Re: Q9 Has a New Home
To do this, we must look at something you seem to despise looking at, and that is the overall success of screen reader
Where do you get the idea that I dispise looking at the success of screen readers? I'm very thankful for them, without them I'd have no access to computers.
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 explanation 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
Most, if not all, blind and visually impaired support and service organizations and government departments are under funded and under staffed. There is often not enough time or resources for these organizations to research and educate themselves about all the screen reader options available. So it often happens that the only screen readers they know about are from those companies that maintain an active marketing campaign. I don't know about other companies, but I do know that Freedom Scientific has a very active marketing department. No matter how good it is, it can't do anybody any good if nobody knows about it.
Windows is actually seeing a decrease in usage, probably because voiceover is provided for free on apple's operating systems
You are forgetting that Windows comes with Nara tor, it may not be as good as Apple's VoiceOver, but is a very useable screen reader. Until I saw all the added features JAWS provided, plus its much more understandable voice, I was going to use what came with Windows.
nothing exists whatsoever to persuade me that this is a good move for gamers or a gaming platform as a whole.
You'll get no argument from me on that. It would have been much better if Phil could have found someone to sell Q9 to that would have kept it available to anyone that wanted it regardless of their system configuration. I've already said that a number of times in this thread, but it seems that people seems to ignore that. So I find myself saying yet again.
it is my belief that Bryan has relied on an outdated model to continue selling his products.
It is only ou t dated if it is no longer functional and I don't see that happening for a long time yet.
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.
[[wow]], I find it disturbing that you'd be so scornfull of people less capable than you, and that you'd use them as a crutch to support your obviously misinformed opinion of what Leasey is. Before you say more about Leasey, I'd recommend you spend some time educating yourself about what it really is. It's not the crutch you think it is.
First there's Leasey Basic, it is a system of menus allowing computer beginners the ability to do basic task s such as writing a letter or sending an email, without them getting lost or confused. There is also a getting started guide to help complete computer beginners learn about computers so they can get proficient enough to use their computer without needing the guidance of the menus.
Then there's Leasey Advanced which is a set of more than 20 tools and utilities that can help you to be more productive while working with your computer.
Two of my favorites are:
The enhanced clipboard that has 12 slots that can be cut or copied into or pasted out of at random, so you could copy all the parts of an address into separate clipboard slots, then paste them into an Internet form without having to constantly go back and forth between your address book and your Internet browser.
Another favorite is the ability to assign a block of text to a nickname, for example, I could give audiogames.net the nickname of agn, then in any application, I can type agn, hit the Leasey t ext key, and the agn will be replaced with audiogames.net. The block of text can be any size from a few words to many pages, and there's no real limit to the number of nicknames and blocks of text you can define. Very handy if you find yourself typing the same thing lots of times.
I'd call these kinds of tools productivity tools, not crutches for lazy or unteachable people.
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?
I don't know why this argument keeps coming up. I seriously doubt that anyone is stupid enough to spend $1,000 on stuff they may not want or need just so they can play a $30 game, most intel ligent people would simply look for another game. But if this argument means so much to you, here's my counter to it: For those people who have JAWS and Leasey, Q9 is now free instead of the $30 it would have been if it had stayed a Blastbay Games product.
Since NVDA users generally consider themselves more proficient with their screen reader
So you are saying that NVDA users consider themselves better than users of other screen readers, because they think they are more proficient with NVDA than we are with the screen reader we use? No wonder the NVDA versus everyone else is such a firey topic!? I also find it interesting that among all the screen readers available, only the users of NVDA have this attitude. You don't see users of JAWS, Window Eyes, System Access, or whatever speaking scornfully about other screen readers, the only people that speak scornfully about other screen r eaders are NVDA users. I wonder why. Is it some disease that NVDA carries to its users? Maybe I better remove NVDA from my system so I don't catch it.
NVDA users begin to pirate any games exclusively meant for Leasey.
I shouldn't dignify this remark with a response, it certainly doesn't deserve one. This kind of crap does nothing, except to cause the very people you are trying to send a message to to turn away in disgust.
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 should not
Leasey only fails as a gaming platform because it is closed to people who don't have JAWS.
If we were to follow your logic of non gamers not being allowed to sell games, there'd be a lot fewer games out there. The people that own the game development studios and the game distributors and the software development houses are mostly business people who's primary concern is making money, not playing games. The guy you bought your last pair of shoes from probably doesn't know the first thing about making a pair of shoes, should he be fired for that? The gal at the mens clothing store where you bought your last suit, probably can't sew a stick to save her life, does that make her unsuitable as an employee of a mens clothing store? How about the kid in the electronics store where you bought your last game, are you going to go to some other store just because he's a terrible game player? I think you can begin to see just how silly your argument is.
