Greetings Bryan. Unfortunately, I think you are right. unless some other body, such as a government, or trading standards councel gives game companies a kick up the proverbial (as the Us government has done with the publishing industry, and as the British government refuses to do), there is simply no reason why an essentially amoral company should listen to reason.
I'm probably slightly jaded on this subject, both because I'm naturally scheptical of large coorperations, and because my oinly personal contacts with Capcom and nintendo over accessibility issues have not been pleasant experiences. then again, there is th prestiege factor a company could gain, and all the publicity involved with publishing a game for the poor deprived blind people, ----- I have seen this happen in other areas myself. but in the end, what else can we do but keep on persisting in our efforts for awareness, recognition, and eventually some action, ---- even if we can't expect anything immediate. Beware the Grue! Dark. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bryan Peterson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Gamers Discussion list" <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, October 01, 2007 1:26 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Electronic Arts games > Exactly. My X fiance and i got into quite a few heated debates on the > subject. She and I were playing Final Fantasy VI Advance, and we got to > talking about how hard it would be to make the game accessible or, at the > least, more blind friendly. I tried to explain to her that, while it might > indeed be relatively easy to take an existing game like that and make it > accessible, you still have to look at how cost effective it would be. She > couldn't understand what the big deal is, but I told her that these > companies are more concerned with the almighty dollar, and in their eyes > the > blind community would probably lose them quite a lot of those. You'd have > to > conduct a survey on just exactly how many blind gamers there are in the > world (yes, you heard me, the world), and then probably what kinds of > games > they'd be interested in playing, not to mention what features would suit > them best. Companies and corporations have to have statistics. And even > then, there's no guarantee that they'll listen. Amed with all that > information they might decide it's too much effort for too small a > community. It's possible that even all the blind gamers in the world > combined wouldn't be enough of a market to satisfy them unless more people > got into it. > Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so. >> menue system I've recently seen on the Dr. who series 2 dvd's, which can >> be >> toggled. >> >> My only slight worry with this sort of thing in console games though, is >> techniclly how possible it would be and how cost effective. >> >> In a recent discussion with a friend of mine who's doing an Msc in >> computing, he happened to mentioned that the reason speech ssynthes and >> tts >> is so possible with windows is to do with how the text is written to the >> graphics driver, ----- this was in the context of a discussion about >> audio >> menues for Wii games. >> >> apparently, there are certain properties of the windows asqi text that >> can >> be exploited rather nicely in creating speech synths, which probably >> wouldn't happen with other operating systems, ----- not without some >> major >> investment in ocr technology anyway. >> >> As Bryan said, we are not a particularly large demographic, and I'm not >> quite as convinced about whether a company would see that type of >> technology >> as cost effective. >> >> Personally, I think it's far more likely that, at best, a company >> producing >> games like shen Mu, which already have large amounts of pre-recorded >> speech, >> will stick in a few recorded menue options, and maybe some audio movement >> and proximity indicaters. >> >> this would of course be a good thing, sinse it would expand the amount of >> games we have to play, but I doubt very much if it will be for more than >> one >> or two titles at first, ----- or indeed, in general. >> >> I think it'll be at least 10 or 15 years before Tts and audio navigation >> options become as useable in games or dvd's as they are at the moment for >> windows, ---- that's of course assuming that this rather worrying trend >> towards fully 3D movement based interfaces like the windows arrow doesn't >> raise too many barriers. >> >> then again though, as I've argued to several english libraries in the >> context of producing Sf or Fantasy books, sinse the majority of vi people >> are in their 60's, as time progresses, and successive generations lose >> their >> vision, things are going to have to change in terms of accessibility to >> accommodate them, ----- what happens when people who are now in their >> 40's >> and 50's, using computers (like a lot of my lecturers), start losing >> their >> site? >> >> Appologies for the wrant, I'm having a very productive morning Phd wise, >> and >> writing about freedome of choice, disability and desire gave me a knew >> perspective. >> >> Beware the Grue! (even worse than the philosopher), >> >> Dark. >> >> >> --- >> Gamers mailing list __ [email protected] >> 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. >> All messages are archived and can be searched and read at >> http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] >> If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the >> list, >> please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] >> > > > --- > Gamers mailing list __ [email protected] > 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. > All messages are archived and can be searched and read at > http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] > If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the > list, > please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Gamers mailing list __ [email protected] 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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