Typography in Electronic Games

Electronic games can be designed and used for both entertainment and educational purposes. Typography in games is very important. If typography is well designed it can make something more visually appealing or easier to read (and therefore easier to use when instructions are given). I’ve noticed that a lot of electronic games give players the option to have subtitles during cut scenes or when characters are speaking. Depending on the game, players do not always have the option to turn these subtitles on or off and text can appear in a variety of other places as well. A problem with typography in games is that different people are using different computers or console screens of varying size and resolution.

Some games give you the option to change the screen resolution (if your gaming device has the capability to do so). However, I’ve never once seen a game which allows you to change the size of text relative to the rest of the screen size. This means that a player with a small screen or sight impairment may be unable to read text. Poor typography may result in people squinting or moving their eyes closer to the screen. Certain forms of typeface may not be artistically appealing to some players. Players are almost never given the option to modify typography settings despite these problems. I think that game designers should consider this issue more thoroughly in the future. What do you think?