[games_access] Game Accessibility Day

Fri Dec 4 14:03:08 EST 2009

Hi,

Haven't looked at the Gamma4 website, so maybe this is already on there, but I'd strongly suggest publishing a list of one-button games examples - preferably on the Gamma4 website next to the contest description, or otherwise very near. This is based on my experience with the Experimental Audio Games that were developed each year by students at my work. The thing I learned was that pointing people to AudioGames.net and saying "here're some examples of what's already been done, have a look (or listen) and take it to the next level" is not enough if you are after innovative audio/one button games. The unfortunate result in my case was that most teams came up with stuff that was already out there, and often better already. In my experience showing designers a good overview of what already has been done, is more likely to result in more innovative game design, instead of leaving repetoire research up to the designers.

Greets,

Richard

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: D. Michelle Hinn 
  To: IGDA Games Accessibility SIG Mailing List 
  Sent: Friday, December 04, 2009 7:49 PM
  Subject: Re: [games_access] Game Accessibility Day

  It's a great idea and I think being able to plan this with a year in advance is probably our best best for GAD 2010 :)

  I'll be at GDC and we can put this into SIG fliers, which we can have at IGDA events and such for free. Otherwise there's the GDC fee for having a flier and those are out of price range, as we know!

  Let's aim to have the contest at GDC 2011 and that way we have plenty of time to talk to them, IGF, etc about this.

  As for this year's GDC (San Francisco -- the Mothership GDC!) in March it was just announces that this year's Gamma contest at GDC is for One Button Games (http://www.kokoromi.org/gamma4/)! Barrie and I are working with them to make sure that all of the collective "lessons learned" by Barrie and others at One Switch is given to the contestants and we are hoping that they include a side award for "most accessible" one button game. But they have already made sure to make clear that these are PURE one button games by excluding use of D pads, etc in the entire contest thanks to Barrie! :)

  Good fortune that they chose that as their theme. An old friend of mine is one of the "four" behind the mask! So she has already heard me over the years of working with her in the IGDA and gets our message! :)

  In case a post got lost about it, the Gamma 4 contest information is at:

  http://www.kokoromi.org/gamma4/

  Deadline to enter is January 31st 2010 at 11:59pm US Pacific Time. So all you one-switch game creators...GO FOR IT!!! :) And everyone spread the word on your websites! 

  And, yes, the SIG website is getting worked on -- anyone that would like to help in this effort, please email me offlist at hinn at uiuc.edu -- thanks!

  Michelle

  On Dec 4, 2009, at 2:02 AM, Thomas Westin wrote:

    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

------------------------------------------------------------------------

        _______________________________________________
        games_access mailing list
        games_access at igda.org
        http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/games_access

      _______________________________________________
      games_access mailing list
      games_access at igda.org
      http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/games_access

    _______________________________________________
    games_access mailing list
    games_access at igda.org
    http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/games_access

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  _______________________________________________
  games_access mailing list
  games_access at igda.org
  http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/games_access
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://pairlist7.pair.net/pipermail/games_access/attachments/20091204/82295f65/attachment.htm>