Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
Josh this is Blind Fury it is very simple by celling the game tht is copy infringement and which could land you in hot water bud however if you make the game for yourself then that's your own game you can't recell that game unless you have permission from the developers themselves it goes the same for music as well. you know wht I mean. So that how it goes ok that is words to the wise from the Blind Fury. Have a nice day. - Original Message - From: Josh [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 3:49 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility but only blind people would be playing the games. And if you don't make money off it and give the original developers credit in the accessible games how could it still be copyright infringement? Josh - Original Message - From: Liam Erven [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 2:49 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility because that's copyright infringement - Original Message - From: Josh [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 1:34 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility so if we can't get the developers to make their games accessible, why not rip the audio from the mainstream games and make our own accessible versions with audio game maker? Josh - Original Message - From: Liam Erven [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 2:25 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility I get asked the same questions, and what you said is right on. The fact is is that our market just isn't big enough. I few years ago I was on the phone with a korg representative and we were discussing my korg x5. I pointed out that it would be great if there was some sort of module that made the korg speak. he said that he agreed with my thoughts, but the fact was was there was no market for that. We need to think in terms of market strength. I know the number of blind to sighted is very small, and even those who play video games is smaller still. I don't want to say it's a lost cause, but I'm not losing any sleep over whether or not I'll be able to play the next big release. - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 1:15 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility Hi all, Sorry, I am very late to this party, but you really must understand there is no way we can force developers much less game companies like activision, Nintendo, Sega, Microsoft Game Studios, to do anything. Especially, since we are a minority group with very little cash potential. In fact encouraging them with a good persuasively drafted position is the only way to even get started. You can get started by becoming part of and supporting groups like IGDA which is already attempting to do just that. Put together articles, code examples, etc to bring to the big name developers and their companies to promote more accessible game design implementations. Unfortunately, we also have to increase our ranks and have a higher number of statistics to show these companies. While Audyssey is a very active community we have on this list at most 200 to 300 members at a time. Now, assuming every single one of us bought a mainstream game made accessible for $45.00 that only comes to $13500 total for 300 units sold. That little amount of cash won't interest a company. The average dev for those companies triples that amount in his or her salary. Ok, from speaking to my fellow ag developers we estimate the total market strength right now at 2000 products sold by any one accessible company. Using our example of $45 times 2000 units sold $comes to $9. Looking better, but certainly not enough to interest a mainstream company which is grossing millions on Doom III, Jedi Knight X, Castlevania X, etc... I grant you if Activision or another big company like Microsoft put out an accessible game they could probably Brose more than $9 since they have channels to market to a wider audience. However, once you start ticking off the numbers like who does not have computers, who is old and elderly who is likely to be disinterested, and so on the numbers of potential customers shrinks rather rapidly. A statistical fact here is the majority of those blind in the US is those who have lost their sight later in life do to many common issues involved with old age. Having younger people with vision impairments is a significantly smaller group than the elderly with vision impairments. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
What is Brandon's site so I can download the WWe game you said it some wht accessible in what way does it read well with JAWS? email me back ok this is Blind Fury - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2007 1:48 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility Hi Dennis, Oh, I do see and understand what you are thinking of doing, but it really won't solve the problem. The game companies we are talking about in large part is going to consider all games they make inaccessible to a blind gamer since they target a sighted audience. The games that are somewhat accessible like the WWE game and the Lord of the Rings game Brandon has up on his sight are accidently accessible. I do not believe they were intentionally made that way by the companies that just happened to be that way as a side effect. Even though Brandon and others might consider them reasonably accessible E.A. or whoever is then going to put a not accessible warning label on it upon release not knowing that the game is partly accessible. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility was: deal or no deal
Hi it's Blind Fury I agree with your suggestions persuading companies to make games accesible not forcing the isue because I agree with that by forcing the issue it will make us look bad because we are supposed to be treated like everyone else instead of being catored too. Si if we just give them suggestions and tell what they could benefit if they made games accessible I think they would show a better attitude at looking at the issue instead of throwoing in our faces because we forced it. anyway reguards, Blind Fury - Original Message - From: Bryan Peterson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 10:53 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility was: deal or no deal We have a better chance of persuading mainstream devs of the value of accessibility than we do of forcing i., But it's not happening without presenting them some serious statistics. We have to PERSUADE, not force here, or as Liam said we'll give the blind community a bad name. Besides, we need to convince them that they wouldn't be making a huge financial blunder. That was one of the things the folks at Audio Games wanted us to do when Soundvoyager was released, to play it and give Nintendo our hints and experiences. I myself did and have to admit that they seemed fairly open to the idea of accessibility to the blind. So if we can put together enough statistics and marshall a convincing argument, we might just sway a dev or two, and if enough devs take to the cause then more might be swayed as well. But trying to force the issue isn't going to get us anything but a bad reputation, and the reputation of the blind in some quarters probably could be better as it is. Bryan and Jennie - Original Message - From: aaron danvers-jukes [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 7:15 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility was: deal or no deal i have to agree with liam and che on this one. make suggestions, tell themwhy you want it accessible, but do not, and i repeat, do *not*, use force. regards, aaron ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
Unfortunately thom, that very much depends upon the country's legal system and how reasonable the government are prepared to be as reguards accessibility issues and writing new legislation. the Us government does tend to be better than the english govenrment in this respect. For instance, there are various books (Steven King's Dark tower series for example), which can't be produced in audio overhere simply because the publishers might want to release a commercial audio tape version at some point! For more info see this Site: http://www.booksbeforewedie.com/ Then again, it's not really surprising sinse most of the theoretical work reguarding the practice and implementation of equality is done in the Us, and very much in the Us theoretical traditions as well. Initially, I actually wanted to deal with questions about disability and equality in my Phd thesis, however the more literature I read on the subject, the more I've come to realize that there needs to be some work done on the very basic, day to day, ethics of disability and interpersonal relations ffirst, so that's what I'm probably going to be writing about. Many appologies for the offtopicitude here and me going all professional philosopher on y, it's just that this discussion is getting remarkably close to my own area of expertees -- assuming of course it's possible to have! expertees in Philosophy, ;D. Beware the grue! Dark. - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2007 7:07 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility Hi Dark, Yes, I think challenging some of the laws, hard to do, is one of the only ways of making any headway. I am all for copyrights, but sometimes they tend to stomp out those who don't have an equal or near equal access to that content. As far as games go I'd like something put in to the existing copyright laws that is similar to the written materials. It can only be copyed or used in an accessible manner or specialised format for blind and visually impaired or something like that. At the national level it would go over any company license agreement if the audio content or whatever was used in a specialised format for the blind, etc... Dark wrote: As far as legal issues go, I do believe there is some mileage to campeign for changes here, sinse some laws are clearly and simply unfair. For instance, one charity which reccords audio books here in the Uk has to borrow books directly from their public library. while their local library will freely let them exceed the lone period on books, if they get a book on interlibrary lone from the national British Library they are forced to pay the standard charge when keeping a book for an extended period, even when recording books. this makes it almost impossible for them to produce any book not available in their local public library. Sinse they don't have the cash to pay the extra lone fees it would take. Imho, this is certainly a case where the law, or at least the national British Library policy, is in error and should deffinately be changed. All the best, Dark. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
also, there are one or two types of game perspective that it strikes me would be very difficult to translate into audio. As a thought experiment, I've been considdering ways to translate various main stream games into audio, and mostly I can come up with tactics to do it, even in games that rely heavily on the vertical as well as the horizontal plain such as full scrolling 2D platformers, with or without use of ladders (nods at Thom and Monti). However, one genre that entirely escapes my efforts are games like Bomberman or the various boulderdash style games, top down perspective games heavily reliant on four directional spacial puzles with significant game events occurring sometimes at great distance from the charactor. I've totally wracked my brains but other than loading the games down with so many grid coordinates, different sorts of audio scan and hosts of speak keys to the point where they became glorified interactive fiction, I can't think of a way to translate them into audio. Of course, i'm only one person, and what I can't figure out somebody else probably can (in fact in my case, somebody else nearly always can!), but I think we should remain open to the possibility that certain mainstream games might not translate into audio. Of course, on the other side of the coin, there are Audio games who's experience is actually highly enhanced by the factt that they Are! audio games (I'd count dyna man, Esp pinball extreme, Superliam and probably quite a few other games in this catagory), therefore I deffinately think there's some mileage in being experimental with audio games and not always just trying to emulate main stream games (though obviously, translation of mainstream games into audio is a good thing too). sorry for the minor wrant here. Beware the Grue! Dark. - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2007 7:39 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility Hi Shaun, The problem is the accessibility has to come from the game's core commonly called the engine. If a game engine supports only stereo than there is absolutely no way to add something like 3D audio without having the original source code for the game. If an engine does not have SAPI support then there is no way to mod that in without having the engine source. I think you are now seeing the problem with that approach. As for audio game maker I think it will be something to show off to mainstream companies as a demonstration of what accessible games can do, but it is still far too primative for actual pro game developers to work with. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
