Twitch works to highlight gamers with disabilities
As the speedrunner Halfcoordinated made his way through the indie game "Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight" at this summer's Summer Games Done Quick charity speedrunning event, he was interrupted. A user named Dad233 had made a donation to Doctors Without Borders in the amount of $100, with the comment "Even if I wasn't your dad, you'd still be my hero."
Halfcoordinated, also known as Clint Lexa, was born with hemiparesis. This means that due to scar tissue in the sensory motor cortex of his brain, feeling, movement, and strength in the entire right side of his body is diminished greatly. His speedrun of Momodora this summer, and all of his other speedruns, are performed one-handed since his right hand lacks the coordination necessary to pull off complicated button combinations required of high-level speedrunners.
After completing his speedrun in just under 32 minutes, Halfcoordinated moved the Summer Games Done Quick audience to tears and ovation by opening up about how important the representation of disabled and differently abled gamers is to him.
Twitch was listening.
Last week, Twitch teamed with the AbleGamers charity to feature differently abled gamers on the front page of the streaming service in an effort to raise awareness for gamers that have to approach their favorite hobby a bit differently. From highlighting a collective of deaf gamers to ThumblessGaming, a gamer without thumbs, to Halfcoordinated himself, Twitch and AbleGamers wanted to show the gaming world at large not just that there's a thriving community of differently abled gamers, but to show them specifically how these gamers work with and around their disabilities in amazing, inspirational ways.
ComboDudeTheGamer blasts his way through high-action games despite being born with spinal muscular atrophy with the help of assistive technologies that let him control his character using only his mouth and a couple of fingers. Blindgamer102 plays fighting games at an extremely high competitive level using only sound cues. What Halfcoordinated said in his speech at Summer Games Done Quick rings true: He's not the only one out there doing unbelievable things.
"Take what life has given you, and do your best with it," Halfcoordinated continued, as the credits of "Momodora" rolled. "Your limits are probably way farther out than you expect. And if you push yourself, you'll probably be really happy."
Time will tell how effective Twitch's spotlight on the AbleGamers collective will be in terms of donations to the charity, but as of now, millions of Twitch users have seen differently abled gamers featured prominently on the front page of their favorite streaming service. They have seen the stories told, and hopefully, the stories have inspired them to do their best as well. And for disabled gamers who may not have any kind of Twitch following, the event gave them a chance to see people like themselves doing truly amazing things, excelling at the video games they love to play.
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