What is skyrim? and is it accessible?
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dennis Towne" <s...@xirr.com>
To: "Gamers Discussion list" <gamers@audyssey.org>
Sent: Wednesday, August 29, 2012 2:38 PM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Fw: ALERT!--1 Email from You Can Keep the FCC from
Throwing Accessible Gaming Tech Under the Bus!
Everyone,
I've gone through the U.S. Code material as published by congress, and
it seems to me that most video game companies are well within their
right to ask for a waiver. Here's a paste of the most relevant
section:
‘‘(h) COMMISSION FLEXIBILITY.—
‘‘(1) WAIVER.—The Commission shall have the authority,
on its own motion or in response to a petition by a manufacturer
or provider of advanced communications services or any
interested party, to waive the requirements of this section
for any feature or function of equipment used to provide or
access advanced communications services, or for any class of
such equipment, for any provider of advanced communications
services, or for any class of such services, that—
‘‘(A) is capable of accessing an advanced communica-
tions service; and
‘‘(B) is designed for multiple purposes, but is designed
primarily for purposes other than using advanced commu-
nications services.
‘‘(2) SMALL ENTITY EXEMPTION.—The Commission may
exempt small entities from the requirements of this section."
Basically, the FCC is allowed to give waivers to when the "advanced
communications services" are not the main product. Keep in mind that
"advanced communications services" is pretty narrow, and basically
boils down to real-time chat in various forms.
Graphics and cool looking visual effects are what most modern games
are about; the ones that do have chat, usually only have it as an
incidental feature to the actual game play. In short, you can play
the game without chat, but you can't really chat without playing the
game.
To give three quick examples:
- Facebook has games and advanced communications services. However,
the main point of Facebook is the communications services, not the
games. Facebook should not get a waiver.
- World of warcraft is a game and has built in advanced communications
services. However, the main point of WoW is the real time graphical
aspect of the game, not the chat service. The WoW publisher and
server maintainers should probably get waivers.
- Skyrim is a graphical game with a lot of quests and quest text. It
is single player and has no advanced communications services even
though it does make heavy use of text. Because of this, the game
isn't covered by the law, and doesn't need to request a waiver or add
accessibility features (rather, it doesn't have to add accessibility
features as a result of this set of laws.)
In addition, congress added a guideline that makes a lot of sense:
‘‘(j) RULE OF CONSTRUCTION.—This section shall not be con-
strued to require a manufacturer of equipment used for advanced
communications or a provider of advanced communications services
to make every feature and function of every device or service acces-
sible for every disability."
This basically says that not every feature must be accessible, which
is particularly relevant to games like Alter Aeon, which have both a
graphical interface and pure text-based interfaces for the visually
impaired.
I definitely agree with the AFB that the FCC should take a very close
look at this; but it's pretty obvious to me that it makes sense for a
lot of game companies to get waivers for their products.
Keep in mind that congress simply provides guidance for the FCC; the
FCC makes its own rules, as long as it doesn't conflict with what
congress mandates. The proper place to make your voice heard would be
to send your concerns to the FCC when the FCC is requesting public
comment on its proposed rules.
Dennis Towne
Alter Aeon MUD
http://www.alteraeon.com
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