Twitch works to highlight gamers with disabilities

Twitch was listening.

Last week, Twitch teamed with the AbleGamers charity to feature differently abled gamers on the front page of the streaming service in an effort to raise awareness for gamers that have to approach their favorite hobby a bit differently. From highlighting a collective of deaf gamers to ThumblessGaming, a gamer without thumbs, to Halfcoordinated himself, Twitch and AbleGamers wanted to show the gaming world at large not just that there's a thriving community of differently abled gamers, but to show them specifically how these gamers work with and around their disabilities in amazing, inspirational ways.

ComboDudeTheGamer blasts his way through high-action games despite being born with spinal muscular atrophy with the help of assistive technologies that let him control his character using only his mouth and a couple of fingers. Blindgamer102 plays fighting games at an extremely high competitive level using only sound cues. What Halfcoordinated said in his speech at Summer Games Done Quick rings true: He's not the only one out there doing unbelievable things.

"Take what life has given you, and do your best with it," Halfcoordinated continued, as the credits of "Momodora" rolled. "Your limits are probably way farther out than you expect. And if you push yourself, you'll probably be really happy."

Time will tell how effective Twitch's spotlight on the AbleGamers collective will be in terms of donations to the charity, but as of now, millions of Twitch users have seen differently abled gamers featured prominently on the front page of their favorite streaming service. They have seen the stories told, and hopefully, the stories have inspired them to do their best as well. And for disabled gamers who may not have any kind of Twitch following, the event gave them a chance to see people like themselves doing truly amazing things, excelling at the video games they love to play.