Episodio 36: Video Games Heroes (Héroes de videojuegos)

Duolingo English for Spanish Speakers Podcast

De niño, Steven Spohn no podía hacer muchas de las mismas actividades que otros niños de su edad, porque nació con una enfermedad que le reducía la movilidad en gran parte del cuerpo y le impedía caminar.

When I played video games, I went to a new world where I was the same as everyone else.

I could play sports, travel to other places, and meet new people.

I could do everything that other kids could do in the real world, and I made some of my best friends while playing video games.

En la adolescencia, Steven se la pasaba conectado a videojuegos por internet con gente de todo el mundo.

But then my disease got worse.

My hands became weaker, and it was difficult to use a computer keyboard.

But I didn’t want to stop playing video games.

They were too important to me, so I needed to find a solution.

Welcome, bienvenidos y bienvenidas a “Relatos en inglés”, un podcast de Duolingo.

Soy Diana Gameros.

En cada episodio podrás practicar inglés a tu propio ritmo, escuchando historias reales y fascinantes, contadas por las personas que las vivieron.

Los protagonistas hablan en un inglés sencillo y fácil de entender para quienes están aprendiendo el idioma.

En cada capítulo, yo te acompañaré para asegurarme de que entiendas todo.

Hoy, conocemos a dos personas que están cambiando el mundo a través de los videojuegos.

Steven se crió en el estado de Pensilvania, en el noreste de los Estados Unidos.

Era solo un bebé cuando su madre supo que padecía una enfermedad terminal llamada atrofia muscular espinal, o AME, que en inglés se conoce como SMA.

La enfermedad afecta a todos los músculos del cuerpo, incluyendo los que le permiten a uno respirar, o breathe, por lo que notarás que Steven usa un respirador.

My mom took me to the hospital when I was just one year old because she noticed that I wasn’t moving like other babies.

After a lot of tests, the doctors told her I had a terminal disease called SMA.

This meant that as I got older, my muscles were going to get weaker and weaker.

Eventually, I wouldn’t be able to eat, speak, or breathe on my own.

The doctors didn’t think I was going to live past my second birthday.

Steven sí vivió más allá de su segundo cumpleaños.

Pero ya usaba una silla de ruedas eléctrica, o power wheelchair, desde niño, y pasó gran parte de su infancia en el hospital.

The doctors still didn’t know much about my disease, so they did a lot of tests.

And every year, I had operations and spent many months in the hospital.

When I was home, it was hard to make friends.

I couldn’t go out and play games like other kids because I used a power wheelchair.

So, I spent a lot of time alone when I was young.

I built model airplanes, drew pictures, and played with Legos.

A los nueve años, Steven todavía mantenía algo de movilidad en brazos y manos.

Y en una de sus visitas al hospital, le pasó algo que cambió su vida de manera inesperada.

When I was in the hospital, a nurse asked me why I didn’t play video games, like other kids.

I explained to her that I didn’t have a game console at home.

My mom couldn’t work because she had to take care of me, and we didn’t have enough money to buy one.

Al día siguiente, la enfermera volvió a la habitación de Steven con un regalo.

The nurse gave me a game console.

When I first saw the controller, I thought it looked difficult to use.

It had a joystick and two buttons.

It was hard to push the buttons while I was holding the controller in my hands.

But I realized that I could put it on a table and use it like a keyboard.

Then, I could play games!

Steven comenzó a jugar muchos videojuegos.

Eran los años noventa y el internet aún era una novedad.

Entonces, al principio, Steven jugaba principalmente solo, o en persona junto con amigos que vivían cerca.

Then, during high school, a friend showed me how to play games online.

Suddenly, I could play with people from all around the world.

I made some of my best friends during that time.

Pero a medida que la enfermedad de Steven progresaba, comenzó a perder el control de sus manos.

Y eventualmente le fue imposible usar los controles de las consolas.

Así que pasó a los juegos por internet en una computadora, ya que un teclado normal le era mucho más fácil de controlar.

I competed online, so I needed to be able to move quickly, but this became a problem for me.

My disease made my hands and arms weak, and eventually, it was almost impossible to even use a computer keyboard and mouse.

I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to play games anymore, so I had to find a way to continue doing what I loved.

Steven decidió buscar por internet información sobre tecnología para ayudar a los jugadores discapacitados, o disabled, como él se define.

I found a blog that had lots of information to help disabled people like me play video games.

El blog se llamaba Able Gamers.

