Interview: Taylor Cross | The Art of Autism

We had a chat with Taylor Cross and let’s hear what he has to say about his works at The Art of Autism and the video game industry.

 

NoobFeed: Tell us a little about yourself and your background.

Taylor Cross: I'm Taylor Cross, I'm a freelance gaming accessibility consultant that helps developers make their games more readily available for people with disabilities. Before I entered this industry, I was an advocate for people with disabilities with a focus on autism. I honestly left it because I wasn't getting any sense of fulfillment out of it. So, I decided one day almost four years ago that I wanted to get into something I was passionate about. So, I decided to just use my advocacy work as a springboard to enter the video game industry proper. I started by volunteering at PSX 2016 at the Ablegamers booth with Mark and Craig. I owe Mark a lot of gratitude for giving me the confidence to pursue this career path within the industry and to get us into our first convention at VRLA. From there, my co-worker James really assisted me in reaching out to publishers, developers, PR contacts, and showrunners for conventions (and 47).

 

NoobFeed: The Art of Autism is such a noble act. When and how Taylor and you decided to start this?

Taylor Cross: This came about at first because Taylor made a feature length documentary at in 2006 called Normal People Scare me. The movie was about what it is like to live with autism from an autistic individual’s perspective. Taylor interviewed 20 people with autism an asked about their experiences of living with it as well as telling his own story. Another thing that is awesome about both films is that only 2 people that worked on the film weren’t autistic showing people who watched the films a great example of what people with autism are capable of. After the film released, he went on a speaking tour where he traveled everywhere from Los Angeles, Dubai, Qatar, Japan, and many more locations educating people on autism awareness and accessibility. Since the first film was successful Taylor became a name in the autism community.

Ten years later Taylor and his mom made another feature length film called Normal People Scared Me Too a follow up of his previous film. He again interviewed the same individuals a decade later to see how their life is now that they are adults with autism. The staff that was involved with the film except for 2 individuals were autistic showing that individuals with autism are as capable as anyone. He released the movie in 2016 and went on another speaking tour with his support staff James. Taylor and James traveled in 2016 and 2017 to speaking engagements for the film as well as film screenings. We both spoke at multiple locations as well as conferences like the Supported Life Conference which is a conference for mangers and support staff come and learn how best to assist individuals, become as independent as possible. The California Gathering is another place where Taylor and James Poggione spoke to Regional Center managers about how to best set up a program where the people, they work with can have a business and live independently.

So, in the process of doing the films Deborah Started Art of Autism with collaboration with Keri, Taylor’s mother, started Art of Autism from the inspiration of what Taylor accomplished. This leads perfectly into the next question on how the website helps individual’s in the autism community.

 

NoobFeed: How are you helping an autistic person through your website?

Taylor Cross: Here is an example of how Taylor helps his audience with Art of Autism Taylor starts out an accessibility review or assessment by looking first at the visual and auditory stimuli in the game because many individuals with autism get over stimulated with high frequency audio, high contrast images, and repetitive flashing sensation on the screen. Hyper-sensitivity is an experience where stimuli whether it is auditory, tactile, or visual is so overwhelming for the autistic individual that it causes physical pain. As a result of the overstimulation the individual can’t enjoy the game. After Taylor looks at the stimulation issues, he looks at the controls and sees if the controls are going to present an issue with someone who has processing issues or fine motor issues. He then starts assessing button mapping or alternative modes of interfacing with the game because the more ways to play the more ways individuals can interact with the medium. There are many more factors that go into autism accessibility like narrative, emotional intelligence, and looking at the skills of the autistic gamer because it is a spectrum of capabilities encompassed in the autism spectrum. Gaming is great for autistic individuals not only because it is an escape but because it can teach how to interact with people in a party especially if the narrative is well written and has realistic characters. It also can teach individuals with autism how to behave in a group environment whether it is a co-op game, competitive multiplayer game, or a singer player game with a cast of well written characters. This helps not only those with disabilities and their caretakers but with the general public because this information is helpful to anyone. As well as empowering individuals with autism!

