Hi Tom.
While I do see your point about access for people with other disabilities,
with respect I don't entirely agree that this is something we particularly
need to do simply because there are many places it's done already.
go to a site like able games, penny arcade or even retroremakes, and there
is plenty of information for gamers with motion imparements. Lots of games
have one switch or mouse control, or close captioning or similar none sound
options for deaf gamers, (as indeed there should be), yet there is nothing
at all about access for vi or blind gamers, indeed "colourblindness" is
about as far as such adaptations go.
To show a great example of this, the game that won the 2008 retroremakes
accessibility competition was a game called pyramid that was entirely
graphical! it had innumerable customizations, control configurations,
options to play without sound, but was utterly and completely inaccessible
if you couldn't see the graphics, ---- indeed even for me with my level of
sight I had to specifically write to the developers to request a menue
description of the huge huge huuuuuge! textual menue in the game in order to
try it.
Of course not every game can be accessible to everyone, but it does seem
some sorts of accessibility get far more publicity than others.
Of course there are likely social reasons for this, the distinctly
misleading term "video games" which makes games sound implicitely!
inaccessible to visually impared people the way the visual arts are, the
higher proportion of younger people with motion or hearing imparements, the
fact that "disability" in general social consciousness is always associated
with a wheel chair etc, however for this reason I don't necessarily feel we,
say need to start writing specificc sections of the audeasy site about
motion imparement access, alternative control schemes, text alternatives
tosound etc.
Of course we certainly could! note in individual game reviews how different
games might have access features that appeal to other groups of disabled
gamers, eg, text games for people who are deaf and blind, orcodename signus
use of voice control, but I wouldn't suggest say making a major section on
close captioning for audeasy, since that sort of thing is coered extensively
elsewhere, and after all sites like oneswitch.co.uk have far more expertees
and do a much better job than we could on such matters anyway.
Beware the Grue!
Dark.
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