Re: should accessible steam games be added to the database
Actually, the Japanese games are easier than ever to play now, in part because of direct endorsement by the community and authors, and that makes the world of difference in my view. They are now, in essence, indistinguishable from any other audiogame.
Again: it's the difficulty of access to the Steam client that most concerns me. Just think about it. Could you, in good conscience, recommend using Steam to any visitor that happens upon a game listing, out of the blue?
As I said, from my POV, if people want to experience accessible Steam games, in and of themselves, I'm all for it, but the Steam client is a bitch. I would love for there to be some way to simplify it to the point that most people could simply install and start using it, with an absolute minimum requirement of software and configuration. Clearly software and hardware dependencies are unavoidable. The question is whether or not it is really practical for somebody to play the games. Insisting that it is possible only because some people are able to with very specific skills and a willingness to tolerate varying degrees of inaccessibility to functionality opens up a very large can of worms about what exactly we as a community are willing to tolerate as accessible, and I really feel that unless people are willing to put up with a rather underwhelming, exclusionary and frustrating experience not becoming of pretty much any other audio game, we should be very candid about cautioning people that the games are exclusive to Steam. And yeah, if you want to know what I think, I think Steam is a lost cause, really. Somewhat ironic in my case, since I'm mostly on OS X, where the Steam client is quite a lot nicer to use and doesn't require faffing about constantly with hit-and-miss mouse routing. Pity there aren't so many games on OS X.
Smugglers is an interesting case though. Does it really not work satisfactorily with any screen reader beside Supernova? NVDA is pro bably out of the question, mind, but at least NVDA is free. Still, I don't think financial cost comes into it; some games will be out of reach if you don't have the right hardware or software, simple as that. Convenience is also a big factor: if it's monstrously difficult to get a game running, it just won't get played, not unless it's really, really good. What I look for in a game is, at a very minimum, an actual commitment to accessibility. Clearly others have different opinions.
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