Hi John, This is some intresting research,and I'd like to put in my own thoughts here.
> Our company's research shows that: > > 1. It takes about 40 professionals 18 - 24 months and 6 - 10 million > dollars to produce a class A computer game. > Well, the only thing the audio game companies have produced to date that would be anything near class A would be Shades of Doom, Tank commander, Sarah and the Castle of Witchcraft and Wizardry and Rail Racer which are truly amung the best games out there for the blind. They also had long development cycles to be braught to market. One of the things keeping those games from true class A quality is having some cut scenes, character voices, and graphics which would jack the price up for such games. However, having played the class A games out there for the sighted market I can see the quality difference, and we as blind developers have a ways to go. > 2. Class A games (think Doom, etc.) set user demands for quality. > Even in the blind market that is true. I often hear people like Josh going on and on about rip the sounds from this or that game, and make a blind clone of game x. Problem is not only is that illegal some of those games are not practical to program by one developer. Some of our younger members of this list go out and play around with Mortal Combat, Tomb Raider, etc with their friends, return to the blind gaming world, and wonder why there are no truly class A games like that here in our comunity. So it is those types who is driving professional developers like myself to jack up the quality of our games to a higher level of quality. > 3. If you distribute a game through stores, less than 10% of the price goes > to the developer. > Welcome to the evils of capitalism. (Grin) In the case of blind companies where blind companies are smaller that percentage would be higher, but stores would never sell our games anyway because they are to a limited and specialised market. The closest we have to a store is Indipendant Living Aids, Anne Morris, Maxi Aids,etc which sell blind related products to disabled users all over the USA and probably the world. > 4. If you distribute a game through the Web, only 1% of people who play a > free demo actually buy a game. > I'm not surprised. Demos are a nice way to show off a product, but I'm discovering if you give a user just one level or two levels to play they will play them over and over until they either get tired of the game, or they actually break down and buy it. However, in the case of blind companies the web is the cheapist way to market our products, and do to the lack of games to choose from interested parties do eventually buy the games or will out right crack them. > 5. The vast majority of games lose money. Oh, yeah. That happens here in the blind market as well. If we spend allot of money to boost the quality of a game some buyers will buy the game, maybe the dev will break even, and sometimes we get more, and sometimes less. Allot of our losses results from software piracy which is sadly a dark reality amung the blind comunity. Allot more blind people have no quoms about thinking, "I don't have the cash for this or that so I will just crack it or find a crack for it.," than we really want to admit. When David Greenwood increased security in Shades of Doom 1.2 he saw users that were sending in product keys claming them to be the users own only to discover that they were using someone elses 1.0 key. I don't clearly remember the figures,but I believe GMA gained 40 new sales, because the crackers who were cracking 1.0 couldn't easily do it for 1.2. As I said I don' clearly remember what David said about this, but the fact was he believed there was several blind users cracking Shades of Doom, and as it turned out there were allot of crackers out there. Upgrading the security did at least allow him to regain some of those lost sales. > On the other hand, if you are coding for people who are blind, > > 1. There are 250 - 300 blind accessible games available on the Web. Sadly, most of those games being counted are free experimental games which are valuable in that they help instruct developers about accessibility in games, but they aren't very high quality. Some of the blind accessible games are muds and web based RPG forums which are for everyone not just blind. When we come down to it the commercial games that are of reasonable high quality like Sarah, Packman Talks, Tank Commander, Shades of Doom, are few and far between. > 2. Almost all of those are totally free. > Yes, allot of them are free. However, as mentioned previously of them fall in the free experimental or my first game quality which usually leaves us with the taiste of a really cheap game, and very little feel of playing something near class A. For example, BSC has a freegame called Sonic Match. It is ok to play, but it isn't exactly anyones favorite game. Compare it to BSC commercial titles like Troopenum, Pipe Blast Chamber, and Hunter and there is no comparison. The commercial games are great and the free games are just cheap little goof around games with no real fun in them for me. > 3. Comments on the forums indicate that even the free games have trouble > getting people to play them. > Sometimes that is the case when the free game is nothing more than a guess the numbers game, another space invader clone, or something so simple that it has little replay value. The "my first game" type of game is a large step forward for a developer, but not a great thing to publish publically for the simple fact the comunity is driving for something more up skale. > 4. And, 70 - 80 percent of people who are blind in the US are either > unemployed or underemployed, so there's not a lot of cash there. > > I believe it is currently 82% by my last look into it, but the fact still remains we are talking about folks on low income. Even those blind few that don't show up on the 82% unemployment aren't exactly rolling in cash either. I know a middle aged woman who is blind and is employed but works at McDonald's. Another friend I went to college with works as a marketing sales rep making around $9.00 an hour. One friend I attended college with is in network admin, but he is employed and unemployed in cycles and is called in as needed by companies. Point is there are blind usersout there that show up as employed, but they are not getting paid all that well even when they are working. It is basically like the working poor. > Oh, and as Jim, Thomas, et al can attest, coding is hard work. > > If our company wasn't > > A. selling games to the general market, where we can get some revenue, and > B. run by crazies who like building games and are satisfied with making a > small profit and not trying to get rich > > we'd never even attempt to create accessible games. > > It's guys like Ryan who ultimately overcome all of the above and make this > a better world, or at least a more entertaining one. > > So keep dreaming big, Ryan! > It sets you above the cube slaves. > --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. 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