Master Thesis – Improving Accessibility i Stockholm

Are you passionate about gaming, and want to help us make games more accessible and engaging to all players?

We are currently looking for a Master Thesis student to work on “Improving Accessibility for Shooter Games”.

DICE (EA Digital Illusions Creative Entertainment), the award-winning studio based in Stockholm, Sweden, is best known for creating the phenomenally successful Battlefield franchise, the Battlefront franchise, and the innovative game Mirror’s Edge.

We work through our 4 guiding values: Passion with Purpose, Creative Innovation, Everything Quality, and One Community. We recognise that our people are the backbone and driving force to our creative products. As such, we are dedicated in providing everyone the ability to express, learn, and be their very best with a common cause.

At EA, we exist to inspire the world to play. But for some of our players, games come with additional barriers. Game accessibility is about removing those barriers. At EA, we are committed to making our games more inclusive and accessible for people with disabilities. In fact, we know that by addressing mismatches in interaction between the game and player abilities, we make our games better for all our players. 

The Master Thesis work will be conducted in a talented multi-disciplinary team, working alongside User Experience Researchers to plan, execute, analyze, and report strategic research to help ensure players from all walks of life enjoy all of EA’s entertainment products to their fullest potential. The thesis position is situated in Stockholm, but the applicant will get the unique opportunity to work on accessibility initiatives together with our global UXR team that spans multiple EA studios.

The thesis is offered for a period covering 6-months and will be within our User Experience Research team at EA DICE, in Stockholm.

The thesis topic should address game accessibility challenges and solutions directly applicable to the development process. There is some flexibility to the specific topic, based on your interests, and your topic may be selective to a subsection of accessibility needs (e.g. sensory, cognitive, motor).

Relevant questions include:

• What are some challenges developers face in regards to designing accessible games?
• What are the major accessibility challenges players currently face playing shooter games?
• What are some specific approaches we can experiment with to overcome accessibility challenges in shooter games?
• What impact do accessibility solutions have on game balance, e.g. in a competitive environment?

• Applicants are welcomed from areas of study relevant to Game Accessibility, such as Human-Computer Interaction, Ergonomics, Psychology, Cognitive science, Game design etc. 
• Past experience with game accessibility solutions are considered a strong merit.
• 0 to 2 years’ experience in research design
• Familiarity with a range of qualitative and quantitative methodologies which may include but are not limited to; questionnaire development, survey research, card sorting, think aloud, cognitive walkthroughs, heuristics, usability testing, eye tracking and biometric analysis
• Excellent written and oral communication skills including presenting to large groups of individuals
• Must have teamwork skills and be a team player
• Must be able to work autonomously
• A passion for gaming
• Experience in game or level design on any platform is considered a benefit, as is familiarity with the development process within game or entertainment software industry

• This internship is unpaid and temporary employment. The Master Thesis needs to be associated with a Swedish University education or any other type of education that has a Master Thesis in the education plan.
• We are unable to provide relocation services for this role, and hence can only consider candidates already residing in Sweden.
• The Master Thesis is intended to start late January 2020 for a duration of 20+ weeks.

We constantly aim to push the limits of what is possible to achieve in our games, and by doing your internship at EA DICE you get to be a part of industry-defining work as well as help create the next generation of immersive video games.

Did we mention the free massage, studio activities and all the fruit you can possibly eat? Doing your internship here at EA DICE has never been more exciting!

Are you interested?

Please apply online with a CV and cover letter in English.

 We look forward to receiving your application!