 

NoobFeed: As you enjoy gaming, what trends have you noticed in the gaming industry recently? Do you support where it’s heading?

Taylor Cross: Besides the obvious things like lootboxes. One trend I see is the general focus on games being much more difficult overall. Seeing that a lot of games back in the 2000s were made to appeal to the widest and most 'accessible' market possible. I blame the souls series for making the current trend in difficulty possible (laughs). Notice I put the word accessible in quotations, accessible nowadays has a different meaning within the industry. Nowadays it's about trying to get more people interface with the game than losing sight of what the game's direction is. What this means is that developers can now focus way more on who they want to play their games and how they could reach out to their potential new audience in a meaningful way. Like Microsoft and their new Disabilities Controller. Besides that, though, I generally agree with what most people are saying about current trends besides micro transactions, which I think are a necessity to prevent games from getting vastly overpriced.

 

NoobFeed: Esports focuses on its social aspect a lot these days. Do you think there should be events for autistic persons like the Autism - Special Olympics?

Taylor Cross: That is a simple answer. No, because Esports is a great equalizer, you don't need to be the most physical or the most socially capable person as long as you can handle the proper controller inputs.

 

What is the most challenging part of when it comes to helping an autistic person with gaming?

Taylor Cross: Honestly, getting a person with autism off of a game if they enjoy games is harder. Primarily because of how people with autism zero in on the things they are obsessed over. It's easily one of the most detrimental things about being autistic when it's not given proper attention and redirection.

 

NoobFeed: Have you ever gone above and beyond the "call of duty" for helping someone?

Taylor Cross: Yes, it's a part of the job description (laughs). But in all seriousness, what we do is in uncharted territory. So being a part of figuring out how the gaming industry is going to accommodate people with disabilities is going above and beyond.

 

NoobFeed: Have you ever received negative feedback on any of your works? What was your response?

Taylor Cross: None so far. But James and I are open to any criticism that we may receive.

 

NoobFeed: Can you tell us about a time when you developed your own way of doing things other than following others?

Taylor Cross: Well that's kind of the story of my life. I made a film when I was 16 called Normal People Scare Me and I followed that up with a sequel ten years later. On top of that my advocacy work involved public speaking and traveling all over the globe. Even entering the games industry was something I did without even going through normal means. I carved my own path, and not because I'm a 7” tall Sasquatch.

 

NoobFeed: We all have experienced this at least once. Will you share an experience when your ethics and patience were tested? How did you keep your emotions in check?

Taylor Cross: Honestly, James agrees with me on this, it was back in 2017 during our first real year as industry insiders when there was a big learning curve within the industry relating to events like conventions and press conferences and how they needed to accommodate support staff as well as reaching out to publishers for review codes because I struggle with keeping communication with others and James is better at that than I could ever hope to be.

 

NoobFeed: What in gaming excites you the most? Outside of work, how much time do you spend playing video games in an average week?

I live, breathe and eat games.

 

NoobFeed: What experiences would you personally like video games to deliver in the future?

Taylor Cross: This may be a random one coming from me considering the things I have talked about, but I would absolutely love to see more Open World games that are smaller in scale, like the Arkham games or Spider-Man 2018. I feel like a smaller open world game actually lends itself well to more variety in the level design, enemy encounters, bosses, etc. Just look at Batman: Arkham City to see what I mean. It has a distinct open world, each area feels different from each other, and the depth of content comes from understanding the environment and not traversing the world. The same could be said about Spider-Man. That's probably the most 'New York'-feeling setting I've seen in fictional media even if it's a truncated version of the Big Apple, but most importantly it successfully captures how Spider-Man views New York while swinging across its many rooftops.

 

NoobFeed: What are the future plans for Taylor Cross and James Poggione?

Taylor Cross: Immediately, James and I are prepping for the holiday season with its usual (and crazy!) release schedule. For longer term goals, we are actually in talks with publishers and developers who want our input about how to make their future projects more accessible to people with disabilities.

 

Many thanks to Taylor for doing the interview with us. We wish him and James all the very best with their venture. Keep up with Taylor Cross and James Poggione on their website.

 

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