[games_access] Game accessibility survey journal article

Sat Jul 31 05:47:19 EDT 2010

I agree with Steve on the "poster child" point. As for finding people to
talk to, all of the forums found in the side links at our blog are a good
place to get in contact: http://gameaccessibility.blogspot.com/ - and of
course, further afield. One thing that I would say, is that there isn't a
very good representation of learning disabled players in any of the game
accessibility forums. Partly this is due to the difficulty there is in using
many forums. Perhaps when video and sound based forums, plus ones using a
more symbolic approach, this will change...

Barrie

On 30 July 2010 16:02, Steve Spohn <steve at ablegamers.com> wrote:

> Sandra,
>
> There is the white paper that Stephanie and Eleanor did
>
> http://ablegamers.org/publications-a-research/53-gaming-on-a-collision-cours
> e.html and as for what they want to say to developers - I don't think
> there
> is any unanimous opinion on what to tell developers other than
> accessibility
> needs to be included.  Every gamer, including myself, has their own
> obstacles and individual opinion on what makes the game easier to play.
>
> Face... well... what you are asking for is referred to as a "poster child"
> and I'm not a big fan of those.  For the most part, poster children are
> exploited to take advantage of human sympathy.  That's not the direction I
> want to see AG or IDGA go.  Of course, that's only my opinion, but if you
> want to find examples of people who are willing to be in front of the
> camera, go to YouTube and look up disabled gaming. There is at least a
> dozen
> videos of gamers with disabilities showing off how to play.
>
> Steve Spohn
> Associate Editor
> The AbleGamers Foundation
>
> www.ablegamers.com
> www.ablegamers.org
>
> Find me on Skype!  Username: Steve_Spohn
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: games_access-bounces at igda.org [mailto:games_access-bounces at igda.org]
> On Behalf Of Sandra Uhling
>  Sent: Friday, July 30, 2010 10:41 AM
> To: 'IGDA Games Accessibility SIG Mailing List'
> Subject: Re: [games_access] Game accessibility survey journal article
>
> Hi Steve,
>
> Oh yes, I forgot that it can be very difficult to get into public.
>
> Do we have anything to get them a "face"?
> Maybe picture that we are allowed to use?
> Or some data, letter, or something else?
>
> Is it possible to collect some wishes?
> What disabled gamers would like to say to developers?
> I remind something about similar made by blind gamers.
> (But some parts were very hard)
>
> Best regards,
> Sandra
>
>
>
> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: games_access-bounces at igda.org [mailto:games_access-bounces at igda.org]
> Im
> Auftrag von Steve Spohn
> Gesendet: Freitag, 30. Juli 2010 16:15
> An: 'IGDA Games Accessibility SIG Mailing List'
> Betreff: Re: [games_access] Game accessibility survey journal article
>
> Sandra,
>
> I can appreciate that you would like to see more than AbleGamers but in
> some
> ways that's like asking to reinvent the wheel.  Anytime you want to talk to
> disabled gamers you can go to our forums. Anytime you want to find a group
> for disabled gamers you can do to our community portal.  And with up to 5
> million hits a month on AbleGamers plus however many million one-switch
> gets, yes, you are fighting for people who actually exist.
>
> As to your point about people not wanting to write: absolutely!  Disabled
> individuals are often stereotypically reclusive and it's difficult to get
> them to want to be a "public face" - that is because of the way disabled
> people are treated in society.
>
> If you really want to get an idea about the people being helped by our
> cause
> you need to look at the gamers not the developers.  AbleGamers, one switch,
> 7-128, etc. deal with the real people in the trenches every day.
>
> I can't speak for Eleanor or Barrie, but take for example the conference in
> Indiana yesterday - we met hundreds of disabled gamers
> http://www.facebook.com/#!/ablegamers?ref=ts all in one place.  Do they
> want
> to write articles? No, but they are why we are fighting.
>
> Are games already accessible?  Not enough.
>
> Steve Spohn
> Associate Editor
> The AbleGamers Foundation
>
> www.ablegamers.com
> www.ablegamers.org
>
> Find me on Skype!  Username: Steve_Spohn
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: games_access-bounces at igda.org [mailto:games_access-bounces at igda.org]
> On Behalf Of Sandra Uhling
> Sent: Friday, July 30, 2010 9:50 AM
> To: 'IGDA Games Accessibility SIG Mailing List'
> Subject: Re: [games_access] Game accessibility survey journal article
>
> Hi,
>
> Do we know something about the situation of disabled gamers?
> I do not have numbers, arguments or disabled gamers point of view for this.
>
> Some people say that games are already very accessible.
> Because I do not know much about the situation, I do not know what to say.
>
> One big problem is that most of disabled gamers are not active.
> It is hard to find disabled gamers and talk to them. The deaf gamer
> I talked to, was very surprised about the idea to "fight" for sound
> alternatives.
> Some gamers in a Tomb Raider forum wrote about their problems, but they
> would
> never get the idea to become active. The blind gamers I asked, were
> interested in
> eSport, but there was no one who wanted to write a concept.
> (Some pedagogues say that is the result of our school system, that people
> are not very dedicated)
>
> That feels some kind of odd. I am active, but for who?
> Is there someone out there?  (Of course I know AbleGamers, but I do miss
> others)
>
> Maybe we should give the disabled gamer "a face"? Some communities do this
> for political reason.
> They start "I am a gamer" websites with lots of profiles of gamers. I like
> the profiles of disabled
> gamers in one of Marks presentation. Maybe it is possible to add also
> non-disabled gamers who would
> like to have certain Game Accessibility Features?  Main focus should be
> disabled gamers.
>
> Then I could give a link to the people and they get an imagination of the
> disabled and read comments
> feelings and how they feel.
>
> Best regards,
> Sandra
>
> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: games_access-bounces at igda.org [mailto:games_access-bounces at igda.org]
> Im
> Auftrag von Eleanor
> Gesendet: Montag, 5. Juli 2010 15:45
> An: games_access at igda.org
> Betreff: [games_access] Game accessibility survey journal article
>
> Excellent article Eelke - your students did a great job!
>
> The one thing that becomes ever more clear as one researches this field
> is how can someone quantify the need for accessibility accommodations
> when there are several unresolved issues:
>
> 1.Many people who play games don't consider themselves gamers and don't
> respond to questions about video gaming positively because there is a
> social stigma associated with the term "gamer".  Most women will not
> identify themselves as gamers.  Frequently, if you question someone who
> does not consider themselves to be a gamer further, they will say oh
> yes, I play a couple of online computer games, or I play casual games on
> the computer, or I play bowling on the Wii, but I'm not a gamer..  How
> then can you then get an accurate figure for the actual number of people
> who play games?  I believe we have consistently under-estimated the
> number of people who play games - especially among older people.
>
> 2. This in turn leads to an inability to estimate how many people are
> prevented from playing games because the games don't have accommodations
> to allow them to play.  We have a pretty good handle on the number of
> people who have one or more disability.  We can say what it will take to
> make a game able to be played by them.  What we can only guess at is the
> actual number of people who are prevented from playing games because of
> the lack of accommodations.  We can't estimate with any degree of
> confidence because we really don't have a good handle on the actual
> number of people who are gamers.
>
> The next question is would people with one or more disability be more,
> less or equally likely to play games if the accommodations were in place
> to allow them to play?  I tend to say equally likely if given the chance
> - but I may be wrong.
>
> Given all that, if we had better information on these issues, we could
> do a better job of estimating the revenue loss game companies are
> incurring by not including accessibility accommodations in their games.
>
> Eleanor Robinson
> 7-128 Software
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