[games_access] questions about "blind hero"

[d. michelle hinn]

>Eelke wrote:
>  > You mean Activision or Harmonix?
>
>Sandra wrote:
>
>Yes. What did they say about these projects ?
>(Konami also has a guitar game: guitar freak)

Activision has been completely silent when I've emailed them about a 
one handed controller that Ben Heck created and also for other 
accessibility issues. It's now especially concerning now that they 
have a Rock Band style game with a more complex drum system -- the 
foot pedal in Rock Band resulted in Harmonix getting a fair bit of 
complaints. Activision is probably receiving similar volumes of 
complaints from paraplegic gamers but so far they have not responded 
to us.

Harmonix, on the other hand, has been fairly receptive to our 
comments and solution ideas and are a supporter of the SIG.

However, neither company hosts accessibility ideas or solutions at 
this point on their websites. Both companies have been in constant 
"crunch time" for the past few years as they race to put out more and 
more editions since this (rock band games) is one of the hottest 
things in gaming right now. This is very typical of the game 
industry, however...we "preach to the choir" at HCI conferences who 
understand the importance of game accessibility but when it comes to 
industry conferences we get very little reaction as Eelke pointed out 
earlier.

We continue to keep trying to engage both companies in the discussion 
of accessibility. We've had more luck with Harmonix who sent out Rock 
Band kits to a few of us for experimentation -- they are also the 
group that created Guitar Hero that Activision is now full owners of. 
Harmonix is now a part of Viacom/MTV.

It's not a good sign that the biggest conference in the industry has 
shut us down to one session -- and one speaker for a "very" basic 
session that we've presented over and over again. But we keep 
plugging away.

Michelle