Video game communications now fall under US accessibility laws
The CVAA actually dates back to October 2010 but video games managed to evade it for several years due to temporary waivers sought by the Electronic Software Association, the North American industry body. The last of those waivers expired on December 31st so, as
Gamasutra noted, here we are. The USA already has numerous accessibility laws but they dated back to ye olden times before computers became the way we communicate. Along came the CVAA to get the digital realm in shape, covering everything from closed captioning on television broadcasts to accessible in-game chat.
The changes means that developers should, where appropriate and as much as is possible "with reasonable effort and expense", ensure text and voice chat are accessible without hearing, without vision, with colour perception problems, with limited physical dexterity, with cognitive or intellectual disabilities, and so on.