[games_access] You Can Make a Difference

[thomas at pininteractive.com]

good idea

I have been thinking about establishing a Game Accessibility Day;  
during that day game companies should spend 8 hours to implement one  
access feature in (one of) their current game(s). That is 1/365 of  
their budget which for a million dollar game  is approx 3000 dollars.

Kind regards,
Thomas

(Sent from my mobile)

On 3 dec 2009, at 11.08, "John Bannick" <jbannick at 7128.com> wrote:

> Folks,
>
> The SIG does more to make computer games accessible than anywhere  
> else I've found on the Web.
>
> Here's something additional we all can do this month.
>
> 1. Buy accessible games as gifts (Not necessarily ours, but anyones 
> ’)
> 2. Suggest to friends and family that accessible games make good gifts
> 3. And, most importantly, suggest to everyone who’ll stand still for 
>  a minute that they tell game companies when they’ve bought their ga 
> me because it was accessible.
>
> Our own 7-128 Software recently released Visit Salem, a travelogue  
> game. It includes over 6 hours of audio descriptions, history,  
> architecture, music and interviews. It’s also totally inaccessible t 
> o players who are blind, deaf, or motion-impaired.
>
> Why? Because it would take an additional 6 months to make it  
> accessible. Even with a code base that includes a lot of  
> accessibility features and useful guidance from John Oliveira, a  
> colleague and head of our Massachusetts Commission for the Blind,  
> and from you and other folks I know in the accessibility community.
>
> I’d love to make it accessible to players who are blind, or deaf, or 
>  motion-impaired. But the consensus among our management team is tha 
> t there are too few potential sales to justify the effort and expens 
> e, at least at this time.
>
> Game margins are razor slim. Electronic Arts lost tens of millions  
> of dollars this year, also last year. The difference between profit  
> and loss at our small mainstream company is tiny.
>
> Posts by other colleagues suggest that a few more sales could help  
> pay their light bills, too.
>
> Posts by Barrie, Dark, Mark Barlet, Brian Papineau, and my own  
> experience here suggest that some mainstream game companies do  
> respond positively when you tell them “I buy your stuff because you  
> make it work for me. I buy other people’s stuff when you  
> don’t” (Recent news notwithstanding)
>
> So, over the next few weeks you personally can make a difference by  
> bugging people to buy accessible games and for them to tell  
> developers when they do.
>
> John Bannick
> Chief Technical Officer
> 7-128 Software
>
>
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