There's also that Jaws for windows thing happening in columbia as well. It trulypains me to see it really.
I don& #039;t know what the thing in Columbia is, but I think it's safe to assume that Freedom Scientific is giving away copies of JAWS and Magic to help the blind and visually impaired in Columbia gain access to computers. You know, the people of NV Access and or the NVDA developers could have gotten off their butts and reached out to the blind and visually impaired people in Columbia needing assistance, then it would be a NVDA thing going on down there instead of a JAWS thing. I find it disturbing that it seems like you'd rather see those people in Columbia go without than to be helped by a company that has a product that competes with your favorite. I for one am glad that somebody is reaching out to them, regardless of who it is or what products they sell.
If it were me though I would have set the condition that there also be a standalone version available for those who couldn't or who didn't want or n eed the rest of the Leasy package.
Agreed
it's called business. Welcome to the real world, where business decisions aren't only just about what the owner wants. If the owner wants customers, they have to listen to input of both consumers and potential consumers
That's correct, but what you are forgetting is that Hartgen's market doesn't include the entire community of screen reader users who play games, their market is JAWS screen reader users. From that perspective, they haven't taken a game out of the market, they've taken a game that would have cost $30 and made it free if you also have a Leasey license. And if you don't already have Leasey, you get a lot more than just a few games for the price of the license. So it's a good deal either way. So while it may look bad to you, to Hartgen Consultancy it looks pret ty good, and in this case it is their perspective that matters.
no this is not the same as the pc versus mac issue.
Yes it is, the point is that if you are in one market, you're going to ignore products in the other market.
this is a screen reader not an Operating System, an over priced one at that
Whether a product is over priced or not depends on the buyers perception of what they got for their money. Yes, I agree JAWS is expensive, yet I do not begrudge Freedom Scientific one single penny, because JAWS has done everthing I need it to do, it has done it well, and it has done it without a lot of complicated and non intuitive techie crap that I found in NVDA. So, I believe that I have gotten my money's worth and more.
Also, the laws of economics plays a part in deter mining the price of products. If JAWS' price were indeed too high, Freedom Scientific would see a significant drop in sales, that would cause them to lower their prices to boost sales. Over time the price of a product balances out to what the market considers reasonable. JAWS has been around for 20 years, or so I've been told, I would think that in that much time, the price of JAWS would have long ago been balanced out by the market and the laws of economics.
If you think it's over priced, that is your choice and your right, that does not mean that you are correct.
it's infuriating people of this community that something that once used to cost $29.95 just started costing $1000.
Same tired old argument. It would only cost someone $1,000 if they were stupid enough to buy JAWS and Leasey just so they can play a $30 game. But let's look at the flip side o f the issue. For people that own JAWS and Leasey, Agame that costs $30 is now free! Not such a bad deal after all!
And it's one thing to develop exclusive features for a product specifically for Jaws, it's another entirely to snatch something that was originally fairly priced from the rest of us and lock it away from all but the minority of Jaws users.
As you said yourself, it's just business, Brian isn't being mean or malicious, he just wants an exclusive he can offer to his customers, Phil had something that filled the need and was willing to sell it. As you said, welcome to the real world. And as Bill Gates said, Life isn't fair, get used to it.
About me being new to the community having joined only a month before Q9 was sold to Hartgen? What of it? I had already seen Q9 and had already made my decision about whether to buy it or not. So, regardless of which screen reader I use, how does the sale of Q9 affect me?
For member joining after the sale, how will it affect them? About the same as finding a game that sounds interesting, only to find that it runs on iOS and they don't have an Apple iDevice.
I'm curious to know what reaction you'd have if, whatever your favorite game is, that developer suddenly decided to up and sell all rights to their game to a platform that's solely useable by people with copies of Window-Eyes only?
This has already happened to me, several times. Back when I could still see and was playing main stream video games, I had been following the Halo series, having played Halo and Halo 2 and looking forward to Halo 3, but before Halo 3 could be released, it was announced that the game studio developing the Halo series was discontinuing development of PC games and that there would be no furthe r Halo games for the PC. I was pretty disappointed, but I didn't scream, rage, throw a tantrum, or anything else, I just lamented to myself about not being able to play any more Halo games and went on with life.
Also, by your example, if it was a favorite game, chances are I'd have already bought it, so that if it was sold to someone who'd make it inaccessible to me wouldn't matter. I'd already have my license which the terms of the sale specified would be honored. So in the end, the sale wouldn't affect me at all.
you've admitted that you're a satisfied Jaws user and are looking into purchasing a copy of this platform, so in a way, you're viewpoint is a bit biased.
All I'm going to say to this is: And yours isn't? ROFLOL!
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