[games_access] GDC 2008: VERY Bad News

[Barrie Ellis]

A little harsh, John perhaps?

1. Has been covered to various degrees here:

http://www.oneswitch.org.uk/2/ARTICLES/physical-barriers.htm
http://www.ics.forth.gr/hci/ua-games/game-over/
http://www.helpyouplay.com/welcome.html

(and other places too).

2. Is is a good point. But there's so few mainstream developers making 
deliberate accessibity efforts that take into account specific disabilities. 
Here's a list of some:

http://www.oneswitch.org.uk/2/pioneers.htm
http://gameaccessibility.blogspot.com/

3. Forums here:

http://www.game-accessibility.com/forum/
http://www.retroremakes.com/forum2/forumdisplay.php?f=84
http://ablegamers.com/component/option,com_fireboard/Itemid,606/

We need the support of more people though!

Barrie
www.OneSwitch.org.uk
www.igda.org/accessibility

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Bannick" <jbannick at 7128.com>
To: "IGDA Games Accessibility SIG Mailing List" <games_access at igda.org>
Sent: Saturday, December 01, 2007 4:05 PM
Subject: Re: [games_access] GDC 2008: VERY Bad News


> Reid is right.
>
> There are developers right now who want their work to be accessible.
>
> This SIG could right now facilitate that by:
>
> 1. Providing, distributing, and publicizing a concise, specific set of 
> functional criteria that define what means accessible.
> 2. Compiling, publishing, and publicizing an annual list of which 
> companies and games meet those criteria.
> 3. Maintaining a forum (The currently rather drifting Game Accessibility 
> Project comes to mind) where developers can go for immediate help.
>
> I'm a developer of games that are accessible.
> Have shipped 22 different revenue-generating products in a wide variety of 
> vertical markets in the last 30 years.
> Am neither stupid nor lazy.
> And don't see any of the 3 above items.
>
> None of the 3 items should take long to build as a first cut.
>
> And if not from this SIG, then from where?
>
> John Bannick
> CTO
> 7-128 Software
>
>
> At 02:26 AM 12/1/2007, you wrote:
>>Please, can we stop with the negative talk about GDC and the game
>>industry? I work in the game industry for LucasArts. Just last week I
>>talked to a highly respected programmer and he's 100% behind us and
>>wants to talk about what we can do to improve accessibility in our
>>games after our current milestone is finished. There are dozens of
>>people at LucasArts that support game accessibility. Nintendo totally
>>gets it, EA Games totally gets it with their Family Play modes in
>>their sports games. Peter Molyneux gets it, Will Wright... the list
>>goes on and on.
>>
>>It's offensive to me when people of this SIG accuse developers of not
>>caring because WE DO CARE. The last thing you want to do is insult the
>>people you have to work with. It's the quickest way to turn them away
>>from our cause.
>>
>>So, instead of complaining, lets do something about it! First,
>>everyone here needs to understand what it's like for developers and
>>why it's so hard for them to adopt accessibility features.
>>
>>1. Limited financial resources - Games are very expensive to make and
>>any new features adds to the cost. Before you can add accessibility
>>features you must have a game and that's where most of the money is
>>spent first.
>>
>>2. Limited time - Game development is incredibly complex and hard to
>>tame. No matter how much extra time gets budgeted into the production
>>schedule, it always runs out well before all tasks are complete. When
>>this happens, features get cut in order to save the core of the game
>>and again, without a game, there can't be any accessibility features.
>>Because this usually happens so late, there isn't enough time to work
>>on accessibility features before the game has to ship.
>>
>>3. Limited information - Even if a developer was pro-active and
>>scheduled the development of accessibility features into the games'
>>development schedule, there's still a major lack of knowledge and
>>tools that enable them to do their job. The SIG has been thinking
>>about accessibility features for years and we have all the solutions,
>>but developers don't yet. We need to make ourselves known and readily
>>available to help them.
>>
>>What can we do to solve these issues? We need to develop our
>>relationships with developers and offer our assistance. Our attempts
>>to work with GarageGames is a good start. When a new game is announced
>>we should contact them and offer our expertise.
>>
>>We have GOT to get a website up so that we can communicate our
>>abilities and expertise to our target audiences (game developers).
>>
>>But there are technical issues and many of us are volunteers and so
>>things move very slowly.
>>
>>Several of us are writing guidelines for implementing certain features
>>but again, this is a slow process. Others are doing research. Going to
>>conferences is awesome. Writing articles to Gamasutra is great as
>>well.
>>
>>Eitan is right, we have to "sell" our expertise. It's not that
>>developers don't care, they don't know that they SHOULD care.
>>
>>-Reid
>>_______________________________________________
>>games_access mailing list
>>games_access at igda.org
>>http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/games_access
>>
>>
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>
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