I agree with Charles. What he is trying to say is that if you modify certain games to make them accessible, they are no longer the same game. If we took one of those dance dance revolution games and had a deaf player try it, they would be bored and not understand why anyone would like the game. There would be no music, no beat, and basically no reason why they should enjoy stepping on the pads at the correct intervals. Yes you could argue that the game was accessible to them, but it isn't the same game anymore. Minecraft is a game that really hinges on the art style and the free-form way you can create the environment. I've seen many topics where people suggest making it blind accessible by just having everything labeled somehow (insert magic here). Even if such a system worked, it would be just like the dancing game example. You'd be on the minecraft server, be able to walk around and do a few things, but you would not be playing minecraft. Sure if you didn't know any better you'd possibly Believe you were playing the game, but by any sighted player's standards you would be playing some extremely watered down game that happened to have several of the features of minecraft... but not minecraft. Going back to another hearing example, you can not make a beautiful song accessible to a deaf person by just writing out the notes and handing them the paper. Yes you've translated the notes into a format they can input into their brain (using their eyes), but it is so far from experiencing a song that it doesn't actually count. I know there are people in the blind community who want to believe any game can be made accessible, but that is not the case. Just like the song being turned into a page of sheet music, there are probably ways you can technically sort of translate concepts from the game into a new blind friendly format, but it will not be the original game anymore. You can play it and maybe fool yourself into believing you're playing the game now, but it would only be sweet sweet ignorance. Many games can never ever be made blind accessible, just like there are many things that can never be made deaf accessible. There are concepts and experiences that exist in the realm of sight, or the realm of sound, and trying to translate them into something else simply destroys them. - Aprone
| | Virus-free. www.avast.com |
