As a person with a disability (muscular dystrophy), gaming has always been a major outlet/escape for me. Ever since I was 12 years old, I have dreamed of working in the video game industry. However, since my disability heavily limits my physical abilities and range of motion, I couldn’t properly use a computer to do coding/programming/design. When I was 15 and my dad realized it wasn’t a phase, he gave me the idea to pursue a degree in business so I could learn how to run/start my own company and be a more involved boss who communicates my ideas to the employees who do the computer work. Fast forward to 2021 and I’ve graduated with a bachelors degree in business administration. Of course I was naïve and found out way too late that it is much easier said than done to start a business lol. I’ve been a Twitch streamer these last two years as a way to still be involved with gaming in some capacity, but I’ve been lost on what next steps to take in order to get into the business side. Today, I’ve decided to just say “eff it” and post here on NewGrounds for any interested parties. If you have any questions or a skill related to game development and are crazy/passionate enough (like me) to want to take the risk of making your own game and/or starting your own game development studio, feel free to leave a reply with a portfolio of previous work if you have any. I’d love nothing more than to work with likeminded individuals to create fun, engaging stories that elevate marginalized communities/voices like my own (people with disabilities).

A couple things;

1. don't just randomly ask strangers to work with you
2. Have a plan.

As someone who recently started a business; I realized I dived head first into something again without thinking, for the love of god have a plan.

What is your brand, market, what skills/ products are you bringing to the table. The "eff it" approach isn't a good idea, trust me I've done that most of my life living with that kind of approach and I'm a failure who works at Walmart, for the love of god don't become a talentless loser who's a neet who wasted the last 5 years of your life.

Have a plan, have a tactic, come up with something.

Who are you trying to appeal to, do you have any leadership skills you've built, have you worked in a team environment, what are you budgeting on, etc, etc.

I mean hell just look at my art, my art is poorly made because I didn't take the time to be taking time for the given approach and to build up my skills. That before you jump head first into this you have to consider what you're going to be aiming for in all of this.

To add on to what @GameSmashDash said, I think a more suitable avenue to explore is input adaptation for games. That is, most game developers (myself included) don't tend to think of accessibility when developing their games, and even those who do mainly cater to things such as colour blindness, text size and such. Seeing as you have a lived experience playing games with disabilities, one thing that you could provide is a direction for improving games for others in your situation -- things like input, game design principles, and so on. Something like libraries or frameworks incorporating accessibility, which can then be implemented by developers (bonus if it can be "tacked on" as an afterthought, unlikely though it might be) would probably go farther in both raising awareness and in terms of a business perspective (if the aim is to e.g. sell these tools or devices). That's just some of the things you could explore that would probably have a larger impact, as game dev in and of itself is a game of numbers and/or luck.