[games_access] Accessibility 2.0

[Eelke Folmer]

Hi All,

I didn't get the response I hoped for but at least we are talking,  
which in my opinion is an improvement already.

We can always improve, the biggest room is the room for improvement  
right? Even if we had a 100 visitors (which sadly we don't) we should  
still go for 200. We can always improve and we should be open for  
suggestions for improvement.

First, let me get a misunderstanding out of the way. I deeply value  
people's individual efforts because they are all part of the learning  
process of making this SIG successful, however I also think this SIG  
needs to be more open to receive constructive criticism in order to  
learn in the first place. The benefits of having someone provide  
constructive feedback on working towards getting making games more  
accessible should by far outweigh any inconveniences caused by  
crushed egos or hurt feelings when someone interprets that as  
criticism on their individual performance. I don't even understand  
why people take this criticism personally as in my opinion this SIG  
is not a one man show but is the combined effort of a number of  
individuals where everybody has an equal share in the success or  
failure of this SIG regardless what some people feel. The success or  
failure of this SIG affects us all and the SIG should provide an  
environment where every member feels the liberty  to voice their  
concerns/ or suggestions for improvement without feating to be  
blatantly ignored or scolded upon. This is a democracy right?

That said I think now is the time for reflection by looking back upon  
what we have achieved so far. Running this SIG is not different from  
developing a game and despite how much effort is being put in a game  
if no one buys your game your are doing the wrong thing. We can  
define success in many ways to make our SIG appear successful, we can  
look at other SIG's that are not popular but that is no reason for us  
not to be successful. Popular games like Gears of Wars are still not  
accessible by the majority of players with disabilities. Sadly the  
game industry is still at the same level as it was four years ago.  
How many commercial games have we been able to influence and made  
more accessible ever since this SIG started?(excluding CC) I don't  
want to focus to much on the number of attendees at our events but as  
SIG members that is the only way to directly measure our performance  
and is the only means to directly influence game developers. Fact  
remains those numbers are low.

The way I see it now we are still not a bleep on the game developers  
radar despite our efforts. As a SIG member with some interesting  
research projects going on I feel I have nothing to lose and only to  
gain by voicing my concerns and suggesting some ideas (cause our  
visibility in the game developers field is 0) I am unhappy with our  
current lack of success and I want create a win win situation for  
everybody where everybody can contribute to this SIG and our joined  
efforts can contribute to making games more accessible, because that  
is what we want right?

Now without further a due, I give you my five step plan:

1. How can we "sell" Accessibility?
One thing that can be concluded so far is that accessibility does not  
sell... and that's a bad thing because the games industry is all  
about money, especially now with the increase in development costs of  
3rd generation console games. Let me just make some observations. I  
went to this talk called: "making games for the other 90%" which was  
presented by David Amor of relentless software. The room was packed  
(>200?). David presented a talk on the game Buzz: the music quiz  
which uses a one button controller and discussed many accessibility  
issues and explained why this game was very successful particularly  
among the elderly, as it used a very simple interface and tied into  
something they already knew (Tv shows). I went to a talk called  
"challenging everyone: dynamic difficulty deconstructed" by Aaron  
Cole. They discussed the dynamic difficulty they implemented in the  
enemy's AI of the game Sin, which allowed for a wider variety of  
people to play the game, even older people performed better with this  
game. Again the room was pretty much packed (albeit smaller). The  
miyamoto talk clearly illustrated how easier to use controllers such  
as the wii mote contributed to his wife playing more games. Nintendo  
has proven there is definitely a market outside of the hardcore  
gamer. Game developers are definitely interested in expanding their  
markets,  as more copies need to be sold to make up for the increase  
in development costs.
These new markets include, kids, elderly, education, families, people  
who have never played games before. Many accessibility issues play a  
role as sadly not everybody fits the "20 year old male gamer" profile  
that the game industry seems to target.

