[games_access] GDC: in retrospect

Tue Mar 13 14:12:42 EDT 2007

These kinds of discussions are valuable, I hope no one takes anything
we discuss personally. We're all invested in this cause heavily and
hopefully our egos don't get in the way. I think there are a number of
areas we should identify that need improvement, such as

- Communicating our message
- Advertising our events
- Developing and sharing resources
- Creating industry partnerships
- any thing else?

Once we identify these areas, we can form plans/goals within each
domain to help become successful in those specific areas.

Eelke, I'm interested in seeing your ideas. I wouldn't say we are
doing anything "wrong" but we can certainly improve. I agree that we
need to help Michelle more. As she showed this GDC, she's capable of
doing it all, but I bet it wasn't fun for her.

-Reid

On 3/13/07, Barrie Ellis <barrie.ellis at oneswitch.org.uk> wrote:
>
>
> I think we need to build upon our past work - no doubt about it. And
> definitely we need to plan our promotion in advanced in a more organised
> way, without leaving everything on Michelle's doorstep.
>
> We do need to simplify what we are asking for from main-stream developers. I
> think the concept of making all games highly accessible to all bamboozles
> developers.
>
> Why don't we press for some of the things we'd most like to see, that are
> easiest to implement, that would benefit more gamers - then stick to that
> doggedly. For developers wishing to expand further into accessibility - we
> should make that easy to understand too.
>
> I'd love to see us have some examples knocked up of generic games made
> highly accessible with explanations, perhaps using the Design Patterns
> format that Eelke uses:
> http://www.eelke.com/research/accessibility.html
>
> Perhaps we should be demanding/developing guidelines for:
>
> Reconfigurable controls.
> Consideration for alternative controllers/reduced controls.
> Good menu design.
> Speed control.
> Some kind of Accessibility marking system.
>
> I think is plenty to be asking for to start off with.
>
> We need to keep building, but also become more and more transparant.
>
> Barrie
> www.OneSwitch.org.uk
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Eelke Folmer
> To: IGDA Games Accessibility SIG Mailing List
> Cc: chris at chrisquinn.com
> Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2007 7:59 AM
> Subject: [games_access] GDC: in retrospect
>
>
> 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.
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 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
>
>
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 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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