[games_access] Family Play

Sun Jul 8 03:57:09 EDT 2007

Re. gaming starting with the NES - I'd say that video gaming started with 
B/W arcade games such as Boot Hill and Space Invaders and at home with Pong 
in the late 70's for most UK kids of a certain age. Inaccessible gaming 
reared its head at the same time:

>From my Pioneers page: http://www.oneswitch.org.uk/2/pioneers.htm :

"Skallagrigg" a fictional book by William Horwood (1987) features a passage 
where the main disabled characters discover Pong in 1980.

"Esther played against Tom, but the two of them were so clumsy, and the 
speed of the ball so relatively fast, that they had no chance of stopping 
it, or of scoring points against each other except by chance".

You can't knock Nintendo for what they are doing. Can't believe Microsoft 
and Sony are so slow to catch up with the wave of more accessible games. 
What ever happened to the new Xbox 360 controller Microsoft hinted at? 
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=17998 - In stead of doing 
nothing or just blatantly copying Nintendo - why not talk to us?

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

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "d. michelle hinn" <hinn at uiuc.edu>
To: "IGDA Games Accessibility SIG Mailing List" <games_access at igda.org>
Sent: Sunday, July 08, 2007 6:22 AM
Subject: Re: [games_access] Family Play

> Yes, that would be an interesting question to ask EA -- Vander? You 
> reading this? I have to get a couple other contacts from EA that I'll get 
> from my sources so I'll see if I can't get a chat with someone to talk 
> about this further.
>
> Re: When did gaming really start...we'll as a matter of fact I'm working 
> on a timeline now for my PhD thesis that will integrate in dates that 
> accessible games/hardware were made, certain key games, etc into the 
> "history" of gaming. So from my thesis...
>
> Before moving to the 8-bit era in 1986 (NES/Super Mario Bros) there were 
> two major crashes that impacted the industry. The first was in 1977 ("the 
> hardware plague" with pong clones at  fire sale prices). Then in the early 
> to mid-80s the second crash occurred ("the software plague" where there 
> was no quality control in games, there were so many third party games that 
> looked like first party games and no way for consumers to justify spending 
> money on what could be complete crap. So the 8-bit era heralded in the 
> 8-bit movement and tighter control over game quality and rose from the 
> ashes of the "software plague" crash
>
> Interesting article I read today that reminded me of Ethan (a 
> donationcoder winner that was at GDC) who basically stopped playing games 
> because of Carpal Tunnel -- In 1981, the 1978 game Space Invaders was 
> written about in the New England Journal of Medicine: "Space Invaders 
> Wrist." :)
>
> And, yes, the timeline will be available online while I'm working on it 
> (and after).
>
> More tomorrow! :)
>
> Michelle
>
>>HI Barry,
>>
>>Torque FPS: The student who's working on it promised to send a demo to
>>me today.
>>
>>Kudos go to nintendo ofcourse. Criticized from the start from
>>withstanding to compete in pushing as much pixels as possible with
>>microsoft and sony, now 7 months after launching the wii they have
>>clearly (re) opened (where did gaming really start: NES+mario) a
>>market for themselves where microsoft and sony still seem to battle it
>>out with copycat games & sequals trying to facilitate the ever
>>demanding high end 20 year old male gamer.
>>
>>I am kind of curious how EA will deal with porting their games to the
>>technically underpowered but gameplay overpowered wii? Technically the
>>wii and xbox360/ps3 are really different.
>>
>>cheers Eelke
>>
>>
>>On 7/5/07, Barrie Ellis <barrie.ellis at oneswitch.org.uk> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>Sounds just what we've been advocating for all these years. Good! Hate 
>>>the
>>>phrase about bridging the gap between gamers and non-gamers. What
>>>meaningless nonsense!
>>>
>>>Very much looking forward to seeing a demo of your work by the way.
>>>
>>>Barrie
>>>www.OneSwitch.org.uk
>>>
>>>
>>>----- Original Message -----
>>>From: Eelke Folmer
>>>To: games_access at igda.org
>>>Sent: Thursday, July 05, 2007 5:37 PM
>>>Subject: [games_access] Family Play
>>>
>>>
>>>http://wii.ign.com/articles/801/801326p1.html
>>>
>>>EA games will offer a "simplified interaction" for their sports games
>>>Madden, FIFA & NBA.  AI is used to take over the more difficult parts of 
>>>the
>>>interaction while the
>>>wii mote will be used to map the required interaction to gestures or
>>>movements which most players already know. This is exactly like we have 
>>>done
>>>it for the FPS for the torque engine. (I will finally send out a demo
>>>tomorrow).
>>>
>>>This is pretty cool and might also make hardcore games more accessible 
>>>for
>>>those with disabilities.
>>>
>>>Cheers Eelke
>>>--
>>>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>Eelke Folmer                           Assistant Professor
>>>Department of CS&E/171
>>>University of Nevada              Reno, Nevada 89557
>>>Game interaction design        www.helpyouplay.com
>>>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>>  ________________________________
>>>
>>>
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>games_access mailing list
>>>games_access at igda.org
>>>http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/games_access
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>_______________________________________________
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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
>>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>_______________________________________________
>>games_access mailing list
>>games_access at igda.org
>>http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/games_access
>
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