Re: Q9 Has a New Home
@GeneWarner:
I've said that from the beginning; such decisions are not truly right or wrong; I'm glad we can agree on this. Right or wrong should not, in fact, enter this discussion, unless, as you've stated, people begin wishing Bryan or Phil harm as the result of their business deal, as it were, which is, I would say, at the very least, questionable and should raise eyebrows.
I am looking at the audiogaming community as a whole, however... Yes, as a whole, not just at this forum, to determine that such a practice is in fact, a failure for gamers in general and only a success of sorts for the provider. To do this, we must look at something you seem to despise looking at, and that is the overall success of screen readers, because most of the audiogaming community is tied to them. At present, JAWS is holding as the dominant screen reader for the most part in the United States and the United Kingdom. Perhaps the most reasonable explan
ation for this is that in both of the countries JAWS is provided for free to anyone who is engaged in education or employment searching. Another, much more shady argument can also be raised, that agencies do not do their best to educate consumers on everything available so much as what they have to offer, which is only reasonable given goodness only knows what kind of contracts are in place with such organizations and services providers and the like
On the other hand, stability isn't everything, given that more individuals with low income, perhaps even across the board regardless are starting to see low cost or free alternatives as a primary, viable solution. Windows is actually seeing a decrease in usage, probably because voiceover is provided for free on apple's operating systems among other incentives including the fact that one need not wait to stress too much on matters such as reinstalling their own system, though that's just guesswork on my par
t. Either way, it is clear that, while JAWS has remained a notable screen reader, the growth and progress still lies in other, much cheaper, less inexpensive products. I'm willing to bet dollars to doughnuts that if the government agencies that currently fund blind vocational rehab and the like were to see massive increases in their budgets you would find more individuals either switching to NVDA or System Access, or ditching computers altogether, which is alarming to me personally. How many individuals who are still blind and or vision impaired are refusing to let go of XP? I think the number is probably higher than we might imagine, and the tenacity with which they cling to it is something else I find questionable, though not surprising. We all, humans that we are, hate change, but some of us hate it more than others, and JAWS users are probably among those who hate it most. That's not a stab at anyone in particular, by the way; I'
;m still a JAWS user, even if only somewhat.
Returning to the matter at hand, however, nothing exists whatsoever to persuade me that this is a good move for gamers or a gaming platform as a whole. In a growing community that includes an increasing amount of individuals from other less developed countries where they are quickly finding out about NVDA and other such products through whatever methods it is they use, and with other screen readers scrambling to provide services for those consumers, the likelihood that JAWS could see a dramatic `increase is not one I see occurring. To close this as quickly as possible, it is my belief that Bryan has relied on an outdated model to continue selling his products. Where once JAWS was undisputed king of screen readers both in functionality and in the amount of users it held, the model would continue to work flawlessly. The division is greater today, however, than it has been in years. The only people we see c
omplaining at present are users of this forum, but these are currently some of the people that matter most, among other devoted audiogamers when it comes to gaming as a whole. It has been mentioned before that this is like, the new steam for blind users, but the two do not compare whatsoever. Where steam is an outlet for people to search for, select, and buy games that interest them that does not require one to do any of the three unless one actually finds content that does cost something, Leasey is a product designed to centralize as many products into one price regardless of interest in them. The only people who truly benefit, are Leasey users, not gamers. As the Leasey community can only be comprised of JAWS users, that gets us back to where we were and what really sparked this debate. NVDA users cannot download the gaming module, but even if they could, it wouldn't make any difference given that they can't use it. To use it, one must
, have a Leasey license, and the Leasey license is worthless without a coppy of JAWS. This is not a move to bring more games to gamers; this is a move designed to bring games to people who have been deemed unteachable, for whom scripts seem like a much more reasonable alternative than educating them on how to properly use their computers, because so far as I can tell, the purpose of Leasey seems to be that you do as little as possible with as much as possible. While there is nothing inherently wrong with this practice, given that this is practically the same practice that made windows what it is today, the difference it makes in a small community of blind and vision impaired individuals is a huge one. Forget for just a minute, all that Leasey has to offer and tell me it is worth purchasing a computer, plus a screen reader, already totaling upwards of a thousand dollars, plus a license to a product who's functions you may or may not use entirely, all for a game
or even a couple of fgames that interest you? Steam does not work that way. For steam users, we need only factor in the price of the PC plus the games in question they wish to buy. Why should NVDA gamers not feel left out? Since NVDA users generally consider themselves more proficient with their screen reader, one of two, or both of these things can and may happen.
First and most productive of them, is that NVDA users retaliate and develop a module under which games run, similar to what Leasey has going for it, though intentionally made for gamers, a much more viable solution given that the screen reader is free and can be unloaded when no longer in use, further dividing the community.
Second and less productive and more malicious, NVDA users begin to pirate any games exclusively meant for Leasey.
Under both of these, Leasey fails as a gaming platform, grounding the belief that a nongamer should not atempt to sell games, just as a lawyer shoul
d not be doing a doctor's job.
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