[games_access] First draft. Getting Federal government. On our side.

[Robert Florio]

Thanks for the link skies.  I did a little research on petitions.  Let me
know what you think about this first draft?

Game Accessibility Petition
Author.  Robert Florio
Organization. IGDA Accessibility SIG
December 2, 2007

First draft.

Description/History:

In 2007 the game design industry has continued to fail making games
accessible for people with limitations. Since the conception and marketing
of videogames in the early 1980s, videogames have grown in complexity in
design and development as well as extremely profitable receiving billions of
dollars each year.  In the United States and across the world abroad, the
game design industry has never been remotely understanding in its efforts to
make games accessible for people with limitations.  Limitations such as,
paralysis or injury making it impossible for someone to play with a product
with their hands and fingers, a loss of hearing or site of vision, and even
a cognitive ability to understand and play.

With the ever-growing number of people missing out on enjoyability of this
industry and feeling neglected and discriminated against, people with
disabilities and equal opportunity consumers are disadvantaged time and time
again, and now are looking for a solution to make games reach out to adapt
to their needs as well.

Petition:

We, the undersigned, hereby petition the marketing of commercial country and
worldwide videogames, design accessible videogames to a set standard.  The
requirement should include gamers with physical, visual, audio and cognitive
impairments be given an equal chance in the design of individual videogames.

Please sign this petition if you believe that all gamers should be treated
as equals and videogame should be designed to a set standard of
accessibility for videogames according to their individual game designers
target market?

-----Original Message-----
From: games_access-bounces at igda.org [mailto:games_access-bounces at igda.org]
On Behalf Of d. michelle hinn
Sent: Sunday, December 02, 2007 7:34 PM
To: IGDA Games Accessibility SIG Mailing List
Subject: Re: [games_access] Getting Federal government. On our side.

I have all the US Senate/House/Governors email addresses so if you 
start it and others can help edit, I can send out a press release.

We can start by raising the issue with the US government because I 
have those addresses but as Barrie suggested -- why limit this to 
just the US?

I'm not sure how successful it will be but we haven't tried it and 
with the right tone it's worth a shot -- if anything it never hurts 
to remind the US government who often tries to outlaw gaming after 
this and that happens that games are important and not all bad. I'm 
always happy to contribute to that approach!

Michelle

>Robert, if you kick start it, and get it going - I'll support you 
>and so will others. Why not
>start by building an on-line petition - I'm sure there's more than just me
>here that would be happy to proof read it and add suggestions before 
>it goes live.
>
>Take a look here:
>
>http://www.petitiononline.com/
>http://www.petitiononline.com/Captions/petition.html
>
>I too don't know how successful this approach will be - but none of us will
>know for sure unless it's tried.
>
>At the very least, it can burble away in the background - building support
>for us in numbers. Perhaps we could all point people in its direction if it
>says things we are mostly happy with? I'd like it to be a bit more
>international in scope, so I'd love to see an intro paragraph with links to
>translated versions in other languages.
>
>Go for it, Robert!
>
>Barrie
>www.OneSwitch.org.uk
>
>----- Original Message ----- From: "Robert Florio"
<arthit73 at cablespeed.com>
>To: "'IGDA Games Accessibility SIG Mailing List'" <games_access at igda.org>
>Sent: Sunday, December 02, 2007 7:41 PM
>Subject: Re: [games_access] Getting Federal government. On our side.
>
>>I'm actually proposing how many of us want to and can help to send letters
>>to important people like senators, independent game developers, to get
>>petitions signed, and send it to some senators to get some kind of
>>nationwide talk on this and finally a regulated necessity standard?
>>
>>I think it's a very good and noble thing to do.  Thinking of it in a way
>>that it's an industry that has ignored and does not have any future plans
>>for any big deals for accessibility for people.  Especially in the United
>>States is our Constitution write to have fair access to all forms of
>>entertainment.  To not allow people access to their product is
>>discrimination.
>>
>>Again this is something I have proposed before nobody said they wanted to
>>work on it and I don't know why it seems like a great thing to do.  Stand
>>up
>>for our rights that's what the government is there to help us to
>>especially
>>in a billion-dollar industry making millions and millions but ignoring the
>>rest seems wrong.
>>
>>Robert
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>games_access mailing list
>>games_access at igda.org
>>http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/games_access
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>games_access mailing list
>games_access at igda.org
>http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/games_access

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