Re: CVAA Accessibility Rules Now In Effect
I'm still skepitcal for a lot of reasons.
1. The FCC's involved. We all know how slowly they work. Let's say Company A fails to put TTS in their text chat, they get reported.....however in the meantime, company A goes out of business while the FCC investigates. It takes far less time to blow through a company's money, than a US government department to do anything useful. Even the fastest moving departments are not instant. Some people appear, rightly or wrongly, to be under the impression it'll be instant enforcement of violations? Nope, it's a process. It's not like being ticketed for speeding, so to speak. There's a whole process for this given the FCC's involved.
^ I may be wrong on that but hat is how it was explained to me by an industry insider who works for MS. That to me is a credible source.
@Ian: Regarding NDA. I see both sides. On the one hand I do think work is going on behind the scenes. On the other I get the skepticism, I get the whole not being able to get how things are progressing.
Question is....why are they not just using readily available open source. Is it the same reason Sony went with hardware for business reasons and a general mistrust of some open source software? Lucrative contracts with suppliers and all that?
Also, this was a good point raised on a voice chat last night.
Okay, so the CVAA only affects NA games, right?alright but gamers in NA have the widest range of methods to communicate, and PC games tend to have voice chat built in. All it'd take a developer to do would be turn off the voice chat and have a 'voice chat on' TTS to comply. There you go, instant compliance with the communications side of things. If an unscrupulous developer wanted to save money and time on getting a game out the door.....they find ways to cut corners, and save money and effort. Will this affect the big guys? No because they'll set their legal teams on a challenge. F.ex.
FCC: You don't have working TTS in game X
Big company: Well we're in crunch and it's coming in a day one update *shows proof of working TTS and how it's included in a day one update*
FCC: It has to be in the release
Big company: Not possible. Our lawyers have seen a way to make sure it's both in a day one patch and to keep it legal
FCC: We can't argue with that. Put it in the patch then
^ In that example, a big firm, that can absorb the 100k (because remember firms like EA/Steam/ActiBlizz etc are not just being fined 100k in a vacuum....sure, they may lose 100k but they make a few million a day), they lawyer up and negotiate with the FCC and use every trick in the book to stall the investigation and penalties.
Or this, as pointed out by a former EA dev I know.
FCC: WHy i s there no TTS in your chat functionality?
BIg firm: Oh that's down to a former employee, we're rewriting the whole text chat to be accessible but we need X Y Z concessions to the CVAA to do so
FCC: We'll discuss it among ourselves
Big firm: Look, our old employee did all this, he left, and now we're in a hole. We need yu to work with us and not punish us.
^ could wel happen given the turnover in game studios and again, unscrupulous devs.
Also, on the subject of influencers/Youtubers, I know for 110% that....certain big Forza streamers have a TTS set up to read out their donation messages when somebody, you guessed it...donates. However that's a specialized case as, I believe, they stream on PC and do all the setup themselves.
@Trinity: No Ethin has a right to be skeptical. This is a forum, not an echo chamber where everyone sings the praises fo everything accessible, or did I miss the kool aid being handed around. Seriously, it sounds like an echo chamber in here at times where people pointing out flaws are not wanted and everyone wants to believe everying is sunshine and roses and everyone *must be* nice to each other 110% of the time. No. THat's not the point of a forum. A forum is aplace for discussion and debate. Not an empty echo chamber of 'oh my god accessibile everything!!!!!!!11' mentality.
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