O we have the accessibility built into the game, but write in a toggle for it so that the sighted player could play the game like they normally would, but when the blind guy loaded his save file the accessibility would be there. Bryan and Jennie - Original Message - From: SHAUN EVERISS [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 7:27 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility Maybe its not all lost, although how this would work I don't rightly know. First there would need to be a standard for accessibility simular to other standards that are released by other orgs for accessibility , eg web 2 accessibility standard. Or something like that. What I thought could happen is the game devs pay the blind devs to write the accessibility interfaces, ok blind devs probably will not get that much, but still. Anyway we people buy the game. THe entire game mind you at the price the game is worth. We download the interface from the net and install it, we would have to have some sort of registration procedure. Without varification though, somehow keyed for us blind people only. A thought could be the serial number on your screen reader. We have readers and they have serial numbers. In case this is forged though we would need some other protection to get the interface. This does have a drawback that devs may not get payed at all though. All these messages on here must add up to something. I know that somehow using the audio is a logical step. Ripping it is to easy, its alegal but it will work, in the short term at least, long term, I feel as a community we may be able to nut something out. I think we are close. At 09:43 a.m. 18/02/2007, you wrote: Hi Josh, Sigh It is simply because the companies have legal copyrights over the media, (graphics story and sounds,) of the games they create. Using that media content could, (I repete could,) land a accessible game developer in hot water because steeling or using copyrighted game content without prier consent of the copyright holder is legally considered a crime in the USA. You and I can discuss the evils of not having game x accessible, and that company should either make it accessible or lend us the materials to make it ourselves, but that is nothing more or less than intilectual diferences of opinion. If I make a Star Wars I do it at my own personal risk, but know that I am legally forbidden to do so do to copyright laws. Hey, it is unfair, but 9 times out of 10 the law would side with the company than us. As the Rolling Stones once sang, Sometimes you can't always get what you want. No you can't always get what you want, but sometimes you just might find you'll get what you need. To look it another way consider public safety laws like speeding limits. A person might believe he has the right to go 80 or 100 miles per hour down this long stretch of road which seams totally empty when the limit is 60. Well, person x can argue with the policeman giveing him the speeding ticket or the judge that is asigning his sentense, but the law is on their side. No argument I have the right to do so, because I think I should because the road seamed empty is going to move the police or courts to not give him his ticket and tell him to go ahead and speed when there is no traffic around. Bottomline he was speeding in a 60 MPH speeding zone. Last year I was at my local court house and got to sit through traffic court. I heard lots of reasons why person x was speeding, some of them sounded quite convincing and reasonable to me, but the judge still fined them, and sent them packing. Sometimes I felt the law was too harsh, unreasonable, but on the other hand the law is there to serve and protect as well. Companies need good copyright laws to keep the compitition from steeling their hard earned work. However, the same laws sometimes blindly excludes the minority groups that falls nowhere inbetween the extremes. Josh wrote: so if we can't get the developers to make their games accessible, why not rip the audio from the mainstream games and make our own accessible versions with audio game maker? ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
All well and good but just one or two people, or even one or two-hundred, isn't going to convince anybody. It all comes down to statistics. Get the names of every blind gamer in the world and the kind of games they like to play, put that into a cohesive, statistic rich form that the big name devs will love. Then maybe you'll get somebody's attention. But you're probably not gonna get them to put a warning on their packages saying not accesible. That'd mean every product they make, and they're not going to do that just to satisfy a few people. Bryan and Jennie - Original Message - From: Dennis [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'Gamers Discussion list' gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 7:28 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility To whom it may concern, I am writing to explain my earlier note that was published in this forum. We are not looking to force anyone into doing things we would like to change the programming but if it is not possible we believe that packaging should state clearly that it will not access the proper software for the handicapped computer. We believe that if we bring this to the attention of programmers and that in the future they will begin to make gaming software more compatible. Please do not misunderstand that force isnt what we want to do. We want to bring this to the main stream attention so that no one else has to go thru the troubles of buying an expensive game and then not being able to access it. Sincerly Dennis Need a quick an -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of john snowling Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 2:43 PM To: 'Gamers Discussion list' Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility I agree with what has been said here. Its also the cost. Major games companies would have to spend a fair bit on making games accessible. It won't ever happen if it does then I'll be surprised. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Thomas Ward Sent: 17 February 2007 19:37 To: Gamers Discussion list Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility Hi Che, Exactly, my point as well. Not only do we not have the numbers to force the issue we are also sometimes asking the impossible from a programming standpoint. Sometimes these games are 3D not just in graphics and sound, but in fact the entire levels are 3D. I'd like to hold up the AQ, Audio Quake project, as an example. While Michael and others have been working towards making Quake accessible it is far from a real solution for total access. Much improved, playable yes, but far from as accessible as SOD, GTC, and other games out there. Back when I played around with AQ, quite a while ago, one thing that really got me lost was the full 3D environment. We can move in six directions, and presenting that to a totally blind gamer can be disorienting. I am seeing posts from Damien and others how hard 2D levels like SOD are I'd hate to see the same people take on a really challenging 3D maze such as many of the Star Wars games have etc. In the SW games the exits for the rooms are not really obvious to a sighted gamer let alone a blind one. You have to cut out grates, jump through holes in the ceilings, find secret and hidden buttons and switches,and you sometimes have to visually see where to jump to. No way of conveying the same info by audio. You eather see the place to jump to, or you fall to your doom off the side of a building. Even if an A.G. developer were to recreate one of those games some challenges would have to be removed to save over complexity or fix it so the player could jump to that next building without falling all the time. I could imagine what a major pain it would be to make all that accessible, and still keep the challenge in the game. Even Monty, an Atari game, and simple by sighted standards needs several special adaptations to make it playable for a totally blind gamer which would make the game boring to a sighted gamer that plays much faster than we do. Che wrote: I for one don't think we have any business trying to force companies to make their games accessible. First of all, for the vast majority of games, it simply cannot be done, it would be like trying to force the car manufacturers to make their automobiles accessible. Secondly, it places a black mark on the perception of blind folks in general, as people will roll their eyes and say Well here go the blind again, asking the many to sacrifice for the few for no good reason. If I thought even a small percentage of mainstream games could be made accessible, I would feel differently, but I'm afraid you are spitting in the wind on this one. We're just going to have to accept the fact we're dependant on a handful of developers to make games for us due to our small market, and help them out as much as we can by buying their games. Or, like me
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
And if we couldn't pay the fine? then what? Most of us don't have that kind of money. Josh ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
I think the world of courts and lawyers is the dumbest thing ever, I wish the person who dreamed that stupid stuff up never existed. Josh ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
Hmm. Sorry I haven't posted much in these past few, but I've been busy. I think the only way to really go about this is by doing what fs has done with pocket pc. Instead of creating something which is completely blind friendly, Freedom Scientific has introduced the pac mate which, while limited in some aspects is just amazing because you can buy some things directly off the shelf from your local office depot or best buy and use them. It's what kara did with quake, though I understand that quake is completely open source. However, as apple says, built in, not bolted on... or together I suppose. Lates guys, sorry if I'vve woken up a dead horse that's already been beaten. Everett ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
Hi Shaun, I can see many problems with what you suggest. First, a Pro Game company is highly unlikely to turn over pieces of their game source code to an amature blind developer. There are licensing and security issues involved. Second, most if not all of the blind devs are hardly up to the task of coding on pro grade level. For example, almost all pro games are written in C++. The Majority of amature developers that write for the blind use amature programming languages such as VB which is a kiddy language compared to the stuff the pro developers work with. Even the language I use C#.NET is a stripped down modified version of C++ which is still kind of kiddy compared to full blown C++. So just because we have a few script kiddies that can write games doesn't mean they are ready for the big time. Even if the programming of choice wasn't an issue then the code itself would be pretty difficult to master. Many pro developers use fuzzy logic, true physics emulation, calculous, etc and the math and physics alone would eliminate anyone without a college degree or a good grasp of those things. The only way I can see this ever realistic really working to avoid copyright penalties is make up your own version of the game and sell it along with legal, not a hot copy, of the original game. That way the blind end user paid for the legal version so they own the sounds and graphics you used, and then on top of that paid for your version on top of that. It would legally solve the copyright problem, but the end user would get socked with a double payment, and half would be nothing they could use except say I payed for a legal copy. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
hey! that would be the perfect law if everyone would put it into all their licenses! Josh - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2007 2:07 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility Hi Dark, Yes, I think challenging some of the laws, hard to do, is one of the only ways of making any headway. I am all for copyrights, but sometimes they tend to stomp out those who don't have an equal or near equal access to that content. As far as games go I'd like something put in to the existing copyright laws that is similar to the written materials. It can only be copyed or used in an accessible manner or specialised format for blind and visually impaired or something like that. At the national level it would go over any company license agreement if the audio content or whatever was used in a specialised format for the blind, etc... Dark wrote: As far as legal issues go, I do believe there is some mileage to campeign for changes here, sinse some laws are clearly and simply unfair. For instance, one charity which reccords audio books here in the Uk has to borrow books directly from their public library. while their local library will freely let them exceed the lone period on books, if they get a book on interlibrary lone from the national British Library they are forced to pay the standard charge when keeping a book for an extended period, even when recording books. this makes it almost impossible for them to produce any book not available in their local public library. Sinse they don't have the cash to pay the extra lone fees it would take. Imho, this is certainly a case where the law, or at least the national British Library policy, is in error and should deffinately be changed. All the best, Dark. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
