Inaccessible design in game development causes many potential players to be left out of the fun and connections games bring to people's lives. This causes problems like social exclusion in the game development community which is already struggling with inclusivity.

But what I didn’t realize was how damaging that mindset could be. I had nowhere safe to talk or release my stress. Over time, those bottled-up emotions built into an overwhelming storm. I found myself crying in private, breaking down after holding it all in for so long. At first, I didn’t recognize that I needed help. I thought I just had to push through, stay strong like I had always been told. But holding in all that stress was not healthy mentally, emotionally, or physical

When I was a young child in the mid-to-late 1990s into the early 2000s, the prevalence of the autism spectrum was not as widely recognized as it is in the present. Therefore, when I was a toddler, my family, specifically my parents, did not possess the knowledge or expertise that they would learn as I aged. In an interview I conducted with my mother regarding my autism and the behaviors that came as a result, my mother elaborated on her observations from my very young years,