Hi Decota.
Firstly, remember that the dropdown box on audiogames.net is not the be all
and end all of site searching, and also that the disclaimer statement at the
top of the site clearly states access as a primary motivation. Both of these
were set by Richard and sander 10 years ago when the site began, and while
it is true I cannot change them, it is equally true that I think people do
forget the extra functions of the site simply because they just! use that
dropdown. i don't blame people for this, for a screen reader user it makes
sense, but the same is not true of everyone, and the amount of ties I get
asked something like "are there any statratogy games available" when all a
person has to do is search the archive with the right filter is
unbelieveable.
As regards mainstream games such as mass effect 2, while I have no problem
people discussing these in the forum, I do not want to make them a primary
feature of the site for two principle reasons.
firstly is the access reason which I explain in the db guidelines, namely
that if a game is only playable with considderable amounts of work, it is
not accessible since the effort involved is not equalized. After all, a
person could in theory play any sighted game by just learning the right
combination of key presses if they took a long enough time, but this does
not mean all games are accessible since such a procedure would be
ridiculous.
the second point, is that we are trying to get mainstream developers
interested in audio game developement. If however we say "oh, but blind
people can play mass effect 2" the response is likely to be "oh, well we've
already done game access s so we don't need to do anything!"
this has certainly happened before, if a company can make lip service and a
getout to something they will, and the last thing we want is the next
beatemup with textual menues being promoted as "an accessible game to the
blind" because some people have played beatemups without sound in the past
by learning menues, reading faqs etc.
Finally, as I said earlier, I do not believe myself that the separation of
audio games from text adventures is quite that simple. Would you say for
instance that the games from 7-128 are not true audio games because they use
sapi? or lone wolf? and if a game with sapi and sound effects counts, why
not something like smugglers, which has after all recieved massive updates.
As an interesting fact, I have actually on several occasions played
gamebooks and if games with a friend of mine who is a huge fan of the genre,
(he has read me printed gamebooks in the past). These plays are cooperative,
I read with supernova, we both make decisions. We are both listening to the
audio (my friend says he finds it easier than reading the screen), so is
this not an audio game?
while I do appreciate your points decota, I just think your separation of
catagories is not really workable enough, ---- and this from the perspective
of someone who has written up entries and played games with any amount of
background audio or none.
Myself, i think the way forward isn't to alter audiogames.net or our
purpose, but to go out into the indi developement community and spread news
about audio games elsewhere, so that just as indexes that list graphical
games could also list audio ones.
this already happens with games like core exiles and puppet nightmares
listed on brouser indexes, but what we need is for people like Gma to be
listed elsehwere too, so that people will see games like shades not as
"games for the blind" but as games of the same genre that happen to use
audio, whether that audio comes from sapi, screen reading software or voice
acting.
Beware the grue!
Dark.
---
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