Hi Dark, Well, obviously some games are going to be harder to translate in to audio than others. I think bomberman would be possible, and you could be over complicating it some. I haven't thought it totally through as well as you have, but having played the original eons ago I think an audio version could be possible. What I am thinking would be difficult is games where there are no audio equals for the items in the game. For example take a classic game like Mario brothers. I have been doing allot of thinking about it, and honestly some of the things has me baffled how to represent the same things in audio. Take the blocks Mario has to break to get items. How would you represent them, and not sound corny in the process. Then, there are special flowers in Mario that shrink Mario, restore Mario, make Mario Super Mario, and one that gives Mario fire ability, etc... You have to have some auditory way of making the different flowers and items apparent to a blind gamer as they would to a sighted gamer, but not dumb or silly in the process. One way I can imagine it being done is a looping item indicater that says fire flower, fire flower, fire flower, over and over until you take it. That is how Phil did the fruit in Packman and while being different it was a pretty good solution for that interesting problem. However, for a sighted gamer that would be exceedingly annoying. Dark wrote: also, there are one or two types of game perspective that it strikes me would be very difficult to translate into audio. As a thought experiment, I've been considdering ways to translate various main stream games into audio, and mostly I can come up with tactics to do it, even in games that rely heavily on the vertical as well as the horizontal plain such as full scrolling 2D platformers, with or without use of ladders (nods at Thom and Monti). However, one genre that entirely escapes my efforts are games like Bomberman or the various boulderdash style games, top down perspective games heavily reliant on four directional spacial puzles with significant game events occurring sometimes at great distance from the charactor. I've totally wracked my brains but other than loading the games down with so many grid coordinates, different sorts of audio scan and hosts of speak keys to the point where they became glorified interactive fiction, I can't think of a way to translate them into audio. Of course, i'm only one person, and what I can't figure out somebody else probably can (in fact in my case, somebody else nearly always can!), but I think we should remain open to the possibility that certain mainstream games might not translate into audio. Of course, on the other side of the coin, there are Audio games who's experience is actually highly enhanced by the factt that they Are! audio games (I'd count dyna man, Esp pinball extreme, Superliam and probably quite a few other games in this catagory), therefore I deffinately think there's some mileage in being experimental with audio games and not always just trying to emulate main stream games (though obviously, translation of mainstream games into audio is a good thing too). sorry for the minor wrant here. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
Hi Josh, Quote And if we couldn't pay the fine? then what? End quote Well, based on my own knolege of the U.S. court system if you are unable to pay a fine you would likely be ordered to do some kind of comunity service job until the fine was paid off. If you refused to do the comunity service work then the next step would be contempt of court which could be a couple of days in the slammer. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
Hi Josh, We could get in to the entire theory why a government must exist, it's purpose, and so on but I won't. I will simply say without government, rules, and a court to enforce them what you end up with is total anarchy and no one to protect the rights of anyone. Besides as far as copyrights goes for games it isn't the court system's fault. Remember it is the legislature's job to write the laws. The executive's job to sign the bill in to law. Then, the hjustice system's job, courts and lawyers, to enforce the laws. If you want to legally copy and write games to make them accessible via a legal means then we as developers must start with the legislature's that make those laws, the U.S. Congress, to have them amend the copyright laws allowing for game media to be copied for accessible use only. There have already been some copyright laws modified in this way such as U.S. public law 9-22 which allows for printed material to be distributed in an accessible format for blind and visually impaired who have no other access to it. That is how the N.L.S. and Recordings for the blind and BookShare are legally able to copy, read, and redistribute otherwise copyrighted books, magazines, and other printed material legally. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
In response to what Aaron says. But, then the law has to be changed so we can make accessible versions of games without getting in trouble. Just like its ok to make books in an accessible format, it should be ok to reproduce games in a specialised format for the blind. Josh ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
then maybe we as the blind people should get involved and make changes to the laws. Josh - Original Message - From: Bryan Peterson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2007 11:04 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility Then we'd probably end up in prison and the blind would look bad I don't make the laws. I just have to abide by 'em. It bites, yeah, but such is life.. Bryan and Jennie - Original Message - From: Josh [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2007 7:54 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility And if we couldn't pay the fine? then what? Most of us don't have that kind of money. Josh ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
I agree -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Josh Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2007 2:36 PM To: Gamers Discussion list Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility then maybe we as the blind people should get involved and make changes to the laws. Josh - Original Message - From: Bryan Peterson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2007 11:04 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility Then we'd probably end up in prison and the blind would look bad I don't make the laws. I just have to abide by 'em. It bites, yeah, but such is life.. Bryan and Jennie - Original Message - From: Josh [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2007 7:54 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility And if we couldn't pay the fine? then what? Most of us don't have that kind of money. Josh ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
but wouldn't it look bad putting a blind person in jail? And what would putting some poor blind person in jail...what good would it do? Josh - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2007 2:08 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility Hi Josh, Quote And if we couldn't pay the fine? then what? End quote Well, based on my own knolege of the U.S. court system if you are unable to pay a fine you would likely be ordered to do some kind of comunity service job until the fine was paid off. If you refused to do the comunity service work then the next step would be contempt of court which could be a couple of days in the slammer. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
And how do you propose to do that. As much as I hate to say it we're in the minority. Bryan and Jennie - Original Message - From: Dennis [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'Gamers Discussion list' gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2007 12:42 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility I agree -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Josh Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2007 2:36 PM To: Gamers Discussion list Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility then maybe we as the blind people should get involved and make changes to the laws. Josh - Original Message - From: Bryan Peterson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2007 11:04 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility Then we'd probably end up in prison and the blind would look bad I don't make the laws. I just have to abide by 'em. It bites, yeah, but such is life.. Bryan and Jennie - Original Message - From: Josh [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2007 7:54 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility And if we couldn't pay the fine? then what? Most of us don't have that kind of money. Josh ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
Hi Bryan, Copyright infringement isn't a major crime. So no worries about prison. However, it could result in paying of fines, comunity service, or payment of damages. Most cases of that sourt would likely wind up in civil cort rather than criminal court. Bryan Peterson wrote: Then we'd probably end up in prison and the blind would look bad I don't make the laws. I just have to abide by 'em. It bites, yeah, but such is life.. Bryan and Jennie ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
This actually appears to be one of those times i was talking about where different people's ideas compensate for each other, sinse I can certainly think of a way to wrender original Marrio bross in audio, whereas Bomberman does have me stumped (we philosophers are very good at over complicating matters). As far as Marrio goes, there are actually only four different types of collectable items in the game, thus replicating them in audio wouldn't be too hard, mushrooms (which make Marrio larger and have an extra hit), Fire flowers, extra lives and coins. What requires the thought in marrio is the spacial aspects of the game, and how to represent objects vertically, I do think however, it'd be quite possible. (beware, long explanation ahead). Taking Superliam as a baseline, representing the charactor's footsteps, pits, walking or bouncing monsters and power ups lying on the floor is all fine. sinse Marrio's main attack is to jump on his enemies heads, there would need to be an added On targit sound for when Marrio was in the air above a potential victim, so that the audio gamer could calculate their jumps correctly, but I don't think this would be too hard to do (Marrio always had quite a lot of air time on his jumps anyway). then, sinse in Marrio gaps are of variable distance, there would need to be a system to represent gap length. However sinse Marrio is structured almost as a board game with descrete steps and tiles, and distances you can calculate precisely, I don't believe this would present too much trouble. For example, you could have a low humming pulse like the shades turn sound), to indicate when a pit was deadly, overlayed by either a high, or low pitched wind sound to indicate the length of the gap and whether a normal or dashing jump was required to cross it. You would also need an alarm signal noise or different step sound to represent when Marrio was on the edge of a pit. Well, there's the horizontal plane taken care of! As to the vertical, when a block was close over marrio's head, the step sounds could be muffled (think small rooms in shades of doom). Optionally, there could be drecrease decreased muffling for blocks that were further away but stil directly overhead, though I don't believe this would be necessary. Also optionally, when the block overhead contained an item, as well as the muffled step there could be an indicator sound such as a continuous ring, (though sinse headbutting blocks in search of items wouldn't actually be a problem, I don't believe this would be absolutely crucial either). Combine this with an oof! sound every time Marrio walks into a wall, and maybe a check distance key to see how many steps through the level Marrio is, and Vuala! I hope this explanation is clear enough, but iff not, I'm quite willing to write up an example of how a game of audio Marrio under these circumstances would work, however I think if I make this mail any longer I'll have trouble posting it. all the best, Dark. - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2007 7:00 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility Hi Dark, Well, obviously some games are going to be harder to translate in to audio than others. I think bomberman would be possible, and you could be over complicating it some. I haven't thought it totally through as well as you have, but having played the original eons ago I think an audio version could be possible. What I am thinking would be difficult is games where there are no audio equals for the items in the game. For example take a classic game like Mario brothers. I have been doing allot of thinking about it, and honestly some of the things has me baffled how to represent the same things in audio. Take the blocks Mario has to break to get items. How would you represent them, and not sound corny in the process. Then, there are special flowers in Mario that shrink Mario, restore Mario, make Mario Super Mario, and one that gives Mario fire ability, etc... You have to have some auditory way of making the different flowers and items apparent to a blind gamer as they would to a sighted gamer, but not dumb or silly in the process. One way I can imagine it being done is a looping item indicater that says fire flower, fire flower, fire flower, over and over until you take it. That is how Phil did the fruit in Packman and while being different it was a pretty good solution for that interesting problem. However, for a sighted gamer that would be exceedingly annoying. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
