[games_access] GDC 2008 Debrief

[d. michelle hinn]

Hi All,

I don't have a lot of energy at the moment but I wanted to let 
everyone know how well things went at this year's GDC! We/I 
definitely missed having the whole gang around this year (or as much 
of the gang as we have had before) but it's definitely not the only 
conference and, in fact, some of the new smaller GDCs are definitely 
worth looking into -- they have them all of the world right now! So 
we might start sponsoring some SIG members to go to conferences that 
are just a train ride away (ie, the european conferences). More on 
that later when I figure out when the next batch of deadlines are!

So our big session was Accessibility Arcade: Or How to Do the Jedi 
Mind Trick, which was repeated twice unlike the 3 times from last 
year. So some overall comments:

A/V Stuff: Of course the annual "where are the TVs?" "will they be 
arriving -- during or after our session" kinds of things came up but 
thanks to the conference associates that got worked out relatively 
quickly and I didn't have to run all over the expo looking for the 
GES (A/V) contractors. The funny thing was this year they set them up 
in the room next door so it wasn't a big deal once they knew where to 
move them to -- and it wasn't very far to move them! But honestly? 
That was the worst thing that happened and it was resolved in time 
for our session -- sure I did have a few moments of panic remembering 
last year but with everything getting solved and everyone just going 
ahead and setting up their stations and not waiting for the TVs 
before starting helped a lot. So that's not much of a "worst part," 
eh? :D Yay!

Attendees: This blew me away...and I'm know it blew away Eelke and 
Reid too who have seen way too many empty rooms we've presented to. 
It's always hard to gauge exact numbers with a session like "arcade" 
that allows people to come in late, wander in and out, etc. But 
basically...we went from having an average of 2 attendees...to about 
60-70 (The CAs gave me a better count since they were watching the 
traffic moving in and out) for the 4pm Wednesday session and about 30 
for the 9am Thursday session (not bad for early morning!!). And they 
weren't just our usual fans (yes, the cool people from "games for 
grandma and grandpa" were there -- cool as ever and always welcome!). 
We had people from Sony, Microsoft (and not one of my friends -- a 
producer of a new racing game who could use Barrie's help actually!), 
EA, and much more. Yes...the big leagues! And yes, I cried after the 
first session -- I couldn't believe that the months put into this, 
negotiating with Natural Point and Emotive and all the individually 
sent press releases helped get people in the room. It was just a half 
a year worth of stuff and to see people there who were interested and 
involved...wow...you really can't ask for much more!

Presenters:

Emotiv and Natural Point kept their deal and brought their stuff 
(although I was a wee bit scared when they said they'd show up five 
minutes ahead of the session -- and after all I went through getting 
them single session passes -- yes, I invoked my crying spell on 
them...it wasn't hard given that I was in a pain cycle and felt like 
collapsing. But I had my game face on! :) And having them come to the 
session? Golden. So that gamble I made to ask them to join us paid 
off -- it got people in the room to see and do the "jedi mind trick" 
and then they stayed to check out the SIG stuff. So next year? We do 
an all out sponsored session. Thanks to our numbers -- and the 
percentage increase over last year -- we're going to look like "wow, 
ok! they figured out how to make this accessibility thing work!" So I 
imagine that there will be no argument about our getting another 
session like this for next year and maybe even make it a little 
slicker.

Mark and Stephanie from AbleGamers rocked -- they helped pass out 
tons of our session fliers (they were combing the expo and helped me 
out a ton because I could hardly move and this undoubtedly helped 
with getting even more people in the room) and brought their 
enthusiasm and passion for helping the disabled gamer community! 
Without them I don't think I would have survived the show this year 
-- all three of us have our own disabilities and I think we did a 
pretty good job helping each other stay alive! :)

Reid and Eelke -- Amazing as usual. Reid found a SUPER place to print 
and burn the DVDs and they looked great and so professional! And 
Eelke's new Blind Hero is something to behold. That haptic glove -- 
awesome! Reid's poster looked awesome -- I'll let him talk about his 
poster session in another email! And thanks again, Eelke for bringing 
all your equipment!

Eitan -- again, always steals the spotlight with his wiimote music 
game -- I'm so glad you could join us!

Barrie, Dimitris -- you were with us in spirit as we showed "Game 
Over" and all of the cool controllers -- and we passed out your cards 
and the leftover FuturePlay fliers! :)

All -- Wow, all I can say is that this SIG really rocks -- we finally 
did it! We had a great show at GDC and with funding that we are 
getting sorted out...I'm on cloud 9. What a great achievement for all 
of us! This IS going to be our year! We have tons of developers 
asking us where they should start with accessibility (ie, which 
groups are asking for what in which game? Sure, the numbers and 
financial stuff will always be there but what a great feeling that 
now we are in a position to start talking directly to CEOs to help 
them make their first steps toward adding in even just ONE 
accessibility feature in future games.

So, hey, let's pat ourselves on the backs for a show well done -- 
sure we could have all felt a little better but that's how it goes 
sometimes. It was nice to know that we all had each other's backs and 
the passion for game accessibility was showing through and through!

Well done, everyone -- and everyone includes everyone who added to 
the DVD, helped with fliers, presenters, and just all of you who gave 
us good thoughts all week! :)

Ok...need to rest a little now. But I had to give the post mort to 
the SIG. I'm working on a posting about how much better this GDC was 
for game accessibility to be published on ablegamers too. It was a 
long year between this year's GDC and last year's but we've learned a 
lot and we keep fighting the good fight!

Michelle
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