Hi Chrissy,
Well, I don't know that adding accessibility would necessarily double
game pricing, but it would cost the game companies something to add all
the same. Certainly it wouldn't come free, of course, and it would take
some extra time and effort to add. Never-the-less it isn't as expensive
as you might think.
The main thing to keep in mind here is that most of the major game
companies use a game engine to save time and energy on game development.
They can create several games using basically the same code since all of
the primary features of the game is already built into the engine
itself. If they would add accessibility to some of their game engines,
or had done so from the beginning it wouldn't cost them much to create
several accessible games using the same technology. This is one of the
things the Agrip project tried to prove with their Audio Quake project.
When the Agrip project started out they took an off the shelf game
engine, Quake, modified it, added some accessibility, and wanted to use
that as a spring board to show game companies, new game developers, etc
ways in which a fully modern game engine and game could be made
accessible. I know several games such as Elite Force I and Elite Force
II that use the Unreal engine as the code base. If that engine could be
upgraded with accessibility then every game developer who uses that
engine could easily include accessibility to every title.
Likewise in 2007 Core Design released a new game engine called the
Legend Engine. It has been used to create a number of games including
Tomb Raider Legend, Tomb Raider Underworld, and Tomb Raider Anniversary.
Now, if they had spent the time and money developing accessibility into
the Legend Engine in the first place every game they created afterwards
would include the same degree of accessibility features, and the cost of
adding accessibility would be paid for many times over after several
successful titles. However, that only works if they add accessibility
from the outset.
The problem, of course, is all of these companies have not done that. If
this person were to win in court it could open up a landslide of
eexpensive court cases against game companies suing for this or that
game to be made accessible. That could be very costly because instead of
adding accessibility once during the development of their game engine
they now have to upgrade each and every game that can be made accessible
which is a feature these companies see no financial reason to do. Adding
access to new games is easy enough, but going back and upgrading
hundreds of previously released titles is asking too much. The simple
fact is once a game company releases a game title it sells x number of
copies, and then public interest in the game fades. No one in the
sighted world is going to rush out and buyan upgrade for said game if
the only new feature is increased accessibility, and of course companies
like Sony know this all too well.
ChB wrote:
While I, like everyone else, would love the idea of having every single game
accessible in the future, it will not happen.
Think about how costly this would be, development would raise the price of a
game to probably double what it is now.
And to an extent I could understand that the sighted gamers will hit the
roof when they are forced to pay outrageous prices for content they would
never need or use.
Again, I would love to see this happen, nut chances are very very slim that
this is happening. We are too few in numbers really to be a target customer
for those games. The only thing I can see happening is maybe them adding
reading out loud in all menus and stuff so that it is easier to navigate.
This should be easy to do and would not really cost more, I assume.
They already have subtitles for hearing impaired gamers but the adjustments
for that group are so much easier anyway, because you do not have to change
the game itself at all.
chrissy
---
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].