You never know what a company will do these days. Bryan and Jennie - Original Message - From: Josh [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2007 12:57 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility but wouldn't it look bad putting a blind person in jail? And what would putting some poor blind person in jail...what good would it do? Josh - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2007 2:08 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility Hi Josh, Quote And if we couldn't pay the fine? then what? End quote Well, based on my own knolege of the U.S. court system if you are unable to pay a fine you would likely be ordered to do some kind of comunity service job until the fine was paid off. If you refused to do the comunity service work then the next step would be contempt of court which could be a couple of days in the slammer. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
Oh how irrirrirrirrirrirratating to get that rarrarrarrong. tha'tha'tha'that's all folks! Seriously, any comments on the idea would be more than welcome. - Original Message - From: Bryan Peterson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2007 9:29 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility One R, Dark, only one R in Mario. Bryan and Jennie - Original Message - From: Dark [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2007 1:22 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility This actually appears to be one of those times i was talking about where different people's ideas compensate for each other, sinse I can certainly think of a way to wrender original Marrio bross in audio, whereas Bomberman does have me stumped (we philosophers are very good at over complicating matters). As far as Marrio goes, there are actually only four different types of collectable items in the game, thus replicating them in audio wouldn't be too hard, mushrooms (which make Marrio larger and have an extra hit), Fire flowers, extra lives and coins. What requires the thought in marrio is the spacial aspects of the game, and how to represent objects vertically, I do think however, it'd be quite possible. (beware, long explanation ahead). Taking Superliam as a baseline, representing the charactor's footsteps, pits, walking or bouncing monsters and power ups lying on the floor is all fine. sinse Marrio's main attack is to jump on his enemies heads, there would need to be an added On targit sound for when Marrio was in the air above a potential victim, so that the audio gamer could calculate their jumps correctly, but I don't think this would be too hard to do (Marrio always had quite a lot of air time on his jumps anyway). then, sinse in Marrio gaps are of variable distance, there would need to be a system to represent gap length. However sinse Marrio is structured almost as a board game with descrete steps and tiles, and distances you can calculate precisely, I don't believe this would present too much trouble. For example, you could have a low humming pulse like the shades turn sound), to indicate when a pit was deadly, overlayed by either a high, or low pitched wind sound to indicate the length of the gap and whether a normal or dashing jump was required to cross it. You would also need an alarm signal noise or different step sound to represent when Marrio was on the edge of a pit. Well, there's the horizontal plane taken care of! As to the vertical, when a block was close over marrio's head, the step sounds could be muffled (think small rooms in shades of doom). Optionally, there could be drecrease decreased muffling for blocks that were further away but stil directly overhead, though I don't believe this would be necessary. Also optionally, when the block overhead contained an item, as well as the muffled step there could be an indicator sound such as a continuous ring, (though sinse headbutting blocks in search of items wouldn't actually be a problem, I don't believe this would be absolutely crucial either). Combine this with an oof! sound every time Marrio walks into a wall, and maybe a check distance key to see how many steps through the level Marrio is, and Vuala! I hope this explanation is clear enough, but iff not, I'm quite willing to write up an example of how a game of audio Marrio under these circumstances would work, however I think if I make this mail any longer I'll have trouble posting it. all the best, Dark. - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2007 7:00 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility Hi Dark, Well, obviously some games are going to be harder to translate in to audio than others. I think bomberman would be possible, and you could be over complicating it some. I haven't thought it totally through as well as you have, but having played the original eons ago I think an audio version could be possible. What I am thinking would be difficult is games where there are no audio equals for the items in the game. For example take a classic game like Mario brothers. I have been doing allot of thinking about it, and honestly some of the things has me baffled how to represent the same things in audio. Take the blocks Mario has to break to get items. How would you represent them, and not sound corny in the process. Then, there are special flowers in Mario that shrink Mario, restore Mario, make Mario Super Mario, and one that gives Mario fire ability, etc... You have to have some auditory way of making the different flowers and items apparent to a blind gamer as they would to a sighted gamer, but not dumb or silly in the process. One way I can imagine it being done
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
Hi list, I just rejoined under a new Email, I have been here before. As such, I haven't read this full thread, but what I have sounds promising. I can't say if any of the ideas being bounced around would work for me unless I actually heard an audio file of how it would work, or did it myself, but I like the idea of an accessible Mario. I'd certainly be willing to test any concepts you may come up with. Brandon Dark wrote: Oh how irrirrirrirrirrirratating to get that rarrarrarrong. tha'tha'tha'that's all folks! Seriously, any comments on the idea would be more than welcome. - Original Message - From: Bryan Peterson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2007 9:29 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility One R, Dark, only one R in Mario. Bryan and Jennie - Original Message - From: Dark [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2007 1:22 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility This actually appears to be one of those times i was talking about where different people's ideas compensate for each other, sinse I can certainly think of a way to wrender original Marrio bross in audio, whereas Bomberman does have me stumped (we philosophers are very good at over complicating matters). As far as Marrio goes, there are actually only four different types of collectable items in the game, thus replicating them in audio wouldn't be too hard, mushrooms (which make Marrio larger and have an extra hit), Fire flowers, extra lives and coins. What requires the thought in marrio is the spacial aspects of the game, and how to represent objects vertically, I do think however, it'd be quite possible. (beware, long explanation ahead). Taking Superliam as a baseline, representing the charactor's footsteps, pits, walking or bouncing monsters and power ups lying on the floor is all fine. sinse Marrio's main attack is to jump on his enemies heads, there would need to be an added On targit sound for when Marrio was in the air above a potential victim, so that the audio gamer could calculate their jumps correctly, but I don't think this would be too hard to do (Marrio always had quite a lot of air time on his jumps anyway). then, sinse in Marrio gaps are of variable distance, there would need to be a system to represent gap length. However sinse Marrio is structured almost as a board game with descrete steps and tiles, and distances you can calculate precisely, I don't believe this would present too much trouble. For example, you could have a low humming pulse like the shades turn sound), to indicate when a pit was deadly, overlayed by either a high, or low pitched wind sound to indicate the length of the gap and whether a normal or dashing jump was required to cross it. You would also need an alarm signal noise or different step sound to represent when Marrio was on the edge of a pit. Well, there's the horizontal plane taken care of! As to the vertical, when a block was close over marrio's head, the step sounds could be muffled (think small rooms in shades of doom). Optionally, there could be drecrease decreased muffling for blocks that were further away but stil directly overhead, though I don't believe this would be necessary. Also optionally, when the block overhead contained an item, as well as the muffled step there could be an indicator sound such as a continuous ring, (though sinse headbutting blocks in search of items wouldn't actually be a problem, I don't believe this would be absolutely crucial either). Combine this with an oof! sound every time Marrio walks into a wall, and maybe a check distance key to see how many steps through the level Marrio is, and Vuala! I hope this explanation is clear enough, but iff not, I'm quite willing to write up an example of how a game of audio Marrio under these circumstances would work, however I think if I make this mail any longer I'll have trouble posting it. all the best, Dark. - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2007 7:00 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility Hi Dark, Well, obviously some games are going to be harder to translate in to audio than others. I think bomberman would be possible, and you could be over complicating it some. I haven't thought it totally through as well as you have, but having played the original eons ago I think an audio version could be possible. What I am thinking would be difficult is games where there are no audio equals for the items in the game. For example take a classic game like Mario brothers. I have been doing allot of thinking about it, and honestly some of the things has me baffled how to represent the same things in audio. Take the blocks Mario
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