I propose we start taking advantage of this current interest in  
expanding markets, the time is right for accessibility the question  
is why do we still fail? My impression of the way we sell  
accessibility now is that we give the impression that developers have  
to put in a lot of effort to design for the exclusive "few" without  
being able to recoup their costs. One button games or audio games are  
nice but they will never be Gears of War killers. In an industry  
where only an estimated 1 in 7 games makes a profit, you cannot  
expect game developers to make their games accessible out of pity, it  
just doesn't work like that. The game industry is all about $$$, if  
you don't have anything useful to say at GDC to someone who pays  
$1500 that can help him or her to sell more games you have no reason  
to be there. We need to provide them with a clear financial  
advantages, and we need more studies to provide us with data to back  
up our claims. And this might sound like business talk but I am 100%  
convinced we can sell accessibility. Many accessibility solutions are  
helpful for elderly/ kids/ inexperienced I am just asking people to  
go along with me to broaden our vision and find ways to market  
accessibility, and make this marketing a research issue rather than  
do the same trick over and over again without success. If we look at  
the past I think Reid has been very successful with his closed  
captioning mod (I am just picking Reid, i know there are others with  
success too). Why not have Reid (only if he wants to) do a talk at  
next year GDC called: "bumping the sales of your game with 10 million  
units: adding closed captioning support". (assuming there are 10M  
people with auditory disabilities in the US). I wonder how many  
people will attend that session just because we sell it completely  
differently? We need hard data to back up our claims: Add CC to your  
game will attract X new gamers. Offering an arcade mode in your game  
will attract X elderly, disabled. We also need hard data on the  
implementation effort of particular accessibility solutions. If it  
only takes 1 day to add CC to your game and you can potentially  
increase sales with 10M there is no game developer that objecting  
against adding CC. providing assist modes might be a little bit of  
more work and will enable another 1M people with disabilities to play  
the game, but at least presenting them this tradeoff will allow them  
to decide whether or not to go for it.  Without providing clear  
financial advantages of adopting accessibility solutions developers  
will never adopt accessibility and it is time for us to realize that.  
A pie chart that exactly shows the market breakdown and the number of  
potential new gamers that can be reached with accessibility solutions  
provides the best incentive. We need to discuss and think about how  
we can sell accessibility solutions rather than continue on selling  
accessibility as it is, because by now we know that doesn't work.  
There is a trend towards exploring new markets and accessibility is a  
big part of that and we should use this trend to our advantage. Maybe  
get rid of the word accessibility and coin a new term such as  
"expanding markets"/ "the other 90%"/ "include everybody".

2. Focus & professionalize &  learn from past experiences
I suggest we start doing less things but do them better: Rather than  
organize numerous events that 1) lead to a lot of stress 2) get no  
attendance 3) are poorly prepared and lack focus goal and  
understanding of the target audience (the two talks on tuesday) I  
think it is better to concentrate on a smaller number of events but  
do them better than we do them now. It is clearly a choice between  
shooting with shrapnel or taking a sniper approach. Now what are we  
trying to achieve? we all want more accessible games right? who is in  
the position to change this? the general public or game developers? I  
think we should clearly understand who we are focusing and what we  
are trying to achieve. Next year we can apply for 10 events but is  
that really going to make a difference if we continue along this  
path? I suggest we invest in quality rather than quantity. We are  
doing the people that pay good money to go to GDC a poor service when  
we just organize talks and just sit there and say "this is us, and  
this is what we do". They demand high quality talks that are focused,  
organized and that presents them with specific topics that are   
beneficial & relevant to their organization. We need to recognize  
that. It is not a bad thing to be ambitious but we got to be  
realistic and focus on the things that are succesfull. We also need  
to spend our resources wisely. I really enjoy the accessibility  
arcade but then again, it is a tremendous amount of organization,  
giving a lot of stress with very little return on investment and it  
also affects our ability to organize high quality talks at other  
events. I love the AA but then again if i was a game developer will i  
walk out thinking hey I'm going to develop a one button game?  ne  
button is just a way of interacting with a game, it is not a reason  
for selling a game. Look at the Buzz game, they wanted to create a  
game show idea and the PS2 controller just didn't prove to be that  
attractive so they decided to go for a one button which proved to be  
a blast. Accessibility arcade at Brighton hardly had any visitors,  
This year's GDC hardly anyone. I think something like an  
accessibility arcade is much more useful at a conference for people  
with disabilities.

The one button game concept is very useful for the mobile gamers  
because of the device limitations but in order for us to make a  
contribution to their community we need to provide them a better  
service than sitting there and saying: "this is us and this is what  
we do". A roundtable should have a clear focus and goal to create a  
"win/ win" situation for as well disabled gamers as mobile gamers.  
What one button games do exist on mobile phones and do exist on the  
PC? Can we port one button games to mobile devices and vice versa?  
how to deal with the plethora of OS on mobile phones? Can you expect  
a physically disabled gamer who can only press  one button to do some  
button mashing like people on cell phones can? No they can't. I don't  
think we should organize events at tracks where we have no clue what  
issues of those developers are dealing with.

Additionally, this SIG should also serve as an incubator for people  
doing research on accessibility. there are still many open research  
question, and we can work together on solving them. At our scheduled  
meeting on thursday I wanted to talk about research but many were  
having lunch and were too busy with the camera team. When I made a  
comment, the response was well the other SIG's don't do anything  
either at these meetings. We should make a better effort in  
connecting with other researchers in the field. Why did no one but  
Sander and me talk to this french professor that attended our  
accessibility arcade that came all the way from Paris just to show  
his cool audio game? We are as strong united as we are divided.  
Getting more people involved in this SIG is also a gain and we should  
never forget that focus. We also need to update our webpage, several  
people are listed that are not involved anymore and new members need  
to be added, which hopefully goes faster that the 8 months of  
lobbying I needed to get my name on there. That webpage is one of the  
first things people find when browsing to our SIG through the IGDA  
page, the SIG looks dead on the outside, showing blogs from 2005, how  
can we expect people to hook up with us if we don't look  
professional. Again I have offered to take care of that but no response.

