Here's what we know
If you've been active in the game store owner groups on Facebook you've probably seen the posts recently about game stores and publishers being targeted by a law firm in New York and being sued for lack of ADA compliance. Digital accessibility lawsuits are here.
So far they've sued Crafty Games of Washington, Games of Berkeley in California, Black Rowan Games in Tracy, California, GMT Games in Hanford, California, GameScape North in San Rafael, California, GameKastle and more. This is not an exhaustive list by any means but California in particular seems to be a hotspot.
But let's back it up a bit.
What exactly is accessibility and ADA compliance?
Without getting too into the weeds on the legislation, web accessibility is essentially a set of rules, behaviors, code standards, and design guidelines that were created by the W3C and are called the WCAG 2.1. The WCAG 2.1 is a massive 1,000-page guidebook that encapsulates a range of disabilities that go from hindering internet use to making internet use impossible without adjustments. This spectrum actually comprises 20-25% of the general population depending on if we're going with the CDC or WHO. There are many disabilities covered, and the primary categories that require attention are:
- blind people using screen-readers,
- the motor-impaired using only the keyboard to navigate,
- epilepsy, color blindness,
- cognitive and learning disabilities,
- visual impairments, and more.
What are the risks of having a non-compliant website?
Non-compliance penalties are no joke, as they can go as high as $75,000 even for the first violation. The more you fail to respect the requirements, the higher the penalties will be.
As a small business, it is in your interest to ensure that your website is accessible to people with disabilities. Not only will this increase the number of customers you can serve, but it will also protect you from some nasty fines and lawsuits.
From what we're seeing, the firm going around and suing game stores is usually looking for settlement amounts in the $20k range and they apparently do this for a living. And part of the shakedown is when they serve game stores the lawsuit, in order to become compliant they suggest working with specific companies they are associated with. So in some cases, not only do they exhort a settlement from the business, they also generate revenue for their associates at the same time.
What can you do about it?
So you basically have three options. Two of which I recommend and one that's mostly a waste of time. The first one is to go with a web accessibility plugin. These are usually free or very inexpensive and apparently get a website to about 10% of the way there. You probably shouldn't go this route since your business will still be exposed to the risk of lawsuits and fines, and it's not particularly effective on the actual accessibility side of things.
The second is to hire a company to make the necessary changes for you. This is the most expensive option, but if you can find a good web developer to work with that can show you what needs to be changed, you can also get your staff to do the work by hand over time. For stores with big websites this can be a major challenge since even just adding alt text to potentially thousands of product images and pages is a ton of work. This kind of work can cost anywhere from $20,000 to $40,000 and takes months to accomplish.
If you've built out the inventory for your online store you know what I'm talking about. Imagine doing that all over again, or paying someone else to do it.
The third solution is something more AI based like AccessiBe.
Full disclosure here. I recently worked with a client to figure out how we should protect their new store from these lawsuits and we settled on AccessiBe because it was clearly the best option on the market from our perspective. Since then I've joined their partner program and am going to be recommending their product for clients we work with moving forward.
I get a commission when I refer someone to AccessiBe so keep that in mind, but I believe it's by far the best solution on the market right now for protecting your business. You can sign up for AccessiBe and get your website protected today by going to manaversesaga.com/ada
Client's that sign up with the Manaverse Marketing Agency also get a special discount on AccessiBe, but I'll talk about that a bit later.
AccessiBe is an AI-powered machine-learning software that was developed with the understanding that successfully automating the process creates a simple, immediate, affordable,and compliant solution that serves as a win-win for the business owner and people with disabilities.
Without getting too technical, AccessiBe uses AI to analyze your website and automatically generates all the additional meta data that accessibility tools require to process your site. After around 48 hours after installation, the software generates all the necessary changes and when someone visits your website, they can use the widget to convert the site into whatever format they need.
Things like increasing the font size, adjusting the contrast, enabling keyboard navigation, to making it completely readable on a screen reader. The tech nerd in me loves the automation aspects of how it works and what's cool about it is that the more websites the AI analyzes, the better it gets at comprehending images and graphics accurately.
Once everything is processed, the software checks every 24 hours for new pages on your website and automatically updates them as well. So there's no additional work when new products are added to your store's site.
On the compliance side of things, your website gets an accessibility statement which is one of the legal requirements and very important in the case of a lawsuit. And in the eventuality of a lawsuit, AccessiBe also offers a Litigation Support Package, at no extra cost, in the case that your website's compliance is challenged. Along with their personal attention, the package includes professional audits, reports, accessibility mapping, compliance supporting documentation, guidance, and more.
Conclusion
So basically, AccessiBe should cover all the bases when it comes to accessibility and protecting you from lawsuits, and it's something that every game store owner with a website based in North America should be thinking about right now. I can't speak specifically to those of you listening in Europe but accessibility is still a worthy effort even if there isn't a distinct risk of a frivolous lawsuit coming your way.
If you want to get started with AccessiBe right now go to manaversesaga.com/ada and get signed up today.
Or reach out to me at tom@manaversesaga.com and let's chat about marketing your game store while also getting a discount on getting your website accessible at the same.
If you're currently one of the stores being sued, I definitely recommend you check out AccessiBe as an option. Even in the result of the lawsuit going to court, showing that you're taking steps to become compliant can go a long way.
Feel free to send me any questions you've got too.
If you're in the start up phase of opening up your game store and want to kick things off with a powerful digital marketing strategy that's been proven to attract customers and drive sales from day 1, or you're an established game store that wants to expand operations and use digital strategies like email marketing and paid advertising to grow rapidly, let's chat! Go to manaversesaga.com/mma and we'll put together a custom Q4 marketing plan for your business and talk about how we can make it happen for you!
If you liked this episode of the Manaverse Podcast, help out the show by leaving a five star review on iTunes! Reviews help new listeners discover the show!
For more episodes just like this one, check out the rest of the Manaverse Podcast.