well steave, that is true, but the Rnib, which has by far the most resources etc is stil wary of offending publishers by going directly against their wishes. the dark tower is a case in point, sinse at present the audio versions which Thom has mentioned aren't published in the Uk, but the publishers have stated that at some point they might wish to publish them over here, so no Rnib recording (despite the fact that they've already recorded the first four books in the series). Though mind you, trying to get the Rnib to make an effort in reccording anything not aimed at people over the age of 70 is like getting blood out of a stone (I've been trying to do it for quite literally the last 18 years). But I won't start a long wrant here. all the best, Dark. - Original Message - From: Azabat (Steve Crawford) [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Tuesday, February 20, 2007 12:30 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility Hi Dark, The UK copyright situation has recently changed because of the Disability Discrimination Act. Previously you had to ask permission from the publisher before you could produce an alternative format of a book but now you can do a Braille or audio version, provided a commercial one doesn't already exist, without having to ask permission. The only provision is that it must be free of charge, so it's down to charities and individuals (usually in prison) to transcribe the material. My view is that this may extend to computer games, so producing accessible versions of popular computer games where none exist may be a defense under the DDA. Nobody's been prosecuted yet so let's wait and see. I recently came across a Who Wants To Be A Millionaire book that was being dumped in one pound shops so I bought a copy, transcribed some of it and produced an accessible version for a disabled person who would not be able to access the printed material. He doesn't read Braille so the format I chose was to make it into a computer game. Under the DDA, I reckon I'm entitled to do this without seeking permission. However, I'm definitely not allowed to sell it and I doubt if I am allowed to give it away. Back to your problem, have you tried RevealWeb, NLB/RNIB and Calibre? I think they are the main sources for audio books. Cheers, Steve -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Dark Sent: 18 February 2007 19:03 To: Gamers Discussion list Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility Hi thom. I am actually looking into getting hold of The Dark tower at the moment, and have also gone through the hiddiously tortuous and long winded process that it takes to get stuff from the National Libruary of Congress exported to the Uk, (which isn't helped by the fact that the Rnib are useless). I was however just giving it as an example. In the Uk, there is absolutely no governmental backing or funding for the production of accessible books, and quite a few publishers just reffuse to allow tvarious charitable organizations permission to reccord their books, simply on the off chance that they might, at some point in the future wish to produce a commercial audio copy themselves, and thus any reccordings the charities did would, supposedly hurt their sails. In the Us However, as far as I understand it, sinse production of audio books (and maybe braille as well), is both funded and backed by the government, this sort of arguement doesn't come up. I'll skip my long anti-capitalist wrant here, but suffice it to say the situation really! annoys me! then of course, there's the problem that publishers often abridge what commercial audio books they do produce, sometimes I think abridging books should be punishable by abridging the culprit, - with an axe! And finally there's the issue we've already touched upon here, the problem that three quarters of blind people are over the age of 65, which is only made moree acuteby the charities intense lack of resources and (in the case of the Rnib), severe lack of knolidge of things like book genres and series continuity as well. I'm extremely sorry for the offtopicitude here, it's just that this is one issue that really! gets on my whick! Beware the Grue! (especially when wranting). dark. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
Hi Bryan, As we recently discussed on the private USA Games testing list making games configurable is good, but sometimes too much configuration is too much for a developer or company. For example, it would be wonderful if accessibility could be switched on or off, but everytime a company would have to address an accessibility issue such as color contrast for low vision users, more 3D sound and targeting beeps for the totals, say screen enlargement for legally blind who need screen magnification, Sapi support to speak stuff are likely to over welm the perspective company for probably little gain for the hours of extra effort it would take to put all those features in. That is just addressing those with visual impairments. We haven't even began talking about those without fine motor skills, or full use of one or more of their limbs. Some of the FPS titles I have played in the passed requires excelent hand eye coordination to jump onto ledges, over traps, or to battle enemies. In the end to maximise accessibility they would have to slow things down at a rate we could play it and really down for those who just move slow do to poor motor skills, etc... Some games such as board games, card games, etc can be universally accessible. Others like a fast action First Person Shooter is unlikely to ever be fully accessible to one group or another. I mean we could look at GTC or SOD for example. It is is accessible to me and you, but what about a person who is blind and deaf, or a person who is blind and has now use of his or her arms. Ouch! Not as accessible even though it is an accessible game. Bryan Peterson wrote: O we have the accessibility built into the game, but write in a toggle for it so that the sighted player could play the game like they normally would, but when the blind guy loaded his save file the accessibility would be there. Bryan and Jennie ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
Hi Josh, Well, if we would want to do that the blind would have to organize some kind of nationally recognized advocate group, contact the U.S. Congress, and contact many professional game companies, etc... Not only that the group would have to raise money, higher lawyers, and generally get the legal ball rolling. It would be helpful to get the media involved, and make it a house-hold discussion of friends and family of people who have disabilities by making them aware of the issues. Groups like NFB would be nice to have on your side, but generally they seam interested in more day to day access issues rather than being to worried about weather blind gamer x can play the latest game releases. Josh wrote: then maybe we as the blind people should get involved and make changes to the laws. Josh ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
Hi Josh, I figure in 99 out of 100 cases the blind dev wouldn't do any jail time. The most that would ever happen is he or she would be fined, and given a court order to sease and desist. Assuming the blind dev did go to jail, and assuming the general public ever found out about it, it could make the company look bad, but it all would depend on if the national media was interested in the story. Let's be honest with ourselves. Right now the national media is more interested in publicising Britney Spears freak-show new skin head look and tatoos, as well as her apparent visit to a drug rehab center and would be less interested in carrying a story about a blind dev who got jailed for trying to make games accesible. Even if we made it to the news papers or nightly news we would probably wind up on some back page and Britney Spears new freaky looks and visit the the drug rehab center would be on page 1 or 2. Josh wrote: but wouldn't it look bad putting a blind person in jail? And what would putting some poor blind person in jail...what good would it do? ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility was: deal or no deal
I have to agree. It's wrong to force a company to comply with the ADA to make their games accessible. You can make suggestions on how they can improve their games, but do not think that using force will help your cause. It will only hurt, and it will make the rest of us look bad. - Original Message - From: Che [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Friday, February 16, 2007 7:44 PM Subject: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility was: deal or no deal I for one don't think we have any business trying to force companies to make their games accessible. First of all, for the vast majority of games, it simply cannot be done, it would be like trying to force the car manufacturers to make their automobiles accessible. Secondly, it places a black mark on the perception of blind folks in general, as people will roll their eyes and say Well here go the blind again, asking the many to sacrifice for the few for no good reason. If I thought even a small percentage of mainstream games could be made accessible, I would feel differently, but I'm afraid you are spitting in the wind on this one. We're just going to have to accept the fact we're dependant on a handful of developers to make games for us due to our small market, and help them out as much as we can by buying their games. Or, like me, you can learn how to program games yourself and create quality games for the blind. Out. Che - Original Message - From: Dennis [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'Gamers Discussion list' gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Friday, February 16, 2007 4:09 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] deal or no deal? Hi, my friend and I are attempting through legal remendies to force companies to make there computer games accessible to people with visual impairments or any other handicap the more people we have the better our chances! Feel free to contact me or my friend penny my email is [EMAIL PROTECTED] Penny's email [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your thoughts and suggestions are appreciated. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility was: deal or no deal
to be honest, I can't see any effort to force a company to do anything will be too successful anyway, from personal experience (some of it rather nasty), accessibility is a matter of compromise on both sides. and obviously, as someone who's at least played almost every game in the audio gaming canon and bought most of them, I'm quite in to supporting our devs. If I weren't trying to write a Phd thesis (on disability as it happens), I'd try developing some games myself, but hopefully the audio game maker will let me do it in less time. I do think however, increasing awareness of the blind gaming community and some suggestions to companies about how to make games more accessible might be useful, sinse companies (as nintendo has already done), could certainly make a few adjustments to some (by no means all), of their games to make them more accessible. but I believe the efforts are being made in this direction already. Beware the grue! Dark. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility was: deal or no deal
They just won't be games where you can save, unless the project gets more funding and they're able to build that feature into the program. Bryan and Jennie - Original Message - From: Josh [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Friday, February 16, 2007 10:08 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility was: deal or no deal and when audio game maker comes out I'm sure we'll see the number of games dramatically go up as audio game maker will make it real easy to make games. Josh - Original Message - From: Che [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Friday, February 16, 2007 8:44 PM Subject: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility was: deal or no deal I for one don't think we have any business trying to force companies to make their games accessible. First of all, for the vast majority of games, it simply cannot be done, it would be like trying to force the car manufacturers to make their automobiles accessible. Secondly, it places a black mark on the perception of blind folks in general, as people will roll their eyes and say Well here go the blind again, asking the many to sacrifice for the few for no good reason. If I thought even a small percentage of mainstream games could be made accessible, I would feel differently, but I'm afraid you are spitting in the wind on this one. We're just going to have to accept the fact we're dependant on a handful of developers to make games for us due to our small market, and help them out as much as we can by buying their games. Or, like me, you can learn how to program games yourself and create quality games for the blind. Out. Che - Original Message - From: Dennis [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'Gamers Discussion list' gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Friday, February 16, 2007 4:09 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] deal or no deal? Hi, my friend and I are attempting through legal remendies to force companies to make there computer games accessible to people with visual impairments or any other handicap the more people we have the better our chances! Feel free to contact me or my friend penny my email is [EMAIL PROTECTED] Penny's email [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your thoughts and suggestions are appreciated. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility was: deal or no deal