En inglés, el prefijo dis- se usa para negar lo que viene después.

La palabra disabled une dis y abled, es decir, “discapacitado”.

Así que ese blog, Able Gamers, venía a reivindicar la idea de la discapacidad y significar todo lo contrario: Jugadores Capaces.

I contacted the owner of the blog, and then he invited me to write an article! I decided to write about the game World of Warcraft, and I explained how I played it using only one hand.

Another disabled gamer read the article and wrote to me.

They said I changed their life.

That made me feel amazing, and I wanted to help more people.

Steven comenzó a escribir más en Able Gamers en los años siguientes y hasta hizo una guía para jugadores con discapacidad.

Participó en grandes eventos y congresos de videojuegos y habló con desarrolladores para aconsejarles que sus productos fueran más accesibles.

I wanted the games industry to pay attention to disabled gamers everywhere.

There are millions of us! Gaming can make us feel less lonely, and it opens a window into another world.

As part of my work with Able Gamers, I helped Microsoft design a totally new controller that is specifically for disabled gamers.

It can be controlled with only a hand, a foot, a shoulder, or even a chin.

It was a big victory for disabled gamers.

Ese control que Steven ayudó a diseñar fue un gran paso, pero él sentía que aún quedaba un largo camino por recorrer para hacer que los videojuegos fueran realmente inclusivos.

Entonces, en 2020, se propuso un reto enorme.

All of my life, doctors told me that my disease was going to kill me.

But then, in 2020, I turned 40.

Most people make their 40th birthday a big event, but I never imagined living to the age of 40, so I never thought about it.

But I knew I wanted to help disabled people continue playing games, so I decided to raise one million dollars for Able Gamers.

Steven eligió recaudar, o raise, dinero para Able Gamers que ayudara a otros jugadores como él.

El reto era aún más importante para él porque en 2020 estábamos en plena pandemia y Steven no sabía si iba a sobrevivir el año.

I was worried that I might die during the pandemic, so I really wanted to do something big.

The pandemic also meant that almost everybody had to spend many weeks or months inside — alone.

So, millions of people started to understand what regular life was like for many disabled people and how being alone can be bad for mental health.

I didn’t know how I was going to raise one million dollars, but I knew that I had to try.

Cientos y luego miles de personas comenzaron a apoyar a Steven donando a esa campaña.

Otros jugadores famosos le apoyaron con mensajes en vivo en sus redes pidiendo que le apoyaran.

People from all over the world donated money.

It was amazing! And then, on August 16th, 2021, we finally raised one million dollars! It was incredible to know that so many people cared about disabled gamers.

I put so much energy and love into raising that money, and I felt very satisfied.

Steven alcanzó su meta de un millón de dólares en doce meses.

Pero su recaudación de fondos, o fundraiser, no terminó ahí.

I wanted to keep going, so I decided to do my fundraiser for Able Gamers every year.

I might not raise another million dollars, but I’ll try.

Because I have a progressive, terminal disease I can’t plan for ten or twenty years in the future.

But when I think about what I’ve achieved in my life, I know that I’ve helped a lot of people.

Como Steven, Maddie Messer siempre pensó en los videojuegos como un espacio para escaparse y dejar volar su imaginación.

Pero cuando tenía doce años, Maddie comenzó a notar algo problemático en muchos de esos juegos.

Y decidió hacer algo al respecto.

I grew up in Pennsylvania.

I loved playing outside in my yard with my little sister and my dog, and our parents often took us hiking and kayaking.

But I also loved to spend time indoors, playing video games.

We didn’t watch a lot of TV at home, so playing video games made me feel like I was stepping into another world.

Esto fue en la década de 2010, pero Maddie no tenía una computadora ni una consola, por lo que jugaba en un iPod Touch.

When I was 12 years old, my favorite game was called Temple Run.

It’s fast and exciting, and it’s still very popular today.

To play Temple Run, you choose a character.

Then, your character has to run and jump to get away from a monster.

En el camino, el personaje, o character, recoge monedas, o coins, que se pueden usar para comprar cosas dentro del mismo juego.

I saved my coins because I really wanted to buy something from the game store.

I wanted to play as a different character — a female character.

When I started playing the game, I only had one option, to play as a male character.

And the only way to play as a female character was to pay for it.

So, you could save your coins after each game or spend real money to buy coins.

I didn’t have real money to spend, so I saved coins for a couple of months until I had enough to buy the female character.

