Amen to that brother. If you want to buy someone a subscription to our card room, or let someone know where to go to buy you one, we now allow folks to buy gifts from our home page without being members themselves. Just go to http://www.blindAdrenaline.com/cardroom and click the buy a gift link. You can use pay pal or a credit card. We not only offer the most fully featured online card games out there for the blind, but also the least expensive. You can get a full year subscription for $39.95, or six months for $19.95, less than a dollar a week, you can't beat that for great entertainment. And for you strategy buffs out there, whether card players or not, euchre is coming out within the next week, and if you've never played it, it is a very addictive and mentally challenging game, especially with some of our better players. But to the original point of this message, audio games make a great gift, whether you like action, thought provoking puzzles, or first person adventuring, there is something out there for you or a friend, so give your favorite developer a little support this holiday season. And John, you can tell whoever will listen that we've had over 2400 total downloads of our card games. Not all of those are paying members of course, but that shows there is a significant interest in even the small niche of card games for the blind. Happy holidays, Che www.blindAdrenaline.com Blind Adrenaline Simulations Games by one of us, for all of us
-----Original Message----- From: gamers-boun...@audyssey.org [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of John Bannick Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 2009 4:12 PM To: gamers@audyssey.org Subject: [Audyssey] You Can Make a Difference How You can make a difference Over the next several weeks you personally can make computer games more accessible. 1. Buy accessible games as gifts (Not necessarily ours, but anyones') 2. Suggest to friends and family that accessible games make good gifts 3. And, most importantly, suggest to everyone who'll stand still for a minute that they tell game companies when they've bought their game because it was accessible. Our own 7-128 Software recently released Visit Salem, a travelogue game. It includes over 6 hours of audio descriptions, history, architecture, music and interviews. It's also totally inaccessible to players who are blind, deaf, or motion-impaired. Why? Because it would take an additional 6 months to make it accessible. Even with a code base that includes a lot of accessibility features and useful guidance from John Oliveira, a colleague and head of our Massachusetts Commission for the Blind, and from you folks and other folks I know in the accessibility community. I'd love to make it accessible to players who are blind, or deaf, or motion-impaired. But the consensus among our management team is that there are too few potential sales to justify the effort and expense, at least at this time. Game margins are razor slim. Electronic Arts lost tens of millions of dollars this year, also last year. The difference between profit and loss at our small mainstream company is tiny. Posts by Thomas, Che, and other colleagues suggest that a few more sales could help pay their light bills, too. Posts by Dark, Mark Barlet, Brian Papineau, and my own experience here suggest that some mainstream game companies do respond positively when you tell them "I buy your stuff because you make it work for me. I buy other people's stuff when you don't" So, over the next few weeks you personally can either sit on your hands and look forward to a future of not getting the games you want, or you can make a difference. (And yes, I ping Her Interactive when I buy their moderately accessible Nancy Drew mystery games.) John Bannick Chief Technical Officer 7-128 Software --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