You can't force accessibility, for the reasons mentioned by Che and because accessible is a subjective term. What is accessible to you may not be accessible others. I make games for blind and partially sighted people but they won't work with a Braille display so people who are Deaf-Blind can't play them. Game companies respond to the market but gathering a few dozen signatures isn't going to change anything. Everyone here knows that the market is tiny and few developers are managing to sell more than a couple of hundred copies a year. Yet, there are 2 million people registered blind in the UK, I don't know how many more in the US, and I've just read that India has almost half a million blind children. The potential market is massive but until game developers can penetrate this market, it's going to go unnoticed. As a final thought, APH sell about 20 million dollars' worth of gadgets and assistive products a year and they obviously reach a lot of people. I found only one computer game in their catalogue, which was an antiquated word game. If you could get them, or other distributors, to publicise your games you would increase market awareness. Once you have a large enough market you'll find more developers wanting to get involved. - Original Message - From: Dennis [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'Gamers Discussion list' gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Friday, February 16, 2007 4:09 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] deal or no deal? Hi, my friend and I are attempting through legal remendies to force companies to make there computer games accessible to people with visual impairments or any other handicap the more people we have the better our chances! Feel free to contact me or my friend penny my email is [EMAIL PROTECTED] Penny's email [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your thoughts and suggestions are appreciated. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility was: deal or no deal
If they put a paypal button on their website I'l gladly donate all that I can. Josh - Original Message - From: Bryan Peterson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 7:58 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility was: deal or no deal They just won't be games where you can save, unless the project gets more funding and they're able to build that feature into the program. Bryan and Jennie - Original Message - From: Josh [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Friday, February 16, 2007 10:08 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility was: deal or no deal and when audio game maker comes out I'm sure we'll see the number of games dramatically go up as audio game maker will make it real easy to make games. Josh - Original Message - From: Che [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Friday, February 16, 2007 8:44 PM Subject: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility was: deal or no deal I for one don't think we have any business trying to force companies to make their games accessible. First of all, for the vast majority of games, it simply cannot be done, it would be like trying to force the car manufacturers to make their automobiles accessible. Secondly, it places a black mark on the perception of blind folks in general, as people will roll their eyes and say Well here go the blind again, asking the many to sacrifice for the few for no good reason. If I thought even a small percentage of mainstream games could be made accessible, I would feel differently, but I'm afraid you are spitting in the wind on this one. We're just going to have to accept the fact we're dependant on a handful of developers to make games for us due to our small market, and help them out as much as we can by buying their games. Or, like me, you can learn how to program games yourself and create quality games for the blind. Out. Che - Original Message - From: Dennis [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'Gamers Discussion list' gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Friday, February 16, 2007 4:09 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] deal or no deal? Hi, my friend and I are attempting through legal remendies to force companies to make there computer games accessible to people with visual impairments or any other handicap the more people we have the better our chances! Feel free to contact me or my friend penny my email is [EMAIL PROTECTED] Penny's email [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your thoughts and suggestions are appreciated. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility was: deal or no deal
i have to agree with liam and che on this one. make suggestions, tell themwhy you want it accessible, but do not, and i repeat, do *not*, use force. regards, aaron ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility was: deal or no deal
Funding from us isn't what's going to determine whether or not AGM is further developed. It's the foundation itself. All we really need to do is produce enough quality games and give them enough positive feedback that they can take it to the big bugs, say that this is what the consumers thought and, armed with that information, build the features that both we and they wanted in the program. But we gotta wait for its initial release to come out first. Bryan and Jennie - Original Message - From: Josh [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 7:05 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility was: deal or no deal If they put a paypal button on their website I'l gladly donate all that I can. Josh - Original Message - From: Bryan Peterson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 7:58 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility was: deal or no deal They just won't be games where you can save, unless the project gets more funding and they're able to build that feature into the program. Bryan and Jennie - Original Message - From: Josh [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Friday, February 16, 2007 10:08 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility was: deal or no deal and when audio game maker comes out I'm sure we'll see the number of games dramatically go up as audio game maker will make it real easy to make games. Josh - Original Message - From: Che [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Friday, February 16, 2007 8:44 PM Subject: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility was: deal or no deal I for one don't think we have any business trying to force companies to make their games accessible. First of all, for the vast majority of games, it simply cannot be done, it would be like trying to force the car manufacturers to make their automobiles accessible. Secondly, it places a black mark on the perception of blind folks in general, as people will roll their eyes and say Well here go the blind again, asking the many to sacrifice for the few for no good reason. If I thought even a small percentage of mainstream games could be made accessible, I would feel differently, but I'm afraid you are spitting in the wind on this one. We're just going to have to accept the fact we're dependant on a handful of developers to make games for us due to our small market, and help them out as much as we can by buying their games. Or, like me, you can learn how to program games yourself and create quality games for the blind. Out. Che - Original Message - From: Dennis [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'Gamers Discussion list' gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Friday, February 16, 2007 4:09 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] deal or no deal? Hi, my friend and I are attempting through legal remendies to force companies to make there computer games accessible to people with visual impairments or any other handicap the more people we have the better our chances! Feel free to contact me or my friend penny my email is [EMAIL PROTECTED] Penny's email [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your thoughts and suggestions are appreciated. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility was: deal or no deal
Yes, that's exactly what we need! We haven't got a lot of news on AGM, by the way, other than that we're still waiting for the software to come in and that one programmer is still busy (re)programming a few parts. - Original Message - From: Bryan Peterson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 4:55 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility was: deal or no deal Funding from us isn't what's going to determine whether or not AGM is further developed. It's the foundation itself. All we really need to do is produce enough quality games and give them enough positive feedback that they can take it to the big bugs, say that this is what the consumers thought and, armed with that information, build the features that both we and they wanted in the program. But we gotta wait for its initial release to come out first. Bryan and Jennie - Original Message - From: Josh [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 7:05 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility was: deal or no deal If they put a paypal button on their website I'l gladly donate all that I can. Josh - Original Message - From: Bryan Peterson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 7:58 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility was: deal or no deal They just won't be games where you can save, unless the project gets more funding and they're able to build that feature into the program. Bryan and Jennie - Original Message - From: Josh [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Friday, February 16, 2007 10:08 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility was: deal or no deal and when audio game maker comes out I'm sure we'll see the number of games dramatically go up as audio game maker will make it real easy to make games. Josh - Original Message - From: Che [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Friday, February 16, 2007 8:44 PM Subject: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility was: deal or no deal I for one don't think we have any business trying to force companies to make their games accessible. First of all, for the vast majority of games, it simply cannot be done, it would be like trying to force the car manufacturers to make their automobiles accessible. Secondly, it places a black mark on the perception of blind folks in general, as people will roll their eyes and say Well here go the blind again, asking the many to sacrifice for the few for no good reason. If I thought even a small percentage of mainstream games could be made accessible, I would feel differently, but I'm afraid you are spitting in the wind on this one. We're just going to have to accept the fact we're dependant on a handful of developers to make games for us due to our small market, and help them out as much as we can by buying their games. Or, like me, you can learn how to program games yourself and create quality games for the blind. Out. Che - Original Message - From: Dennis [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'Gamers Discussion list' gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Friday, February 16, 2007 4:09 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] deal or no deal? Hi, my friend and I are attempting through legal remendies to force companies to make there computer games accessible to people with visual impairments or any other handicap the more people we have the better our chances! Feel free to contact me or my friend penny my email is [EMAIL PROTECTED] Penny's email [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your thoughts and suggestions are appreciated. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility was: deal or no deal
You know, there are a few blind people who have never heard of accessible games. They just play mainstream games, and I think that if the developers were to make there games accessible, then a lot more blind people would jump at the chance to play them, me being one of them. - Original Message - From: Bryan Peterson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 9:53 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility was: deal or no deal We have a better chance of persuading mainstream devs of the value of accessibility than we do of forcing i., But it's not happening without presenting them some serious statistics. We have to PERSUADE, not force here, or as Liam said we'll give the blind community a bad name. Besides, we need to convince them that they wouldn't be making a huge financial blunder. That was one of the things the folks at Audio Games wanted us to do when Soundvoyager was released, to play it and give Nintendo our hints and experiences. I myself did and have to admit that they seemed fairly open to the idea of accessibility to the blind. So if we can put together enough statistics and marshall a convincing argument, we might just sway a dev or two, and if enough devs take to the cause then more might be swayed as well. But trying to force the issue isn't going to get us anything but a bad reputation, and the reputation of the blind in some quarters probably could be better as it is. Bryan and Jennie - Original Message - From: aaron danvers-jukes [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 7:15 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility was: deal or no deal i have to agree with liam and che on this one. make suggestions, tell themwhy you want it accessible, but do not, and i repeat, do *not*, use force. regards, aaron ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility was: deal or no deal
