[games_access] Legislating for Game Accessibility

[Barrie Ellis]

I'm not 100% on either side of this fence - but the phrase "reasonable 
adjustments" doesn't ask for universal accessibility anyway. That said, your 
"rob them of time and money" does sound like some of the protests shop 
keepers were making pre "Disability Discrimination Act". I think slowly 
people get used to these concepts.

How could "reasonble adjustments" be made reasonable with video games. I'm 
not 100% sure to be honest. I just don't think it's anywhere near as 
frightening as some people seem to think it is.

Barrie


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tess Snider" <this at malkyne.org>
To: "IGDA Games Accessibility SIG Mailing List" <games_access at igda.org>
Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2007 12:33 AM
Subject: Re: [games_access] Legislating for Game Accessibility


> On Dec 19, 2007 11:06 AM, Barrie Ellis <barrie.ellis at oneswitch.org.uk> 
> wrote:
>> So if an expectancy of "reasonable adjustments" in commercial software 
>> was
>> introduced (which I truly belive will eventually happen) how badly would 
>> the
>> artistic side of things be affected? What is reasonable is the tricky
>> point... But I didn't see too many shop keepers crying about giving 
>> greater
>> access to shoppers with different abilities.
>
> You're comparing apples and oranges.  You can't just bolt a ramp onto
> a game, and call it accessible.
>
> There are some types of entertainment experiences that are simply
> incompatible with certain disabilities.  This is not due to
> insensitivity on the part of the artists, but the very nature of the
> experience.  Someone who is vision impaired, but not blind, might
> really enjoy the extra-large picture provided by IMAX movies, while
> someone who is completely blind will get no benefit from the giant
> screen.
>
> A lot of audio-only games for blind players are made by small,
> independent developers.  Many of them are labors of love.  Would you
> force these folks to invest extra time and money to develop a version
> of their game that could be played by deaf players?  Would you rob
> them of the time and money that they might have put towards making
> more games for the blind?  Legislation can hurt the very people we are
> trying to help.
>
> I continue to believe that the push for accessibility labeling
> standards is the right approach.  This does not mandate accessibility,
> but it does create market pressure, and get companies thinking about
> how they can tick off more checkboxes.  I guarantee you, you'd see
> much more widespread coverage for at least the low-hanging fruit (e.g.
> captioning, visual cues for auditory alerts, configurable controls,
> etc.) than you do right now.  As it is, it's hard to get companies to
> even remember that some people are left-handed!
>
> Tess
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