[games_access] MMOG Topics for Terra Nova?

[Reid Kimball]

I'm sorry, I haven't been keeping up with the conversations. In the
little that I read, people are not likely to change their thinking
unless they see an example of how it can work. We can talk and talk
but it won't matter what we say. Might want to talk about what
happened with Star Wars Galaxies when they changed the controls and
mobility disabled people couldn't play anymore. There was a big uproar
and they had to release another patch to change it back or offer more
options, not sure what the final solution was.

http://wiredblogs.tripod.com/games/index.blog?entry_id=1308320

There's one photo from the Alter Ego project which always gets to me
emotionally.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/04/technology_gamers_and_their_avatars/html/6.stm

I've got it... we need to create a book/website of photographs of
disabled gamers and their characters in MMO's or other games that
allow them to customize characters, like the Sims. Developers just
don't know that disabled people play their games and they need to. It
could be a photo essay.

-Reid

On 5/19/07, d. michelle hinn <hinn at uiuc.edu> wrote:
>
>
> Hi everyone,
>
>
> Anyone out there have any thoughts pertaining specifically to the
> accessibility of MMOGs like World of Warcraft and Second Life? I'm getting a
> lot of flack on Terra Nova at the moment and running out of things to say to
> help the readership understand that accessibility is an issue that should
> concern them (especially as they are used in schools) and, of course, the
> "return on investment" issue we're more than familiar with (I replied to one
> poster about why it's always JUST up to us to provide that info when we
> don't know what the industry average cost for adding in accessibility
> features are -- I have Reid's estimate of how much he could have made for
> every $5 download of his Doom3 [cc] mod that I think will help that I'll
> write about over the weekend. But the Terra Nova crowd is ONLY interested in
> MMOGs (I know...I'm frustrated to no end) and I'm running out of ideas.
>
>
> The website again is http://terranova.blogs.com
>
>
> I have LOTS of ideas for posts but I don't think that they will be received
> well by the Terra Nova crowd -- if anyone can help me think through how to
> post about a particular topic, even if it's only very narrowly related, I'd
> appreciate it! For instance I want to post about one-switch, Robert's
> efforts, Eelke's paper, Dimitris' papers, Reid's work and more but I'm
> getting frustrated and I need your ideas and help.
>
>
> I don't want to simply not finish out the month as I think that there are
> silent members who might be getting ideas and running with them to create
> accessible mods, etc (and I'm also a bit surprised that my fellow social
> scientists aren't taking the bait on debating how we view accessibility in
> our FIRST lives while our SECOND lives lag FAR behind...I think it would be
> interesting fodder for discussion but maybe that's because it's related to
> my dissertation topic!). But I'm mostly getting response from the companies
> and not academics and it's basically the same "no go" that we hear with
> other games...only it seems a bit worse, at least to me.
>
>
> Eelke? Dimitris? I'd be especially interested in your ideas, as you've both
> written on design issues for games even if they aren't MMOGs (although,
> Eelke, I know you just had something about Dungeon Siege in your recent
> Gamasutra paper so I'll point to that). But anyone else...pipe up now so I
> can write about it (I'll cite you, of course!) before my blog month is up.
>
>
> Thanks!
> Michelle
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