This is certainly something I'd be glad to help with as well, when the time comes. It's sort of a win win situation, the community gets more games to play, those of us who can't program get to make games, and richard and co get funding to improve matters with the Agm. I think that with all the work being put into it it'd be a great shame if the Agm doesn't recieve enough support. Beware the Grue! Dark. - Original Message - From: AudioGames.net [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 4:06 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility was: deal or no deal Yes, that's exactly what we need! We haven't got a lot of news on AGM, by the way, other than that we're still waiting for the software to come in and that one programmer is still busy (re)programming a few parts. - Original Message - From: Bryan Peterson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 4:55 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility was: deal or no deal Funding from us isn't what's going to determine whether or not AGM is further developed. It's the foundation itself. All we really need to do is produce enough quality games and give them enough positive feedback that they can take it to the big bugs, say that this is what the consumers thought and, armed with that information, build the features that both we and they wanted in the program. But we gotta wait for its initial release to come out first. Bryan and Jennie ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility was: deal or no deal
But it goes back to convincing devs to make their games accessible, since they're not just going to do it. We'd have to find out just how many blind gamers there are out there, how many of them would play games that mainstream devs made accessible (and probably a whole lot of other information), then get someone who's actually interested enough to consider what we found out. Even once we get all the statistics you have to have someone willing to learn, and not all mainstream devs are. They're either afraid of how much it would cost, or they don't want to be known as an accessibility company, whatever the heck that means. They seem to think that making accessible games, even if they built a toggle into their game so that each player could have it set up the way he or she wanted it, might tarnish their reputation or make people take them less seriously. Bryan and Jennie - Original Message - From: david [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 9:28 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility was: deal or no deal You know, there are a few blind people who have never heard of accessible games. They just play mainstream games, and I think that if the developers were to make there games accessible, then a lot more blind people would jump at the chance to play them, me being one of them. - Original Message - From: Bryan Peterson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 9:53 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility was: deal or no deal We have a better chance of persuading mainstream devs of the value of accessibility than we do of forcing i., But it's not happening without presenting them some serious statistics. We have to PERSUADE, not force here, or as Liam said we'll give the blind community a bad name. Besides, we need to convince them that they wouldn't be making a huge financial blunder. That was one of the things the folks at Audio Games wanted us to do when Soundvoyager was released, to play it and give Nintendo our hints and experiences. I myself did and have to admit that they seemed fairly open to the idea of accessibility to the blind. So if we can put together enough statistics and marshall a convincing argument, we might just sway a dev or two, and if enough devs take to the cause then more might be swayed as well. But trying to force the issue isn't going to get us anything but a bad reputation, and the reputation of the blind in some quarters probably could be better as it is. Bryan and Jennie - Original Message - From: aaron danvers-jukes [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 7:15 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility was: deal or no deal i have to agree with liam and che on this one. make suggestions, tell themwhy you want it accessible, but do not, and i repeat, do *not*, use force. regards, aaron ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility was: deal or no deal
Well, hope all goes well. My girlfriend is looking forward to experimenting with AGM almost more than I am. This is real cool considering she isn't blind or visually impaired. No doubt she and I'll produce some cool titles when it comes out and hopefully we'l present enough statistics so you guys can get more funding and put more of the features you wanted in there. Bryan and Jennie - Original Message - From: AudioGames.net [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 9:06 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility was: deal or no deal Yes, that's exactly what we need! We haven't got a lot of news on AGM, by the way, other than that we're still waiting for the software to come in and that one programmer is still busy (re)programming a few parts. - Original Message - From: Bryan Peterson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 4:55 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility was: deal or no deal Funding from us isn't what's going to determine whether or not AGM is further developed. It's the foundation itself. All we really need to do is produce enough quality games and give them enough positive feedback that they can take it to the big bugs, say that this is what the consumers thought and, armed with that information, build the features that both we and they wanted in the program. But we gotta wait for its initial release to come out first. Bryan and Jennie - Original Message - From: Josh [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 7:05 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility was: deal or no deal If they put a paypal button on their website I'l gladly donate all that I can. Josh - Original Message - From: Bryan Peterson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 7:58 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility was: deal or no deal They just won't be games where you can save, unless the project gets more funding and they're able to build that feature into the program. Bryan and Jennie - Original Message - From: Josh [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Friday, February 16, 2007 10:08 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility was: deal or no deal and when audio game maker comes out I'm sure we'll see the number of games dramatically go up as audio game maker will make it real easy to make games. Josh - Original Message - From: Che [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Friday, February 16, 2007 8:44 PM Subject: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility was: deal or no deal I for one don't think we have any business trying to force companies to make their games accessible. First of all, for the vast majority of games, it simply cannot be done, it would be like trying to force the car manufacturers to make their automobiles accessible. Secondly, it places a black mark on the perception of blind folks in general, as people will roll their eyes and say Well here go the blind again, asking the many to sacrifice for the few for no good reason. If I thought even a small percentage of mainstream games could be made accessible, I would feel differently, but I'm afraid you are spitting in the wind on this one. We're just going to have to accept the fact we're dependant on a handful of developers to make games for us due to our small market, and help them out as much as we can by buying their games. Or, like me, you can learn how to program games yourself and create quality games for the blind. Out. Che - Original Message - From: Dennis [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'Gamers Discussion list' gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Friday, February 16, 2007 4:09 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] deal or no deal? Hi, my friend and I are attempting through legal remendies to force companies to make there computer games accessible to people with visual impairments or any other handicap the more people we have the better our chances! Feel free to contact me or my friend penny my email is [EMAIL PROTECTED] Penny's email [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your thoughts and suggestions are appreciated. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility was: deal or no deal
You know, there are a few blind people who have never heard of accessible games. My point exactly. If you increase awareness you'll increase the size of the market and once you've got thousands of people buying games and not just a few dozen, larger developers will start to take notice. There's no shortage of blind people. You don't need to create more blind people, you need to create more blind gamers! Steve ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
Hi all, Sorry, I am very late to this party, but you really must understand there is no way we can force developers much less game companies like activision, Nintendo, Sega, Microsoft Game Studios, to do anything. Especially, since we are a minority group with very little cash potential. In fact encouraging them with a good persuasively drafted position is the only way to even get started. You can get started by becoming part of and supporting groups like IGDA which is already attempting to do just that. Put together articles, code examples, etc to bring to the big name developers and their companies to promote more accessible game design implementations. Unfortunately, we also have to increase our ranks and have a higher number of statistics to show these companies. While Audyssey is a very active community we have on this list at most 200 to 300 members at a time. Now, assuming every single one of us bought a mainstream game made accessible for $45.00 that only comes to $13500 total for 300 units sold. That little amount of cash won't interest a company. The average dev for those companies triples that amount in his or her salary. Ok, from speaking to my fellow ag developers we estimate the total market strength right now at 2000 products sold by any one accessible company. Using our example of $45 times 2000 units sold $comes to $9. Looking better, but certainly not enough to interest a mainstream company which is grossing millions on Doom III, Jedi Knight X, Castlevania X, etc... I grant you if Activision or another big company like Microsoft put out an accessible game they could probably Brose more than $9 since they have channels to market to a wider audience. However, once you start ticking off the numbers like who does not have computers, who is old and elderly who is likely to be disinterested, and so on the numbers of potential customers shrinks rather rapidly. A statistical fact here is the majority of those blind in the US is those who have lost their sight later in life do to many common issues involved with old age. Having younger people with vision impairments is a significantly smaller group than the elderly with vision impairments. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
I get asked the same questions, and what you said is right on. The fact is is that our market just isn't big enough. I few years ago I was on the phone with a korg representative and we were discussing my korg x5. I pointed out that it would be great if there was some sort of module that made the korg speak. he said that he agreed with my thoughts, but the fact was was there was no market for that. We need to think in terms of market strength. I know the number of blind to sighted is very small, and even those who play video games is smaller still. I don't want to say it's a lost cause, but I'm not losing any sleep over whether or not I'll be able to play the next big release. - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 1:15 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility Hi all, Sorry, I am very late to this party, but you really must understand there is no way we can force developers much less game companies like activision, Nintendo, Sega, Microsoft Game Studios, to do anything. Especially, since we are a minority group with very little cash potential. In fact encouraging them with a good persuasively drafted position is the only way to even get started. You can get started by becoming part of and supporting groups like IGDA which is already attempting to do just that. Put together articles, code examples, etc to bring to the big name developers and their companies to promote more accessible game design implementations. Unfortunately, we also have to increase our ranks and have a higher number of statistics to show these companies. While Audyssey is a very active community we have on this list at most 200 to 300 members at a time. Now, assuming every single one of us bought a mainstream game made accessible for $45.00 that only comes to $13500 total for 300 units sold. That little amount of cash won't interest a company. The average dev for those companies triples that amount in his or her salary. Ok, from speaking to my fellow ag developers we estimate the total market strength right now at 2000 products sold by any one accessible company. Using our example of $45 times 2000 units sold $comes to $9. Looking better, but certainly not enough to interest a mainstream company which is grossing millions on Doom III, Jedi Knight X, Castlevania X, etc... I grant you if Activision or another big company like Microsoft put out an accessible game they could probably Brose more than $9 since they have channels to market to a wider audience. However, once you start ticking off the numbers like who does not have computers, who is old and elderly who is likely to be disinterested, and so on the numbers of potential customers shrinks rather rapidly. A statistical fact here is the majority of those blind in the US is those who have lost their sight later in life do to many common issues involved with old age. Having younger people with vision impairments is a significantly smaller group than the elderly with vision impairments. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
