[games_access] Game Accessibility Day

Fri Dec 4 15:10:18 EST 2009

That is a great idea, it will kind of show that some have been done,
and encourage innovation. I do recall Barrie had a list somewhere of
oneswitch games.

Mark
AbleGamers.com

On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 2:03 PM, AudioGames.net <richard at audiogames.net> wrote:
> 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
>
>
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-- 
Mark C. Barlet
Editor-in-Chief
AbleGamers.com