Hi, I agree. I'm in a somewhat unique position here as not only am I a gamer, like everyone else, I also have spent some time in the public sector as a programmer. I can say from firsthand that the way programmers generally produce a software product is a lot different than the way I run USA Games. There are design proposals, budgets, etc all factored into the mix long before the programmer actually sits down at his/her compt to write it. For example, a professional game company would probably do the following.
1. Write up a design proposal of the game. It would include the name of the game, basic storyline, game characters as well as technical specifications regarding the product. 2. Assess the time and cost factor involved in producing this software product. 3. Appprove the design proposal, approve the funds, and give the green light. 4. Purchase sounds, music, and have a graphics designer create the graphics for the game. 5. Write an initial draft of the program. 6. Debug/test it. Based on this list of steps from concept to finished product accessibility would have to be somewhere right at the top. After the schedule has been written, funds allocated, and a design proposal adopted everything is pretty much set. If you come knocking on their door three months into the development process asking about accessibility they are going to turn you down on principle as much as anything else. They've already written the design docs, allowcated all the money they are going to spend on the project, etc and adding accessibility would likely throw a big monkey rench into the development process blowing their release schedules, add money to the project that wasn't allowcated, etc. So if a developer of company x does a poll to find out if gamers want character x in the next game you can pretty much guess they already have it in the design docs and have budgeted for that eventually. As you said by the time the public knows anything about an up and coming game title it is wel on its way to being done. If I go out to do a contract job my methodology really isn't that much different from the one listed above. If I am hired by company x to write some inhouse piece of software I'd write a design proposal of the intended software product to be created, specify the programming language that will be used, the purpose of the software, describe the user interface, and of course assess the time and cost of the project. Unlike a sighted programmer I need really good accessibility to use the software I create so accessibility ranks really high in my early design proposals. A sighted developer can take it or leave it, and if it saves time not including accessibility that's exactly what they will do. I don't have that option as a blind developer. Then again, education, or the lack there of, plays a large part too. If you take an online course on a programming language or attend regular classes the instructer is going to breeze through the course material with very little time to discusss accessibility concerns. Most of the time if you use the defaults in something like .NET you will get a fairlya ccessible product. However, I've had ocations where I changed the size and style of a button because it looked better, but Jaws and Window-Eyes had difficulty with it. It is possible a developer might not even know doing something like that might break accessibility, and have no immediate way of testing it as they don't have Jaws, Window-Eyes, NVDA, etc sitting right there to test it. Point being, accessibility is a universal problem because we don't start with educating them when they start out and acccessibility fixes usually end up being bolted on afterwards at some point. Cheers! On 11/29/10, [email protected] <[email protected]> wrote: > Hey all, > > While I can't believe how many issues of Audyssey pile up in an inbox over > just a few days, I have caught some of the conversation about > accessibility and mainstream companies. > > You may not know, but for three years I worked for one of the major > publishers, THQ, and I'm still friends with quite a number of people in > the industry, mostly PR, but a few game devs such as 5th Cell (who created > Scribblenauts) and BlueTongue (who are working on de Blob 2). > > Getting accessibility features into a game is not as simple as banging on > a door and saying 'Hey, what about this?' In fact, usually, by the time > you've heard about a game being in development, the features list has > already been 80% established, and that includes the major gameplay > elements. The addition of a character because of so-called player support > is often fictional. They would have already assessed whether or not it was > viable to put the character into the game and potentially done concept and > model development. Trust me: you can't just plug a character into a > game--especially a fighting game--as you have to make sure it's 100 per > cent balanced against every other character. Anyone who's big into Street > Fighter IV would be aware of that. > > Accessibility is something that has to be considered right at the > beginning of a game's development in order for it to be fully implemented. > And, yes, you're right sometimes it comes down to money. Sometimes it's > about resources. How much time do you work on accessibility features > before you realise that you've just burned up a huge number of dev hours > that really needed to be spent on ensuring the game controlled properly. > > Independent development is definitely the best and most direct way to > ensure there are accessible games. Working with game dev studios to > produce quality games is another. (And I don't mean to try starting with > Valve or Sony's internal studio, I mean find a smaller developer who > doesn't mind doing the occassional experimental game.) Education is > important, too. Sometimes there are a few small things developers can do > that dramatically improve accessibility. I discovered that with > interactive fiction. Just removing the status bar and recoding the command > prompt made games 50 per cent more enjoyable straight away. > > Lastly, there are other means. One idea I had while I was researching was > to create a not-for-profit organisation that could take donations. Those > donations would pay authors and programmers to create games for the blind > and VI community. There's some strong evidence to suggest that it would > contribute positively. I even spoke to a few people who ran similar > organisations. > > Anyway, my point is: you're not alone. No gamer off the street will ever > make a change by banging on the front door. Trust me when I say that game > companies have to deal with a lot of scary fanboys and fangirls. They keep > those doors closed for a reason. But that doesn't mean giving up. Get > smart. Have a clear idea of what you'd like to see changed, and think > about the best way you can make that happen. If it's a good idea, with > considerable appeal, most people will sit up and listen. Just think about > it from the company and dev's point of view first. > > Hope that helps. > > Cheers, > > Neo. > --- 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].
