[games_access] Gentle Petition

[hinn at uiuc.edu]

This is true, Eelke. There are a lot of things that are inaccessible in our daily lives -- games are just one small slice of the pie.

I think if we take an approach that is more like a "pledge of support" for game accessibility that says "yeah, we agree that there is an important audience out there that we want to reach and we're in support of the GA SIG's efforts to help us make games more accessible" I think we'd go pretty far with regard to awareness and positive change without going down a really ugly political route.

I just read today's ECA email, which reminded me that there are so many legislative clogs that are really working against the music industry, the film industry, etc that to add to that fray would probably end up being "yet another" cog in the system. We don't want that -- we want change, not sitting around studying up on legal crap. I think that's at the heart of what Robert is saying -- we just need to pitch in and figure out the right wording to get the results in action!

It takes so long for games to get developed that it's hard to see the changes -- that and so many games get the "no go" in a "go/no go" meeting that might have had accessible features in them. It's frustrating...but it's the real world. And we have to be on top of changes and document instances where we learn that "game x" works really well with "controller a"

There's so much to do -- we just need to keep the positive energy moving!

Michelle

---- Original message ----
>Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2007 17:40:03 -0800
>From: "Eelke Folmer" <eelke.folmer at gmail.com>  
>Subject: Re: [games_access] Gentle Petition  
>To: "IGDA Games Accessibility SIG Mailing List" <games_access at igda.org>
>
>I support the petition but I can also understand the viewpoint of the
>game industry why games are not being made accessible, if they even
>consider it. If every game had to be made accessible to blind, deaf,
>mobility and cognitive impaired gamers it would drive many game
>companies out of business. Many game companies are already struggling
>for survival (not EA games) only 1 in 7 games is able to make a
>profit.
>
>If you think of it there are a large number of everyday things in our
>lives that we use that are not accessible at all. A bike is not
>accessible at all nor a cell phone. Transportation and communication
>are probably more important than entertainment.
>
>I think with our petition we should ask for a "reasonable
>accommodation" to make games accessible, like implementing  closed
>captions or reconfigurable controls,  otherwise I don't think we will
>get much support from the games industry. An effort to make game
>accessibility mandatory is likely to succeed more with help from the
>games industry, than with an industry will try to protect 25.000 jobs.
>
>Cheers Eelke
>
>
>
>On 04/12/2007, d. michelle hinn <hinn at uiuc.edu> wrote:
>>
>>
>> I agree -- We haven't gone down the road of the politics at all yet and I
>> think if we approach it the right way that it would be well received and
>> maybe even result in awareness amongst gamers, developers, and people who
>> would be gamers but don't know that they could be. So a more gentle petition
>> to say "hey, we agree that games are important and here's why adding
>> accessibility is a good idea..."
>>
>>
>> There's no reason we can't send an informative brief to let legislators know
>> about game accessibility even in the US -- when done, this is a GOOD thing
>> about games. We send the good things about game accessibility and games to
>> start things out versus something that is anti-industry, which we don't want
>> to do at this point.
>>
>>
>> And, hey, maybe in 50 years there won't be a need for legislation because
>> there will be some incredible breakthrough that none of us can even imagine
>> yet! :)
>>
>>
>> Michelle
>>
>>
>>
>> Robert (and others) - regarding the petition why don't you consider a
>>  compromise? I know in the UK you can quite easily go down the political
>> path
>>  to get things to the government:
>>
>>  http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/SupportAT/
>>
>>  What about starting a very simple petition - "We the undersigned want to
>> see
>>  more accessibility features in games...." - with a bit of an explanation
>>  (But not too much) - and some translations into other languages.
>>
>>  It would be nice to have something to take to developers, indies,
>>  home-coders to say lots do want this - it's not just us few people
>>  contacting you! And a few years down the line if we're still getting no
>>  where - but have everything in place that we can do - then maybe the
>>  political path is the way to go.
>>
>>  Let's face it - in 50 years - accessibility in software will very likely be
>>  legislated for (and let's hope it will be so much easier to bring into
>>  being) - so Robert's not so far off the mark. It's just so.... slow....
>>
>>  What do you think re. the gentle petition?
>>
>>  Barrie
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>>
>
>
>-- 
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Eelke Folmer                           Assistant Professor
>Department of CS&E/171
>University of Nevada              Reno, Nevada 89557
>Game interaction design        www.helpyouplay.com
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.......................................
these are mediocre times and people are 
losing hope. it's hard for many people 
to believe that there are extraordinary 
things inside themselves, as well as 
others. i hope you can keep an open 
mind.
 -- "unbreakable"
.......................................