[games_access] GDC: in retrospect

[Eelke Folmer]

Hi Everybody,

I hope everybody recovered from GDC and made it safely back home. I  
enjoyed seeing everybody again and finally meeting up with some  
people in this SIG (Reid/ Robert) that I hadn't met before.

First of all a big disclaimer: this email is not meant to hurt anyone  
or crush anyones ego.
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That being taken care off, I'd like to open up the discussion on the  
future of this SIG, because frankly I am a bit worried where we are  
heading. First of all, Michelle and numerous other SIG members have  
done a very good job organizing all sorts of events in the past, but  
we can't ignore the fact that the attendance at our events is still  
very low. This lack of attendance (and I'm not even talking about how  
people rate our events) will affect our ability to organize more  
events in the future. The media coverage we had at this GDC is good,  
but whether that will reach the people that we are trying to  
influence is open for discussion, unless will wright's parents watch  
local tv ;-)  I wonder whether the time spent in front of the camera  
could have been better spent handing out flyers for accessibility  
idol (like I originally suggested to).

When only 25 people (of which 10 left) attend our top event  
(accessibility idol) I think we cannot ignore the fact that we are  
doing something wrong. We can blame the low attendance on poor  
scheduling but considering the large number of events (6 in total)  
opening up a room with no talks scheduled, out of 15.000 people  
present at GDC at least the same number of people should randomly  
walk in. Now I don't know about figures in the past since I have only  
joined 6 months ago (which I heard were even lower) but even  
"growing" at this rate is not acceptable, because that would mean  
that we have to wait until GDC 2020 before we have a 100 people,  
meaning that gears of war 5 god of war 6 will still be inaccessible  
until then.

Accessibility is important now and the sooner we are successful the  
better for gamers with disabilities. People pay good money to attend  
this conference and they demand high quality talks that are  
beneficial to their organization, we should recognize that. There is  
no reason to put the blame one anyone, as no doubt everybody's  
intentions in this SIG are excellent, but I think we fail as as an  
organization if we don't look back upon our past events and identify  
what works and what doesn't work and let's all decide on a shared  
vision on what we should organize, where, why and how. In my opinion  
we have done the same trick over and over again without the desired  
success. We tried to sell accessibility into different formats and it  
still doesn't work, the low attendance of accessibility idols being  
proof of that. We have the message but we don't have the audience.  
Why do we still work on the message and not focus on getting the  
audience?

I have outlined a plan (which I dub ACCESSIBILITY 2.0) consisting of  
5 action points & clear goals that will put this SIG back on track,  
make it as successful as other SIGS (education/writing),  increase  
the attendance at our events, and putting accessibility on the  
roadmap of game developers like we set out to.

Before I share my vision with you i'd like to know whether I'm alone  
in the observation that things should change. I don't want to waste  
anyone's time and If people are happy to continue along the chosen  
path, I respect that. Someone else has a different vision? share it!   
at least the benefits of writing this email is that we have a  
dialogue on the future of this SIG, which can only be good, because  
we all want accessible games right?

Cheers Eelke


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Eelke Folmer                                          Assistant  
Professor
Department of Computer Science &       Engineering/171
University of Nevada                         Reno, Nevada 89557
Game Quality                   usability|accessibility.eelke.com
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