[games_access] appealing to developers

[Jason Price]

Hello,

Let me first introduced myself.  My name is Jason Price, 32-year-old
lifelong gamer and lifelong person with a disability.

I have severe cerebral palsy (spastic triplegia to be specific).  This keeps
me from walking and also having normal dexterity in my left hand.  I'm a
console gamer through and through, dating back to Atari.  My left hand is
not able to hold a standard controller but I have always been able to get by
using laptop arcade/fighting sticks.  This all changed in early 2001 when
all games began to utilize dual analog sticks as the preferred method for
character manipulation.

I was immediately excluded from gaming because there are essentially no
arcade sticks available featuring two analog sticks and the buttons that are
accessed by pressing the analog sticks.  Enough of my rant, there has got to
be an answer.  It is very likely that we will find the answer by appealing
to both the moral fibers as well as the bottom line for game developers.

They must realize that there is a huge untapped market out there.  Gamers
like myself play games not only to escape life with a disability, but also
to engage our competitive nature.  For example I'm never going to play in
the NFL or NBA but through gaming I have in the past been able to experience
sports on some level.  Anyway, I hope I'm able positively contribute to this
group and I thank you for your time.

Jason Price

-----Original Message-----
From: games_access-bounces at igda.org [mailto:games_access-bounces at igda.org]
On Behalf Of Reid Kimball
Sent: Saturday, June 03, 2006 1:24 PM
To: IGDA Games Accessibility SIG Mailing List
Subject: Re: [games_access] Complaint regarding Florian Eckhardt

Thanks Kelly for your reply. I too felt motivated after I read
comments from people who didn't think games should be closed
captioned. People telling me I can't do something tends to be a
motivator for me.

I also agree that at this time our best option is to appeal to the
emotional side of developers if we are going to win their support for
accessible gaming. Most developers love gaming and want to share their
passion with the rest of the world. Why leave out those that are
disabled?

A company could also generate a lot of customer loyalty if they make
it known they support accessible gaming. A customer who isn't disabled
may be supportive of the idea and therefore support the company's
efforts by being a loyal customer.

-Reid

On 6/3/06, K <k at kellyrued.net> wrote:
> >yikes. You know...why shouldn't we include some
> >of these remarks in our talks?
>
> >From a dev perspective, I think those remarks are motivational- to help
> developers view the issue as one of corporate citizenship and morality.
That
> is why I am interested in accessible gaming- because it's the right thing
to
> do, not because I really think it is an ENORMOUS market for my PARTICULAR
> product. Our sales won't quadruple from designing accessibility features,
> and while the more popular games (like a Doom title) would likely see a
> measurable rise in sales (just because so many disabled gamers would want
a
> hit game, just by definition of what makes a hit game popular to gamers
> without gameplay-impacting disabilities). But for most games, the
commercial
> benefits are a little more dubious/slippery to try to calculate.
>
> By appealing to developer morality in addition to the bottom line
benefits,
> you will be sending a message that I think will help motivate people who
are
> otherwise skeptical about the financial benefits of accessibility
features.
> If you tell me I can invest in feature x and sell to another 100 players,
> I'd have to consider, overall, how that really does or doesn't impact us
and
> if it's worth it business-wise. But as I mentioned, I didn't have to stop
> and consider ANYTHING when I first became aware of the accessibility
issues
> with games because helping people appeals to my basic morals. It's a very
> easy way to pitch it in that sense. Who wouldn't read those comments and
> want to put in accessibility features just to counter that unfortunate
> element in society?
>
> -Kelly
>
> PS
>
> I am the indie dev who posted previously about how we can make our games
> more accessible. We will have a free trial of the education game this
coming
> week for anyone who might want to play and give me feedback about what was
> not accessibility friendly enough (it is a point-and-click interface
> throughout, with very minimal keyboard entry for registration and entering
> optional player names (you can accept the defaults) so it would require
any
> player to have a mouse or pointing device). I also have free review copies
> now (full non-trial versions) for anyone who is interested and able to
> provide accessibility feedback or a game review on their site linked to
our
> site. The product is an educational game for parents to play with teens,
> called The Sex Ed Game. More info at www.isergames.com
>
> _______________________________________________
> games_access mailing list
> games_access at igda.org
> http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/games_access
>
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