[games_access] Whinge and whine

Mon Mar 26 11:56:28 EDT 2012

Interesting tactic, trying to call out AbleGamers on the public list. You
forgot some of the information, so I'll fill in the blanks for you.

This video was not produced by us, it was produced by the American
Association of people with disabilities, which is basically the largest
umbrella organization for the general disabled community in America. The
reason they produced this video is because Mark Barlet and the AbleGamers
foundation won the Hearne award for excellence in leadership, because we're
starting to get game accessibility noticed by the mainstream media and
public. We shot over two days with approximately 14 hours of video, and it
was only a 4 min. piece of which we didn't get more than 2 min. of what we
shot.

In 2004 finding information to the extent that AG covers mainstream
videogames, has a level of connection with developers, and roots into the
industry was extremely difficult. I'm talking information that is not
fragmented by specific disability, specific need, or even worse talking to
caretakers and not the disabled individual. Heck, Barrie, in 2008 when I was
looking for information on gaming with a motor impairment disability
AbleGamers is what Google gave me a full page result on, I didn't even hear
about OneSwitch until I joined the organization.

Do you know how many quad controllers, quad joys and Quises the ablegamers
foundation has sold to people in need? Do you know how many people we have
referred to DeafGamers and AudioGames? Tons. Why? Because if AG can't help
them, we send them where they can get help. 

So, here's my suggestion. Instead of trying to mince words and whine over
how an award that Mark and AbleGamers won didn't mention anything other than
the award winner, maybe you should celebrate the fact that game
accessibility is beginning to push hard. 

And my final suggestion, to you, Barrie, is to stop trying to rain on
accomplishments that are made by AbleGamers. It's gotten to the point where
I don't post what we are up to or do on this list because if I do there is a
snide comment or no comment at all about the accomplishment. Meanwhile, when
SpecialEffect does something good for the movement, do you see me on here
complaining about how you didn't mention AbleGamers? How AbleGamers was
first or does more or any other put down? No. You don't see that. Because
there's no point in putting down each other.

You want to help the movement? Stop quibbling over who's getting the press
and who's saying what and focus on helping the disabled individuals who need
the help. Because you know what. They don't give two flying rats WHO started
it all as long as they get help! 

Steve Spohn

Editor-In-Chief

The AbleGamers Foundation

www.ablegamers.com - community site

www.ablegamers.org - foundation website

 <http://www.gameaccessibility.org/> www.gameaccessibility.org - learn the
basics of game accessibility

Skype ID Steve_Spohn

From: games_access-bounces at igda.org [mailto:games_access-bounces at igda.org]
On Behalf Of John R. Porter
Sent: Monday, March 26, 2012 11:31 AM
To: IGDA Games Accessibility SIG Mailing List
Subject: Re: [games_access] Whinge and whine

To be fair, I think we need to draw a distinction between the existence of
resources for accessible gaming and infrastructures to support the community
of disabled gamers.if I don't think anyone would argue that the former
didn't exist prior to 2004, but these sites (such as the specific sites you
reference, Barrie) very much focused on providing solutions to gamers more
than opening a dialogue, not to mention the fact that they tend to be rather
sharply fragmented along the lines of certain impairments or certain types
of adaptations.

So while AbleGamers obviously didn't start the entire movement, I think it
is probably fair to say that they were the first to do what they do: serve
as a hub for gamers, developers, and others to come together in a single,
coherent community setting to engage in discussions related to issues of
game accessibility. When I watched the video, this was the message I took
away from it. Perhaps the specific framing of the comment wasn't the best
and may have underplayed the prevalence of these smaller, specialized sites,
but then again I think we all know how easily this sort of thing can be lost
in the editing process (especially when you aren't actually in charge of the
video).

-John

On Mon, Mar 26, 2012 at 7:59 AM, Richard (AudioGames.net)
<richard at audiogames.net> wrote:

Yes... well... ditto that... maybe Mark would like to elaborate on that (if
you're still here?)?

I can imagine that this is just "one of those phrases" to spice up the
documentary. Sander and I used a sort of similar quote in our Gamasutra
article on game audio frameworks* : "surprisingly little has been written in
the field of ludology about the structure and composition of game audio. " -
which unfortunately hurt some fellow game audio researchers in maybe a
similar fashion. Even though I still believe it is factually true, I would
now have used a lot more nuance.

At the end of the day, the IGDA-SIG was the first real organized attempt at
tackling game accessibility issues. Proof:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_accessibility

(BIG WINK)

Greets,

Richard!

*http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3509/ieza_a_framework_for_game_audio.
php

On 26-3-2012 16:38, Barrie Ellis wrote: 

Forgive me for a public whinge - but seeing this latest AbleGamers video did
get my goat a little: http://youtu.be/BM8iNa87-Po at 1:17 minutes in.
Really?

I remember prior to AbleGamers c.2004, and it wasn't too hard to find sites
dedicated to accessible gaming (e.g. QuadControl, AudioGames.net, PCSgamer,
PDG accessible controllers, DeafGamers, OneSwitch and more besides). It's
possible Mark really couldn't find them, it just comes across in the video
like AbleGamers started the GameAccessibility movement.

Whinge over.

Barrie

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