[games_access] E For All, and other stuff

[d. michelle hinn]

I can speak to the GDC passes info -- Mainly anyone can go...but the 
tickets are $$$ (MUCH more so than for E for ALL) as it's aimed at 
deep pocketed developers. That being said the passes that I get are 
usually for others who are planning to present something (we're 
coming up on the SIG deadline for getting our presentations 
together). So email me off list (hinn at uiuc.edu) and we can talk about 
ways that you could participate in a session that, if accepted, could 
get you a pass. Perhaps a SIG-sponsored session on [cc] by you and 
Reid would be particularly powerful?

As for interpreters...the GDC has interpreters already in place to 
interpret sessions INTO Japanese (perhaps not sign language in 
Japanese). The GDC people (CMP) have also always been VERY 
accommodating when I've asked for accessibility-related things 
(ramps, lifts, extra tickets for nurses, etc) so if you were to go, 
don't worry...I'd hound them to death (maybe I should change my title 
here to "chief pesterer?). :) Basically I can see them wanting some 
advance notice as to what sessions you'd be attending so that they 
can best plan for that.

Michelle

>Whoa, I've been reading up on a lot of posts. So I have a few comments.
>This is from Tim "- adding [CC] becomes more difficult because there's not
>  just a pre-scripted set of lines that the audio department
>  records, but you have live voice-chat that doesn't [CC]
>  easily
>
>Theoretically, one could use voice recognition software to
>do dynamic [CC] of voice-chat, but voice recognition
>software still has a long way to go, and sucks up a lot of
>processor time/power from games that may want it."
>
>It's interesting that you said about voice chat and stuff. I don't 
>know about other deafies, but for me, I could care less about having 
>a chat mode. It's very distracting to try to play a game and read 
>what other people are saying. I have never played a MMORPG before, 
>so it may be a little bit different in that method.  Live and voice 
>chats are the reason why I don't play online games such as Halo or 
>whatever.  Besides, how would the program recongize MY voice?? I do 
>speak english fluentlly, and people sometime don't even realize that 
>I'm deaf. However, I have tried using my mom's voice recongization 
>program, and it does squat. Not all deafies have great voices, and 
>some don't speak at all....regardless, voice recognition is not the 
>way to go to satisfy the needs of deaf people.  I don't have 
>XBox360, but I've seen the new controller with the "sidekick" ripoff 
>keyboard on the controller...does anyone have one and does it really 
>work? There's a lot of deaf people that i know that can thumb type 
>unbelievably at a high speed, so they do have a lot of dexiterity 
>(woot!), to do both type chat and play games.
>     However, I do notice that there has been increasing games that 
>are subtitled though. Closed Captioning is different from 
>Subtitling....huge difference. :-) Sometimes I do get a little 
>disappointed with certain games, but over the years of playing games 
>I've come to term to accept them. One of the nicest thing anyone can 
>do is to type out the words for the cutscenes of certain games 
>(Resident Evil 4 comes in mind...one guy typed the entire script 
>because his girlfriend is deaf).  We do have a long way to go, but 
>we're getting there! 
>     Reid - is there any way we can cry "ADA Law!" to these Game 
>Developers??? :-)
>
>
>Secondly - I'm a bit of a noob...so forgive me.  How do one get 
>invited to go to GDC? I would LOVE to go in 2008, but how do I get 
>invited?  I'm thinking about going to E for All, but it may cost me 
>quite a lot of money as I'm coming from New Jersey...hence why I may 
>not be able to attend to E for All AND GDC.  Maybe I should move to 
>California!
>
>      Also, the biggest concern I have is the ability to get 
>interpreters. That's all that really matters to me. Many expos like 
>this won't be willing to pay for interpreters just for one person or 
>two, and they would need to hire at least 4 interpreters to 
>rotate...otherwise THEY will have disabled hands, and that, my 
>friends, costs a lot of money. 
>
>
>Sorry for the long email....:-)
>
>DJ
>
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