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Catherine Starobor-Strakhova
Catherine Starobor-Strakhova

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Accessible esport

Hello everyone!
Are there any analogues of the Paralympic Games in esport? Yes, they exist! And I want to tell you about them.

More and more people are getting into games, and more and more developers are making games more accessible, which attracts more and more people to games. Thanks to technology, diseases that interfere with the passage of computer games cease to matter. This also applies to those games that are often used for competitions.

Thanks to this, it becomes possible to create a world of games without barriers in esports.

Research shows that esports also helps people with disabilities successfully integrate into society, improve their quality of life through the development of cognitive and intellectual skills, as well as communication.

In Japan, there is an esports team called Matagi Snipers, with an average age of 67. Their goal is to become a team that even their grandchildren respect. They see their mission in uniting different generations on the theme of love for esports. It is important that esports helps to develop cognitive abilities, which can delay the development of dementia. And due to vivid emotions and communication, older people do not feel disconnected from the outside world.

In 2022, the Permastunned team entered the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest esports team for people with disabilities. Participants not only want to win, but also strive to raise awareness of players with disabilities through their work. There are some problems with professional tournaments - for example, the organizers do not allow the use of special equipment, as it may give an unfair advantage to players without disabilities.

In the picture: photos of the Matagi Snipers members.

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