Re: My view on audio games and a DFE announcement
I think personally one of the most difficult things about being a developer for audio games (even though I only made one) is that it takes a very long time to create these games and overall it isn't necessarily profitable to build something from scratch. Now, I enjoy doing what I do but I know I couldn't make a career off of this because I simply cannot sustain myself on this work alone - this is why I have my day job. And while I love working in building accessible games, I feel like my talents would be better used in more general software where I could actually be able to sustain myself.
What developing an audio game has done for me though was really help understand not only how to develop for a specific demographic with unique needs, but also developing a project in general. It's a huge learning experience that has proven to be invaluable in getting my career started as a programmer, but also making me realize that I wanted to work with developing accessibl e software for a career choice. So even though my profits have been minimal in comparison to a big studio or something, I would say that it's worth it.
Now I don't think that accessible gaming is something that is entirely out of the water. I think the biggest challenge with sighted developers is that they don't understand how a blind person may be able to play this or that or the other - I was told this repeatedly with Braillemon even though quite honestly designing the game for accessibility wasn't too difficult. They don't understand how it would work themselves so they neglect accessibility, forcing people to build mods and stuff. I wonder if gaming will improve as programmers learn about how accessibility actually works? I find it frequently neglected and I often have to educate my colleagues on basic concepts that aren't really taught. I think that at least in certain kinds of games, as accessibility is taught and accepted, the situation wil l improve. Certain genres simply don't have the resources to implement an accessible version in a normal timeline but others, such as most basic role playing and puzzle games, could accommodate accessibility fairly easy if it is implemented early in its design. The problem is getting there lol
I haven't dabbled with Unity but what is the issues in terms of accessibility? I wanted to make a title that was a survival game where you're blind and have to gather supplies to survive until you're found in Unity but I have no experience, and I did want to make the title accessible as well as available for normally sighted players.
I'm a little drunk so pardon me if this makes no sense, lol.
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