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3800965.3834658

Citation

Burnett, J. (2026 , November). The Accessibility Paradox: Platform Standardisation and the Legitimacy of Play. Companion Proceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (pp. 492–495). New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery. Perspectives on Play. doi:10.1145/3800965.3834658

BibTeX

@inproceedings{AccessibilityParadox, note = {Perspectives on Play}, title = {The {{Accessibility Paradox}}: {{Platform Standardisation}} and the {{Legitimacy}} of {{Play}}}, shorttitle = {The {{Accessibility Paradox}}}, booktitle = {Companion {{Proceedings}} of the {{Annual Symposium}} on {{Computer-Human Interaction}} in {{Play}}}, author = {Burnett, Jack}, year = {2026}, month = nov, series = {{{CHI PLAY Companion}} '26}, pages = {492--495}, publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery}, address = {New York, NY, USA}, doi = {10.1145/3800965.3834658}, urldate = {2026-10-27}, isbn = {979-8-4007-2565-4}, keywords = {Accessibility,Game Accessibility,Platformisation,Standardisation} }