FORMAL COMPLAINT: ADA and accessibility discrimination against disabled players
I am a disabled player with a spinal cord injury. I am writing to file a formal complaint of discrimination and accessibility violations in your games and on your platform. I am a person with a disability, and I am being treated as a second class player because of it.
Unequal assistance for disabled players
Your games provide targeting assistance to controller players as a standard feature. No comparable assistance is provided to players who are forced to use a mouse, which includes many disabled players whose injuries prevent them from using a controller. A controller player receives an in game edge for free. A disabled player receives nothing. That is not a feature gap. That is an unfair playing field built against the people who need help the most, and it gives non disabled players a competitive advantage over disabled players in every match.
A harassment system that punishes the wrong people
You ban player names that other players laugh at, calling them offensive and threatening account bans, while your own in game audio is full of the most vulgar and offensive language on the market. Your platform says whatever it wants. Players cannot disable that language or change it. Yet a player can report a funny name such as John T Bag, and the report is treated as a serious offense, even when the name is a joke everyone in the lobby is laughing at.
The system you built rewards the most sensitive players for filing frivolous reports against everyone they do not like, while those same players continue using your overly offensive in game language without consequence. You have given us no uncensored server option where players could elect to play without the reporting feature. You have chosen instead to run a system that lets players target and harass others while shielding the platform's own conduct. If you will not clean up your audio, you have no right to police player names. You are enforcing a double standard, and you are the final judge of it, not any principle of civil rights.
No way to identify as disabled, no accommodations offered
Your platform gives players no field in their profile to declare a disability or request assistance. By that omission alone you show that accessibility for disabled players was never considered. You provide no accessibility assistance for disabled players comparable to the assistance you give controller players. You do not even allow us to identify ourselves so that assistance could be offered.
Demands
Provide targeting and input assistance for mouse and keyboard players equal to what controller players receive.
Add a disability declaration field to player profiles with options for accessibility assistance.
Stop banning names unless they are genuinely threatening or harassing, and apply a cooldown to players who file frivolous reports.
Provide uncensored servers where players can elect to play without the reporting system, or clean the language from your games entirely.
Respond to this complaint in writing within 30 days. You have my email address.
I am documenting this complaint and your response. I intend to file Federal and California ADA complaints against Electronic Arts with the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division and the California Attorney General, and to have your venues examined for ADA compliance. Discrimination against disabled players is a civil rights violation, and your practices favor non disabled players at every turn. I expect a serious response, not a form letter.
