[games_access] Game Accessibility Day

[Thomas Westin]

Thanks Barrie and Michelle,

yeah the UN day is a great combo, wasn't aware that it was yesterday

I propose we do it in the simplest way possible, just by 
- deciding to use the UN day as the Game Accessibility Day (GAD)
- put into blogs, twitter etc that it will be a GAD 2010
- we can have flyers about it at the next GDC (anyone going?)

We can even setup a contest with a prize for the best solution funded like this:
- the contestants pay say 100 USD to participate in the contest (this is how it works with the Independent Games Festiva)l Perhaps we could sync with IGF to have a GA prize? Either that or we have our own contest.
- the 100 USD from each contestant is used a prize money so the more contestants, the bigger the prize money. 

The good about the IGF approach is marketing; we can easily reach out to a large audience about the contest, and about the prize at GDC etc. The (possibly) bad thing about it may be that the IGF likely have some fees so we can't bring all the money from the contestants straight to the prize money but that could be a good enough trade off for the marketing and PR IGF provides.

/Thomas



On Dec 4, 2009, at 1:54 AM, D. Michelle Hinn wrote:

> Oops -- caught this in the list net! Reposting!
> 
> Begin forwarded message:
> 
>> From: Barrie Ellis <oneswitch at googlemail.com>
>> Date: December 3, 2009 6:32:32 PM CST
>> To: "IGDA Games Accessibility SIG Mailing List" <games_access at igda.org>
>> Subject: Re: [games_access] You Can Make a Difference
>> Reply-To: "Barrie Ellis" <barrie.ellis at oneswitch.org.uk>
>> 
>> 
>> Really good idea, Thomas. Maybe tie it up with the UN's International Day of People with Disability, which was yesterday (depending on your time zone - 3rd December each year).
>>  
>> http://blogs.watoday.com.au/digital-life/screenplay/2009/12/03/makinggamesmo.html
>>  
>> Maybe this kind of thing will make it mean something more than it does to some at present: http://www.bbc.co.uk/ouch/opinion/b1tch/db_v_internationaldaydisabled.shtml.
>>  
>> Cheers,
>>  
>> Barrie
>> www.OneSwitch.org.uk
>>  
>> p.s. - This looks interesting - http://www.vision-audio.com/ease_games.html
>>  
>>  
>>  
>> 
>> From: thomas at pininteractive.com
>> Sent: Friday, December 04, 2009 12:12 AM
>> To: IGDA Games Accessibility SIG Mailing List
>> Subject: Re: [games_access] You Can Make a Difference
>> 
>> 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 game 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 to 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 that there are too few potential sales to justify the effort and expense, 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 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> games_access mailing list
>>> games_access at igda.org
>>> http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/games_access
>> 
>> 
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