Re: Accessibility info on storefronts
@ianhamilton_
I am sorry to say that I agree with Assault on this one. I think such tags, while useful as an outcome, are far too subjective to be of any help. For instance, I am aware of people who would be at a loss when I say I play Killer Instinct and while I have issues with certain elements of the mechanics (due to not really having enough practice with people willing to teach me) I would say the game is at least playable if not accessible.
The two terms are interchangable in some instances, depending on what the player as an individual defines. So while I think, in principal, developers should be allowed to tag their games with accessibility-related info, until the developers start bringing in totally blind individuals from all over the world to verify the tags before release during live testing sessions (as is common with MKX and previous fighting games), I don't think it's worth the effort. As you would probably agree thi s endeavour would be costly and a lot of developers wouldn't agree to it, therefore that version of the idea itself would probably fall flat.
Whilst I appreciate the suggestion, I believe it will be several years before developers begin to truely accept that blind people can enjoy the vast majority of games with a relatively limited amount of tweaking and a good amount of testing. Once that understanding becomes full-scale and public, then we can start thinking about having an industry-wide accessibility tagging system. Since a large number of sighted individuals are in a state of relative awe and disbelief when blind people tell them we can play videogames (pc or otherwise) without help, this is the first barrier that needs to be conquered, subjectively speaking.
I did think that perhaps games like Skullgirls, where developers have worked with blind people to make sure the games are as good as they can be, should have to go through an evaluation process of some kind. Actually, in saying that, how about turning the system on it's head and having user submittable tags, in the same style as before. So if a person finds a game to be accessible, they can tag it as such and are required to leave a comment explaining their experience in terms of playability etc. This way a broader scope of individuals can submit their thoughts on the game to allow others to judge if a game is right for them.
This latter iteration of the idea, of course, would need a fair amount of work, but keep in mind it's just a theory and I don't doubt that there are a large number of holes contained within it.
Thanks for bringing this to the attention of this forum, it's an interesting topic.
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