SOE Being Sued by Visually Impaired Gamer Over Game Accommodations

Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) is being sued by a visually impaired gamer alleging the company failed to provide adequate accommodations for his condition citing the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), specifically the section that states that reasonable accommodations must be made for all disabled patriots to be able to access goods and services provided to the public. Further more, he is also alleging that SOE has hindered his financial status as they allow the legal buying and selling of items in some of their games and he has in essence been losing money because these accommodations were not in place.

Stern alleges many games make accessibility accommodations such as color options for the colorblind, voiceover dialogue for visually impaired, close caption for the deaf gamer, and content assistance (i.e. giant arrows pointing which way to go) for cognitively disabled gamer, but allegedly none of these enhancements enable him to play SOE titles. He also claims that Sony has hindered his financial situation because Sony allows the player base to sell in game items legally on their sanctioned website. The items he could have been gathering for himself, if the game was more designed for his specific disability, would have helped aid his income stream.