Cuando comenzó a jugar, a Maddie no le pareció extraño que tuviera que pagar para jugar con una protagonista femenina.

But then, one day, I was playing video games with a friend who lived on my street.

I was playing Temple Run, and she was playing a different game.

I noticed that her character was a boy, so I asked her, “Why aren’t you playing as a girl?” She told me that there were no female characters in her game.

All of the available characters were male.

There was not even an option to buy a female character, like in Temple Run.

That seemed wrong.

It felt like the people who made video games didn’t care about girls like me and my friends.

Maddie se preguntó si algún videojuego permitía a los jugadores elegir jugar como un personaje femenino desde el principio.

Entonces, con la ayuda de sus padres, comenzó a investigar.

I downloaded the 50 most popular games that I could play on my iPod.

I wanted to know three things: Did the games have female characters? If they did, was it free for a gamer to play as a girl? And if the female characters were not free, how easy were they to get or how much did they cost?

Para hallar las respuestas, Maddie tuvo que jugar cada uno de los juegos durante muchas semanas.

After playing every game, I discovered that only one had a female character at the beginning.

Other games did have free female characters, but they were hard to find.

In most of the games, you had to pay — sometimes as much as $30!

Pero el mayor hallazgo de Maddie fue algo que la enfadó mucho y la llevó a decidir que iba a luchar para cambiar las cosas.

More than half of the games didn’t even give gamers the option to play a female character! When I was growing up, my parents taught me that boys and girls are equal.

But it seemed like the people who made the games didn’t think so.

They didn’t seem to care that girls had to play as boy characters.

I thought this was totally unfair!

Maddie decidió que los demás debían saber los resultados de sus investigaciones.

My parents taught me to speak my opinion if I think something isn’t fair.

So, my dad helped me write an article for a newspaper.

I wrote about my research and how it felt to not be able to play a video game as a girl character.

Con tan solo doce años de edad, Maddie envió el artículo a The Washington Post, uno de los periódicos más importantes de los Estados Unidos.

El periódico lo publicó en marzo de 2015.

I was so excited to see my article in the newspaper.

My whole family read it.

They were so proud! Then hundreds and hundreds of people started commenting on the article.

People from all over the world saw what I wrote! A few people didn’t think it was a problem that there weren’t any female characters, but most people thought I was right.

They agreed that the video game companies needed to make a change.

Un mes después de la publicación de su artículo, Maddie recibió un mensaje muy especial.

It was from the people who made Temple Run! They read my article in The Washington Post, and they agreed that the game needed to change.

A few months later, they made one of my favorite characters, Scarlett Fox, free at the beginning of the game! I could now play Temple Run as a girl! Finally, there was a character who looked like me! I was so excited and proud that I made that change happen.

Con el tiempo, más y más juegos comenzaron a cambiar: permitieron elegir personajes femeninos o masculinos desde el principio, sin tener que pagar nada por jugar como mujer.

Y eso no es todo.

Un desarrollador de juegos fue aún más lejos.

I was contacted by the team who created another game I loved to play called Noodles Now.

In this game, you have to ride a scooter around town and deliver food.

The company asked if I wanted to be a character in the game! Of course, I said yes.

They made the character look just like me, and they recorded my voice to use in the game.

They even put a picture of my dog, Ginger, on the character’s jacket!

El artículo de Maddie inició una gran ola de cambios dentro de la industria de los videojuegos.

Durante años, recibió correos electrónicos de apoyo de todo el mundo y su artículo de opinión fue traducido a más de treinta idiomas.

I’m older now, so I sometimes babysit children and play video games with them.

It makes me so happy that they have more choices for characters in games.

Writing that article taught me that it’s important to talk about things that are unfair.

It can make big changes.

Maddie Messer todavía disfruta jugar videojuegos cuando tiene algo de tiempo.

Está estudiando Ciencias del Medio Ambiente en la universidad.

Nuestro primer narrador, Steven Spohn, sigue trabajando para que los jugadores con movilidad reducida salgan de su aislamiento social.

Y sigue recaudando fondos para Able Gamers, que los está usando para comprar controles accesibles y para enseñar a los desarrolladores cómo crear juegos más inclusivos.

Este episodio fue producido por Sam Walker, una escritora y locutora que vive en Arizona.

“Relatos en inglés” es una producción de Duolingo y Adonde Media.

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Yo soy Diana Gameros.

Thank you for listening!