[games_access] CVAA waiver call for comment

[Ian Hamilton]

In case anyone isn't familiar, CVAA is the USA law that requires communications tech to be accessible. Game consoles are already covered, but communication elements of games themselves (team chat etc) have an ongoing waiver.

That waiver expires soon, and the industry has requested a further extension. If a further exemption is not granted and the waiver does expire, communications functionality and the means to navigate to and operate that functionality will have a legal obligation to be accessible to pretty much every audience, with modes required for things like no vision and no direct skin contact with a touchscreen.

The FCC have put out a call for public comment. I know there are strong feelings in both directions on whether legislation is a good or a bad thing for furthering accessibility in games.

The deadline for public comments is November 30th.

The full text of the waiver request is long, in a nutshell it says that an extension is justified because communication is generally not the main purpose of games, and that meaningful progress is now starting to be made on accessibility in in games in general.

Call for comments: http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2016/db1031/DA-16-1236A1.pdf
Full waiver request: https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/filing/1019285494250/document/10192854942506692
Form for submitting comments: https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/filings

Bear in mind that comments are not anonymous, they'll be made publicly available on the FCC website.


Ian
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