3. Work from within rather from the outside
I think it is also important for us SIG members to be present at  
related events, because we can have a much bigger influence there. I  
was at Microsoft's usability testing tutorial on monday and there  
were about 120 people there. When I asked whether accessibility  
testing could be incorporated in their playtest process the feedback  
was very positive and some discussion started on someone who had a  
test person who was colorblind. Thomas told me he was at the OpenAL  
talk and at the QA he asked whether their sound component supports  
closed captioning. Asking such questions in front of +200 engineers  
has a much bigger impact than all the events that we have organized  
at this GDC. The Education SIG is pretty popular, Games and  
accessibility will be a very important topic in the future, we even  
talk about it in our presentations, but why is no one of us  
represented at that SIG? I think we suffer from tunnel vision by  
preaching to much to our own choir without realizing there are so  
many other interesting talks and things going on where we can spread  
the word of accessibility and have the impact we dreamed of.   
Jonathan's blow experimental gameplay session is always very  
successful ( +500 or more people), why didn't we put the donation  
coder challenge in there? Experimental game play -- one button games?  
surely he must be interested if we keep it short and focused. why  
don't we start a new challenge right now??  one way to achieve this  
is setting up task forces, every SIG member should think about which  
particular topic of their interest that they like to be active in. We  
need to quit working from the outside organizing our little events  
that no one attends and start working on infiltrating relevant  
events/ sigs and spread the word from within, without being obtrusive  
that is. This will also allow us to get a better understanding of  
accessibility issues related to that topic and contribute to those  
events and SIG's as well. Small little things work best; why don't we  
get a list with 100 game developers and send them 10 small flyers to  
be distributed among their interaction designers? We can print  
mousepads with a small list of accessibility guidelines, & hand them  
out at GDC. Game developers love gadgets. Small things work best in  
my opinion.

4. Call to arms!
Surely the low attendance of our events is proof that game developers  
don't listen or want to listen to our talks, well why don't we try  
something radical? Why don't we stand outside for five days between  
Moscone North and West at GDC with some disabled gamers holding big  
signs saying: "We demand Accessible games!!!" At the same time we can  
hand out small flyers with 10 accessibility problems & solutions, and  
promoting the one talk that we organize. Cost: small, Impact : huge.  
I gladly donate next year's GDC pass (if I get any) to a gamer with  
disabilities so he or she can walk or ride around at GDC and help us  
protest.

5. Management
The success of this SIG depends on a strong organization &  
management. In my opinion a good chair is:
- Accessible:  welcomes individual feedback and a serve as catalyst  
for communication between its members, rather than being stressed out  
all the time. It will make members feel valued and being part of a  
group rather than monkeys doing their little trick at a circus act. A  
chair is a facilitator who can distill a vision from its individual  
members into a strong combined vision to the outside world.
- Professional:  no matter how stressed you are, and no matter how  
much effort you put in the organization, as a chair it is your duty  
to be professional. You have to realize that all your efforts are  
never in vain. Don't feel offended if things don't work out feel  
consolation in the fact that at least you have tried and gained  
valuable experiences that are an opportunity to become even better in  
doing what you are already good at.  Look into your soul and think  
about what i means to threaten someone with violence because you  
don't like what that person is saying.
- Present a clear vision: where are we going? what do we set out to  
achieve? providing clear measurable and reasonable goals and a  
unified vision will mitigate the majority of the stress as everybody  
will exactly know what this SIG is up to. Running from conference to  
conference doing a half job and trying to manage everything by  
exception will burn you out and is detrimental to how people perceive  
our SIG.
- Baby steps: it is better to try to be successful in one area before  
scaling things up. 10 x 0 = 0 but 1x1 = 1
- Control,  even if you are stressed out try to express to the  
outside world that you are in control, and use the power of being  
part of a group to delegate things. i've suggested a couple of times  
we should have flyers. Don't do everything yourself because you feel  
you have to. Many of us have successfully contributed to organizing  
conferences and workshops in the past , use that expertise to divide  
work that contribute to giving high quality talks.  I have offered  
several times to help out organizing events, but I'd feel more  
valuable if it is something more than carrying suitcases or putting  
up a poster.
- Positive: even if things are bleak; and no one shows up at your  
events, keep a positive attitude. Making comments to the audience at  
our events that so few showed up does not communicate the right  
message and only gives them a free pass to leave without feeling  
guilty. Complaining on the circumstances even if they are beyond your  
control will only give the impression that things are poorly organized.
- Recognition:  We all work hard towards accessible games in our own  
ways. Some of us have full time jobs  but still manage to make  
contributions. A good chair will honor and recognize  those  
individual efforts how small or big these efforts may be and will try  
not place him or herself above the rest by stating anything about the  
amount of effort being put in by the chair.
- Rotation:  being a chair takes a lot of time and energy, and in  
order to prevent people from getting burned out why not have the  
chair function rotate yearly among its members like Thomas initially  
set it out to be? This will avoid tunnel vision and will guarantee a  
"fresh" view on things that can only lead to us being more successful.

Now let there be discussion.

Sincerely Eelke

I should actually add a 6th point and that is to find an alternative  
to the mailinglist as it works now since there is just too much  
information on it for it to be effective. I'd like to split it up  
into a high priority list where each member can only send 1 mail a  
week and a low priority list for all the chatting.

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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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