Hi If you *EVER* wanted to be heard by the professional game industry, *THIS IS YOUR CHANCE*.
As some of you may have read on the AudioGames.net forum[1], Sander and I (AudioGames.net) are speaking at this year's Game Developer's Conference in San José. This is the *BIGGEST* game developers conference in the world. Not only will we be attending this conference (where we collaborate with the Game Accessibility Special Interest Group - http://www.igda.org/accessibility), but we are also participating in the Game Accessibility project in which we are building a knowledge reservoir about accessible gaming for gamers with a handicap and developers, students, researchers, publishers, etc. The website is to feature articles and other material on accessible gaming, as well as a community place for everyone interested in the subject of making computer games more accessible for gamers with a handicap. If you want game developers to take you *SERIOUS*, now is the time to make yourself heard! The idea is to collect as many stories of visually impaired gamers as possible. From the stories I heard and read on this list, our forum and through emails, there are *many* blind gamers that have a opinions, wishes, ideas, etc. they would like to communicate to the professional game industry. Some of you have sent emails to companies in the past, often without ever receiving a reply. Unfortunately there are many many many many many people in the industry that have never even thought of blind people playing games. And even if they do, most of them then think: "blind people can't play games, because they are blind" and fail to start that imagination process. That's why I feel it's neccesary to provide easy reading material that describes personal blind gaming experiences. The first step is always trying to get the person (developer, researcher, student, publisher, whoever) to imagine what's it like to game while not being able to see (well). And convincing them that many blind people have a good understanding of what gaming is too. Several of the gamers on this list used to have sight earlier in life and played regular video games. So many blind gamers originally know what video gaming is about. Now it is time to let the industry know what blind gaming is about. We would like to ask everyone to send us your personal gaming experiences and get yourself heard by the professional gaming industry. Please write down a bit about yourself (for instance if you are partially blind, your age, nationality if you want to, etc.), about any video games you used to play or any consoles you have/had, games you like to play now (audio games, online games, RPG's, etc.), your point of view on gaming, the game industry, etc. etc. etc. Please write down what (type of) games you would like to play, what you think of the professional game industry, etc. The goal is to give developers and researchers insight of your experiences and wishes and *to help them imagine*. This is the goal: - collect all your stories in one page on the Game Accessibility project website (providing a permanent spot); - put all your stories on the GA-SIG cd that will be handed out at this year's GDC. Please submit your story (anonymously) through our Contact Form: http://www.audiogames.net/contact.php . You can also post your story on the AudioGames.net forum: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?id=527 (note that you need a free login to use the forum) All stories will be considered anonymously unless requested otherwise. Please forward this message to anyone you might is interested. Get heard! Greets, Richard http://www.audiogames.net to leave send a blank Email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can contact the list owners/moderators by Emailing [EMAIL PROTECTED] to go nomail send a blank message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] change "nomail" to "normal" to resume messages. Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/blindgamers/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
