[games_access] We must get data sooner than later

[hinn at uiuc.edu]

Let me ping my mentee from this year's GDC -- her fiancee works for the US Census and might be able to get us more pinpointed stats that are more specific than the 16-64 year old range! He's also a statistician, which is what we need. I'm a qualitative researcher...I'm a "words" person ;)

Michelle

---- Original message ----
>Date: Thu, 3 May 2007 10:53:50 -0700
>From: "Reid Kimball" <reid at rbkdesign.com>  
>Subject: [games_access] We must get data sooner than later  
>To: "IGDA Games Accessibility SIG Mailing List" <games_access at igda.org>
>
>Kotaku posted the Quest video on their site
>http://kotaku.com/gaming/games-for-all/clip-making-games-more-accessible-256981.php
>
>One comment from a poster:
>"The problem is that it's not cost effective to tweak and add special
>options and controls for disabled gamers. The amount of time, effort,
>and money it takes to add all that doesn't produce a financial reward
>in the end for the company who makes the game because disabled gamers
>aren't exactly a sizeable demographic."
>
>I see this point made over and over again and no one knows the truth.
>We really need to find out the truth. I'm hopeful the facts will
>reveal that in fact it will be very cost effective for developers.
>
>Dimitris, do you have any data on how much it cost you to add all the
>accessible for Terrestrial Invaders vs. how much the game would have
>cost if you left them out?
>
>Does anyone have any good research skills? I've tried before to find a
>recent statistic on how many disabled people there are in the US,
>Europe, Asia, and so on. Ideally we'd have the following stats,
>
>in each territory US, UK, Europe, Asia, etc
># of disabled blind
># of disabled deaf/hard of hearing
># of people with any mobility issues, from arthritis to quadriplegia
># of cognitive disabled
>
># of male populations that play games
># of female populations that play games
>
>Age groups of people that play games
>
>Any more categories? I'm hoping with all the data we can piece things
>together and say something equivalent to, "we know that 30% of the
>male population between the ages of 16 and 33 in the US, which is
>25,000,000 mil, of those 10% are blind, 25% have some type of hearing
>disability and shockingly 35% have mobility impairments. Then we can
>break it down into actual estimated numbers. We really need some way
>to combat these assumptions that there isn't a market and it's not
>cost productive.
>
>I spent zero money developing Doom3[CC]. It only took time on nights
>and weekends while I worked a full time job. It has been downloaded
>over 19,000 times since release. If I had charged $5 dollars for it I
>could have profited $95,000 dollars. That's a one year salary for a
>talented programmer in some parts of the US, who could make huge
>impacts at a company.
>
>-Reid
>_______________________________________________
>games_access mailing list
>games_access at igda.org
>http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/games_access
.......................................
these are mediocre times and people are 
losing hope. it's hard for many people 
to believe that there are extraordinary 
things inside themselves, as well as 
others. i hope you can keep an open 
mind.
 -- "unbreakable"
.......................................