That sounds par for the course.
this is why I'm firmly of the belief that the major companies simply will
not considder accessibility any time soon, and the best hope for accessible
games lies with independent developers, ----- who will probably value the
sales of their games to the Vi gaming community, rather than disregard it.
I'm working very hard to stop myself going into a left wing wrant against
the stupidity of unregulated mutlinational consumer companies having no
compunction about even basic ethical issues when it comes to prophet, ----
sinse that's liable to start another major debate on the subject of free
markit capitalism in general I won't.
suffice it to say, that while the almighty prophet margin is the only
standard used to make company policy, accessibility will always take a prety
major back seat.
Beware the grue!
Dark.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Thomas Ward" <[email protected]>
To: "Gamers Discussion list" <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, November 07, 2009 10:41 PM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Visually impaired gamer sues Sony Online.
Hi Dark,
Yeah, that is pretty much my experience as well. Nice or not all we are
doing is contacting the low level peons who have no real power or
authority. Even if they sympathize with our cause they are not able to
refer us to a higher power, or are unable to do so. often it is just
company policy to handle our queries at the gate and tell us to beat it.
I'm still pretty upset over Lucasfilm's licensing policies. It took me
months to get some kind of contact information for Lucas Licensing, and
even when I did it was all in vain. I quickly discovered there licensing
is designed for mass market products like toys, games, whatever that is
expected to sell millions of copies world wide. When I explained I could
not afford their licensing and royalty fees do to the fact I was expecting
to sell perhaps 1,000 to 2,000 units they shut me down pretty quick. It
was made pretty clear that unless I had a mass market product I could
sell, that might bring in millions of dollars for the company, I could
forget it. I saw they only license to companies that have millions of
dollars to spend on licenses and royalties, and I'm nothing but pocket
change to them, and am not worth talking too. Never mind I was hoping to
release a unique product, an accessible Star Wars game, they wouldn't get
from anyone else. However, accessibility took a back seat to company
policy and out and out greed.
I often wonder, naturally, if George Lucas himself would have given me
leave, or if he would have been as anal as his licensing department. I'm
unlikely to know as there is no real easy way to contact him, and find
out. He has, like so many other business men, put guards at the gate who
handle the day to day business of the company.The same kind of problems
exist when trying to contact Sony or any other major player in the video
gaming market. You have to go through 10,000 layers of peons to get to
someone who might be able to give you an answer. Even if you do you are
likely to get the company line.
dark wrote:
That's true tom regarding getting in touch with companies.
I actually spoke to a capcom rep on the phone, and he was less than
helpful.
When I phoned Nintendo Uk asking about access to the wiimote menue
system, I got a much more useful person, who appreciated the problem and
actually tested various methods for me.
However, that conversation ended in a big road block, because even though
it wouldn't be difficult for Nintendo to make a basic upgrade to the wii
to have a standardized menue system as an alternative to using the
wiimote, Nintendo Uk actually couldn't get in touch with the developement
team in Japan or the Us to tell them, ---- even if they wanted to.
And that was working with an extremely nice and cooperative person from
Nintendo Uk in the first place.
Even getting the phone number of Nintendo's Uk office was something of an
adventure (sinse of course they're X directory), required me to sweet
talk first a mail order service (who luckily I've used on several
occasions), and then a whole sale despatcher.
While i'm completely unsure that suing companies is the right way to
go, ---- I'm stil not certain how anyone, ---- even major organizations
like the game accessibility project can actually talk to the people that
matter about game access.
this is why, both from extensive personal experience talking to companies
about access, I'm stil convinced the future of accessible games lies with
the independent developers like Nielsbaur (see the latest news on
audiogames.net for more on them), and 7-128, ---- and all those web games
we've been playing.
I'm actually amazed how quickly some developers, ---- such as coops of
core exiles are in responding to reasonable access suggestions.
I'm not saying that the game accessibility project etc shouldn't try to
contact the mainstream companies, ---- I'm just very scheptical of how
much actual good it will do given their truly insan burocracy.
Beware the grue!
Dark.
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