Blind Gamer’s Two-Hour Live Stream For Charity

Blind gamer Dom Hall attracted thousands of viewers during a two-hour gaming session which he streamed live on two social media platforms.

The 39-year-old had 1,387 viewers and 27,500 likes on TikTok, 120 viewers on Twitch and attracted followers from the UK, USA, Canada and the Netherlands.

Hall also raised more than £300 for the iSightCornwall charity which is celebrating its 170th year.

He said he was nervous because he needed to play Mortal Combat with the sound coming from the game and people asking questions at the same time. “All the sound coming through at once was a bit tricky,” he added.

A tumour in his optic nerve left Hall with only 10% sight when he was three years old and total loss of sight by the age of 35.

Hall has been a keen gamer since he was five, saying he was attracted to the colours and the interaction with other people.

But when he completely lost his sight he thought he would have to stop gaming.

“I thought this is it, there goes the hobby,” he said. “But thankfully I did a bit of research into it and found there are games being made today that are accessible for visually impaired people. You can play games entirely through sound by games that support it.

“This is done by screen readers that read out everything on screen for you or the text, as well as audible cues for visual things in a surround sound headset,” he said.

‘Sight loss journey’

Hall is iSightCornwall’s assistive technology advisor and his colleague Beth Perry helped him with viewers questions on the live stream.

“We see people at all stages of their sight loss journey,” said Perry.

“I’ve seen some people come in absolutely convinced there’ll never do something again, something they used to really, really love.

“They have an hour appointment with Dom and they come out and they’re almost excited to go home and try it a different way,” she said.