[nabs-l] drastic change for video games

Fri May 28 19:01:21 UTC 2010

I've found my own preferred online strategy game which I've enjoyed playing
alongside sighted people.  I e-mailed the developer to give him my
complements, and even though he did not take accessibility into account when
writing the program, he is now taking accessibility into account when he
releases the next version.  In general though I have found that writing to
companies and complementing their efforts really is a big boost for their
morale and helps them continue to make their products screen
reader-friendly.  It's one method I hope to put a tiny dent in this
over-priced adaptive technology market.

Best,

Joe

"Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves,
some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all."--Sam Ewing 

-----Original Message-----
From: nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org 
[mailto:nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Valerie Gibson
Sent: Friday, May 28, 2010 10:26 AM
To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] drastic change for video games

YAY, fellow gamer! :D

I totally aggre with you.  But just as annoying as it is for me 
to not be able to go out anb buy the same games my friends are 
playing, it's equally, if not more, frustrating to play a 
multi-user dungeon with NOTHING but blind people on there.  I 
only say that because:
1.  My sighted friends don't seem to understand teh concept of 
muds, which is odd considering all their visual online games 
came from the MUD.
2.  The blind community is smal in comparison to the rest of 
the world, and the game world is smaller in comparison to the 
RL world. These two things combined is an ideal breeding ground 
for dramma caused by people who can't separate RL from RP 
(traditional or "hack and slash").

And now that i've vented, i just hav eto say that i think 
bridging the gap would be ideal, so that sighted people could 
fight alongside the blind players in a MUD, or, so that we may 
venture into the world of warcraft, secondlife, etc without 
thinking, "oh, this is a game for blind people".

One final thought, I am sort of impressed at some of  these 
browser based games out there, that are completely acccesible 
to the blind, and yo have mostly sighted players, compared to 
the mud, which is more complex in my oppinon.
On May 28, 2010, at 8:49 AM, Josh wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> As I said before, first we gotta change the law. second, 
decide on a standard for audio game programming. third, make a 
good solid game company, made of multiple people, assigned 
their own task or tasks to make game creation more effective. 
perhaps collaborate through skype and dropbox. next change the 
law so games in a specialised format for people with 
disabilities may include sounds story lines plots music and 
characters from video games as longg as the game is in a 
specialised format for people who are blind visually impaired 
or similar disability that prevents them from playing that 
brand new accessible video game console.
> now, when the company has enough money, the company should 
save some. now use that money to develop your own game console, 
or take a standard console, re-flash and modify it for 
accessibility by disabled people. now go to game conventions 
and show off your new game console. eventually my brother and 
sister's generation, and even my generation will get old, lose 
eye-sight, and won't be able to play their favorite video 
games. so lets make a kind of national library or international 
library service nls for video games in specialised format. 
Sorry guys I'm not a programmer, just putting out ideas. now to 
make a great game, lets compare it to a book. a sighted person 
can go out and read a harry potter book, get it in print, I can 
sit down beside that person with my audio book or braille book 
from nls and read it, talk about and enjoy it along with my 
sighted friend. so lets incorporate that into games. first, 
lets put games on instead lets put them on blueray disks, lots 
of space, or maybe 32gig flash drives, read only flash memory. 
lots of room there to store data. when a blind person wants to 
play a game with his or her sighted friend, the person plugs 
headphones in, the game turns on accessibility mode when the 
console detects headphones plugged in. Point is we can't have 
one guy here and another there trying to do it on their own. a 
company, an organised company has to be started with both short 
and longterm goals. laws gotta be changed so we can make and 
sell good high quality games, we gotta take our games to the 
conventions and really mount a presence there. weneed the nfb 
and ACB both involved in this. who cares if you like them or 
hate them point is they're a big big organizations and they can help!
> but will they?
> now if blind people can help design accessible games, game 
consoles, and the like, working for soni or EA-games that'd be 
great! for too long here is how we made games. on guy starts a 
game company, uses visual basic, another starts his own company 
uses a different language and another and another. most of 
these die very fast because its usually too much work for one 
guy to make a really good game or he doesn't have the skills. 
we gotta organise, and either push game companiess to include 
accessibility, or organise and make one or two big game 
companies, have a standard, assign tasks, make our own or 
modify existing game consoles for accessibility. not only will 
it be enjoyable for the player but it'll make new jobs 
available, and let the sighted community know by our presence 
at gaming conventions that we want to be included in the video 
game fun as well.
> 
> Josh
> 
> -- 
> Josh Kennedy jkenn337 at gmail.com
> 
> -- 
> Josh Kennedy jkenn337 at gmail.com
> 
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