Hi, *quote* I actually think that it's sad that large organisations for the blind aren't developing new board games, or, better still, they should look at the possibility of making electronic or accessible computer games. I'm not trying to take anything away from our community of developers, but since a place like RNIB receives funding, and since it's a brand in the blind world, it could ask huge game companies to jump on board and help. One thing I was wondering was, for example, a company like Microsoft, who actually have their own departments for accessibility. If a person could somehow persuade them to put speech in their Flight Simulators, really advanced speech giving really precise details, we could play it. *quote end*
In case you missed my emails about this, there is a very active community concerning the accessibility of computer games. This includes people from the Internation Game Developers Association, Microsoft, LucasArts and myself to name a few. Microsoft is actually quite aware of the accessibility issues in games and has already participated in one or two game accessibility projects. In my opinion, to get more accessible games, one needs to address the game industry instead of organisations such as the RNIB (which is not a professional game developer/publisher). For that, I believe *this* community needs to be "out there" more. In all honesty, I think that the blind community is not doing very much in this respect (being out there). Email companies *together*, as a community. Participate with the Game Accessibility Special Interest Group (GA-SIG > http://www.igda.org/accessibility ). Visit game conferences like the GDC and address game companies and developers in person. Participate in project "Game Accessibility" (www.game-accessibility.com). Each time a new issue of Audyssey Magazine is out, why not email it to game companies, magazines, etc.? I've got an example: when Halflife 2 was released, many deaf/hearing impaired players had a lot of trouble playing the game. Did you know what the deaf community did? They got together online with several 100 people, and as one they started emailing Valve, clearly describing the problems they were having and also suggesting solutions. Valve listened and it took them *JUST* two weeks (!!!!!) to make Halflife 2 accessible for hearing impaired gamers. Ever since the engine of Halflife 2 has been "accessible", resulting in other games being accessible (like the Halflife and Sin episodes) as well. I know it might not be as simple to make the game accessible for the blind, but unless you stand up and make yourself heard, you will never know. That's why I am so enthousiastic about the "What Blind Gamers Want The Industry To Know"-document that we made for the GDC, because it turned out as an eye-opener for many professional game developers. I just want to end this rant (smile) with the news that Nintendo has just released 7 mini-audio games for Gameboy Advanced/Micro and Nintendo DS. See one of my prior postings to this list. If it turns out that these games are accessible for the blind or at least almost accessible, then I think Nintendo needs to know this. Because these are experimental games and if Nintendo doesn't get some good feedback on it, they might think the idea of audio games (or blind accessible games) suck and they won't continue along that path. Whereas if they do get a massive amount of positive feedback from the blind community concerning these audio games, then there might be a chance that Nintendo will think: "hey, this might actually be something here...". If you want to support me and my colleagues who spent a lot of time pressing the issue game accessibility to the professional game industry, please do so on the Visually Disabled Gamers forum: http://www.game-accessibility.com/forum/viewforum.php?id=4 And if you have an idea or a suggestion or anything you want the industry to know, or if you'd want help to visit a convention of some sort, contact us through the forum. Greets, Richard http://www.audiogames.net _______________________________________________ Gamers mailing list .. [email protected] To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
