Hey all, While I can't believe how many issues of Audyssey pile up in an inbox over just a few days, I have caught some of the conversation about accessibility and mainstream companies.
You may not know, but for three years I worked for one of the major publishers, THQ, and I'm still friends with quite a number of people in the industry, mostly PR, but a few game devs such as 5th Cell (who created Scribblenauts) and BlueTongue (who are working on de Blob 2). Getting accessibility features into a game is not as simple as banging on a door and saying 'Hey, what about this?' In fact, usually, by the time you've heard about a game being in development, the features list has already been 80% established, and that includes the major gameplay elements. The addition of a character because of so-called player support is often fictional. They would have already assessed whether or not it was viable to put the character into the game and potentially done concept and model development. Trust me: you can't just plug a character into a game--especially a fighting game--as you have to make sure it's 100 per cent balanced against every other character. Anyone who's big into Street Fighter IV would be aware of that. Accessibility is something that has to be considered right at the beginning of a game's development in order for it to be fully implemented. And, yes, you're right sometimes it comes down to money. Sometimes it's about resources. How much time do you work on accessibility features before you realise that you've just burned up a huge number of dev hours that really needed to be spent on ensuring the game controlled properly. Independent development is definitely the best and most direct way to ensure there are accessible games. Working with game dev studios to produce quality games is another. (And I don't mean to try starting with Valve or Sony's internal studio, I mean find a smaller developer who doesn't mind doing the occassional experimental game.) Education is important, too. Sometimes there are a few small things developers can do that dramatically improve accessibility. I discovered that with interactive fiction. Just removing the status bar and recoding the command prompt made games 50 per cent more enjoyable straight away. Lastly, there are other means. One idea I had while I was researching was to create a not-for-profit organisation that could take donations. Those donations would pay authors and programmers to create games for the blind and VI community. There's some strong evidence to suggest that it would contribute positively. I even spoke to a few people who ran similar organisations. Anyway, my point is: you're not alone. No gamer off the street will ever make a change by banging on the front door. Trust me when I say that game companies have to deal with a lot of scary fanboys and fangirls. They keep those doors closed for a reason. But that doesn't mean giving up. Get smart. Have a clear idea of what you'd like to see changed, and think about the best way you can make that happen. If it's a good idea, with considerable appeal, most people will sit up and listen. Just think about it from the company and dev's point of view first. Hope that helps. Cheers, Neo. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
