[games_access] Complaint regarding Florian Eckhardt

[K]

>yikes. You know...why shouldn't we include some 
>of these remarks in our talks? 

>From a dev perspective, I think those remarks are motivational- to help
developers view the issue as one of corporate citizenship and morality. That
is why I am interested in accessible gaming- because it's the right thing to
do, not because I really think it is an ENORMOUS market for my PARTICULAR
product. Our sales won't quadruple from designing accessibility features,
and while the more popular games (like a Doom title) would likely see a
measurable rise in sales (just because so many disabled gamers would want a
hit game, just by definition of what makes a hit game popular to gamers
without gameplay-impacting disabilities). But for most games, the commercial
benefits are a little more dubious/slippery to try to calculate. 

By appealing to developer morality in addition to the bottom line benefits,
you will be sending a message that I think will help motivate people who are
otherwise skeptical about the financial benefits of accessibility features.
If you tell me I can invest in feature x and sell to another 100 players,
I'd have to consider, overall, how that really does or doesn't impact us and
if it's worth it business-wise. But as I mentioned, I didn't have to stop
and consider ANYTHING when I first became aware of the accessibility issues
with games because helping people appeals to my basic morals. It's a very
easy way to pitch it in that sense. Who wouldn't read those comments and
want to put in accessibility features just to counter that unfortunate
element in society? 

-Kelly

PS 

I am the indie dev who posted previously about how we can make our games
more accessible. We will have a free trial of the education game this coming
week for anyone who might want to play and give me feedback about what was
not accessibility friendly enough (it is a point-and-click interface
throughout, with very minimal keyboard entry for registration and entering
optional player names (you can accept the defaults) so it would require any
player to have a mouse or pointing device). I also have free review copies
now (full non-trial versions) for anyone who is interested and able to
provide accessibility feedback or a game review on their site linked to our
site. The product is an educational game for parents to play with teens,
called The Sex Ed Game. More info at www.isergames.com