[games_access] Blog: Top 3 Top 3 and IGDA GASIG Awards Ceremony2008

Sun Dec 2 07:22:28 EST 2007

Hi Richard,

I understand what you are saying re. the word "Top" - it's a bit obvious - but it's catchy and yes it may not be 100% accurate... But these lists are more specific to the genres than you give them credit. It's not difficult to simplify the controls of a golf, driving or pinball game down to less controls, and to make them all digital if needed. It's some work - but I don't agree that this is much of a stretch. I don't want to ignore blind and visually impaired gamers - I personally just don't agree that those adjustments you mention are the easiest for non-insiders to fully grasp. If you want scalable fonts - you'll equally expect everything fundamental to the game to be equally clear - not so easy either. The colour-blind aspect can get quite tricky too without full and proper advice.

I wouldn't really be expecting main-stream developers to jump in with one-switch access for games - but seeing as some iterations of Everybody's Golf almost already can be played just by pressing X - it didn't seem unreasonable to mention.

I agree we need some kind of IGDA GASIG guidelines - but in lieu of that, and in lieu of sitting on my hands... thought this might be helpful.

I've also added extra links at the bottom of each Top 3 to link to extra help (Game Over, Barriers in Games, Help you Play and us of course).

Ideally - this is a basic list that will give developers something to think about with those specific genres. Can it hurt?

Barrie

----- Original Message ----- 
  From: AudioGames.net 
  To: IGDA Games Accessibility SIG Mailing List 
  Sent: Sunday, December 02, 2007 11:54 AM
  Subject: Re: [games_access] Blog: Top 3 Top 3 and IGDA GASIG Awards Ceremony2008

  Hi,

  I got some thoughts about this and it is a bit related to what I wrote in my earlier email concerning incoherent information and stuff. I'll try to explain the best I can. On first glance I think "Excellent! 3 simple key points that developers can easily implement and therefore help to make many games a little more accessible". 
  But on second glance, I think these small Top 3 lists are misleading - in the bigger picture of game accessibility. If you put it like this to the outside world, it might seem that these three features (essentially the same three features repeated over three genres) are somehow "the most important" features because of the use of the word 'top' (which somehow refers to the option that there might be more). I agree that these three would makes many games a bit more accessible, but I think there are other features that are equally important and would also make many games a bit more accessible. I guess these three are mostly targeted towards the target group that you work with in real life (gamers with physical and learning impairments?) . For 'my' target group (the group that I worked with most - gamers with visual impairments) none of these 3 features make any difference accessibility-wise. Examples of "easy" accessibility features for them would include "color-blind accessibility" (no colour-communication OR provide alternatives to color-communication), "rescalable fonts", "customizable fonts", "customizable contrast", etc. Why wouldn't these not be in your list? They would make many games a little more accessible and are all very "easy"... ?

  But here's another thought about "easy"...

  Thing is, I have the feeling that there is no thing such as 'easy accessibility'. When I look at this top 3, your second feature ("Compatibility with Alternative Controllers") is not "easy" at all. It is a lot of work to make a game work with alternative controllers, especially when a certain controller has fewer control capacity than the controllable functions in the game. Your "easy" point 2 is actually my Keypoint 1 [1]. And to make my Keypoint 1 work, one cannot play without (my) Keypoint 2 (which is partially your point 1) AND (my) Keypoint 3 ("Interaction Techniques"). 
  My point: I think many accessibility features have consequences that also need to be dealt with. If you do not communicate this fact to developers, I think that's misleading.

  I think a list of accessibility features/requirements/design guidelines is good. I guess it is possible to rank each feature with a "easyness of implementation" (for instance, by looking at how much consequences a certain features has - providing a customizable font setting in Prince of Persia doesn't have as much design consequences as to control Prince of Persia with a single switch-controller).  I also think that once you do that, you get a different Top 3 than you present now.

  So...

  I think such "easy Top 3" lists are a good idea but should be presented slightly different - not as "The Top Of Them All". And when it concerns "easy", we have to be honest about how "easy" it really is. I think you are doing a great job and am glad with your initiative!!!

  Best regards,

  Richard

  [1] http://www2.hku.nl/~mosh/ga/gatheoryshort029.doc

    Anyway - I've also set-up a "Top 3 Accessibility Features" section for particular game genres: http://gameaccessibility.blogspot.com/search/label/Top%203

    Pinball, Golf, Driving games covered at present. I'd appreciate people's thoughts, and also on any suggestions of companies to contact once we have a basic consensus. I realise there's lots of things not covered - this is not the point - it's to try and get some of the simplest concepts with the lowest potential overheads to the people making games (indies, home coders, mainstream - anyone!).

    This stuff stands on the shoulders of everyone's work so far - so please don't think I'm claiming this as my baby. It's not. It's ours - so help us to make it useful... Perhaps we should get a standard e-mail drafted (with further links for more help as it stands presently - e.g. Eelke's design patterns - Game-Accessibility.com - our forum? our mailing list and so on....

    Enough from me today I think...

    Barrie
    www.OneSwitch.org.uk

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