so if we can't get the developers to make their games accessible, why not rip the audio from the mainstream games and make our own accessible versions with audio game maker? Josh - Original Message - From: Liam Erven [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 2:25 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility I get asked the same questions, and what you said is right on. The fact is is that our market just isn't big enough. I few years ago I was on the phone with a korg representative and we were discussing my korg x5. I pointed out that it would be great if there was some sort of module that made the korg speak. he said that he agreed with my thoughts, but the fact was was there was no market for that. We need to think in terms of market strength. I know the number of blind to sighted is very small, and even those who play video games is smaller still. I don't want to say it's a lost cause, but I'm not losing any sleep over whether or not I'll be able to play the next big release. - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 1:15 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility Hi all, Sorry, I am very late to this party, but you really must understand there is no way we can force developers much less game companies like activision, Nintendo, Sega, Microsoft Game Studios, to do anything. Especially, since we are a minority group with very little cash potential. In fact encouraging them with a good persuasively drafted position is the only way to even get started. You can get started by becoming part of and supporting groups like IGDA which is already attempting to do just that. Put together articles, code examples, etc to bring to the big name developers and their companies to promote more accessible game design implementations. Unfortunately, we also have to increase our ranks and have a higher number of statistics to show these companies. While Audyssey is a very active community we have on this list at most 200 to 300 members at a time. Now, assuming every single one of us bought a mainstream game made accessible for $45.00 that only comes to $13500 total for 300 units sold. That little amount of cash won't interest a company. The average dev for those companies triples that amount in his or her salary. Ok, from speaking to my fellow ag developers we estimate the total market strength right now at 2000 products sold by any one accessible company. Using our example of $45 times 2000 units sold $comes to $9. Looking better, but certainly not enough to interest a mainstream company which is grossing millions on Doom III, Jedi Knight X, Castlevania X, etc... I grant you if Activision or another big company like Microsoft put out an accessible game they could probably Brose more than $9 since they have channels to market to a wider audience. However, once you start ticking off the numbers like who does not have computers, who is old and elderly who is likely to be disinterested, and so on the numbers of potential customers shrinks rather rapidly. A statistical fact here is the majority of those blind in the US is those who have lost their sight later in life do to many common issues involved with old age. Having younger people with vision impairments is a significantly smaller group than the elderly with vision impairments. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
Hi Che, Exactly, my point as well. Not only do we not have the numbers to force the issue we are also sometimes asking the impossible from a programming standpoint. Sometimes these games are 3D not just in graphics and sound, but in fact the entire levels are 3D. I'd like to hold up the AQ, Audio Quake project, as an example. While Michael and others have been working towards making Quake accessible it is far from a real solution for total access. Much improved, playable yes, but far from as accessible as SOD, GTC, and other games out there. Back when I played around with AQ, quite a while ago, one thing that really got me lost was the full 3D environment. We can move in six directions, and presenting that to a totally blind gamer can be disorienting. I am seeing posts from Damien and others how hard 2D levels like SOD are I'd hate to see the same people take on a really challenging 3D maze such as many of the Star Wars games have etc. In the SW games the exits for the rooms are not really obvious to a sighted gamer let alone a blind one. You have to cut out grates, jump through holes in the ceilings, find secret and hidden buttons and switches,and you sometimes have to visually see where to jump to. No way of conveying the same info by audio. You eather see the place to jump to, or you fall to your doom off the side of a building. Even if an A.G. developer were to recreate one of those games some challenges would have to be removed to save over complexity or fix it so the player could jump to that next building without falling all the time. I could imagine what a major pain it would be to make all that accessible, and still keep the challenge in the game. Even Monty, an Atari game, and simple by sighted standards needs several special adaptations to make it playable for a totally blind gamer which would make the game boring to a sighted gamer that plays much faster than we do. Che wrote: I for one don't think we have any business trying to force companies to make their games accessible. First of all, for the vast majority of games, it simply cannot be done, it would be like trying to force the car manufacturers to make their automobiles accessible. Secondly, it places a black mark on the perception of blind folks in general, as people will roll their eyes and say Well here go the blind again, asking the many to sacrifice for the few for no good reason. If I thought even a small percentage of mainstream games could be made accessible, I would feel differently, but I'm afraid you are spitting in the wind on this one. We're just going to have to accept the fact we're dependant on a handful of developers to make games for us due to our small market, and help them out as much as we can by buying their games. Or, like me, you can learn how to program games yourself and create quality games for the blind. Out. Che ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
Hi Bryan, Right. Not only that games aren't as easy to adapt as other forms of media such as telivision and books. Books is an easy thing to adapt as all you need is a reader to read it, record it, and put it on tape, cd, or other audio medium. TV shows is the same. The technology is there for descriptive vidio, and you have a much easier battle with getting mainstream tv shows to be aired with dvs rather than getting companies to adapt games. A good example, I can think of is when the Section 508 guidelines came down. The U.S. government realised that computers needed to be accessible to some degree, but SEC 508 mainly applies to business type software someone would use on a job or in a government office. Since the SEC. 508 has been issued Linux, Mac, Solaris have become much more accessible hosting there own built in screen readers, and many of the office applications have become accesssible or are becoming more accessible all the time. However, games are not as easy to adapt as office applications, books, or tv shows. Many of them have a completely style of playing than any accessible game. It is easy to say make it accessible, but doing is harder than saying so. Honestly, such talk is from many of those who have no programming knolege or have looked inside the guts of a vidio game to know how the operate. Bryan Peterson wrote: We have a better chance of persuading mainstream devs of the value of accessibility than we do of forcing i., But it's not happening without presenting them some serious statistics. We have to PERSUADE, not force here, or as Liam said we'll give the blind community a bad name. Besides, we need to convince them that they wouldn't be making a huge financial blunder. That was one of the things the folks at Audio Games wanted us to do when Soundvoyager was released, to play it and give Nintendo our hints and experiences. I myself did and have to admit that they seemed fairly open to the idea of accessibility to the blind. So if we can put together enough statistics and marshall a convincing argument, we might just sway a dev or two, and if enough devs take to the cause then more might be swayed as well. But trying to force the issue isn't going to get us anything but a bad reputation, and the reputation of the blind in some quarters probably could be better as it is. Bryan and Jennie ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
because that's copyright infringement - Original Message - From: Josh [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 1:34 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility so if we can't get the developers to make their games accessible, why not rip the audio from the mainstream games and make our own accessible versions with audio game maker? Josh - Original Message - From: Liam Erven [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 2:25 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility I get asked the same questions, and what you said is right on. The fact is is that our market just isn't big enough. I few years ago I was on the phone with a korg representative and we were discussing my korg x5. I pointed out that it would be great if there was some sort of module that made the korg speak. he said that he agreed with my thoughts, but the fact was was there was no market for that. We need to think in terms of market strength. I know the number of blind to sighted is very small, and even those who play video games is smaller still. I don't want to say it's a lost cause, but I'm not losing any sleep over whether or not I'll be able to play the next big release. - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 1:15 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility Hi all, Sorry, I am very late to this party, but you really must understand there is no way we can force developers much less game companies like activision, Nintendo, Sega, Microsoft Game Studios, to do anything. Especially, since we are a minority group with very little cash potential. In fact encouraging them with a good persuasively drafted position is the only way to even get started. You can get started by becoming part of and supporting groups like IGDA which is already attempting to do just that. Put together articles, code examples, etc to bring to the big name developers and their companies to promote more accessible game design implementations. Unfortunately, we also have to increase our ranks and have a higher number of statistics to show these companies. While Audyssey is a very active community we have on this list at most 200 to 300 members at a time. Now, assuming every single one of us bought a mainstream game made accessible for $45.00 that only comes to $13500 total for 300 units sold. That little amount of cash won't interest a company. The average dev for those companies triples that amount in his or her salary. Ok, from speaking to my fellow ag developers we estimate the total market strength right now at 2000 products sold by any one accessible company. Using our example of $45 times 2000 units sold $comes to $9. Looking better, but certainly not enough to interest a mainstream company which is grossing millions on Doom III, Jedi Knight X, Castlevania X, etc... I grant you if Activision or another big company like Microsoft put out an accessible game they could probably Brose more than $9 since they have channels to market to a wider audience. However, once you start ticking off the numbers like who does not have computers, who is old and elderly who is likely to be disinterested, and so on the numbers of potential customers shrinks rather rapidly. A statistical fact here is the majority of those blind in the US is those who have lost their sight later in life do to many common issues involved with old age. Having younger people with vision impairments is a significantly smaller group than the elderly with vision impairments. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
Hi Josh, Sigh It is simply because the companies have legal copyrights over the media, (graphics story and sounds,) of the games they create. Using that media content could, (I repete could,) land a accessible game developer in hot water because steeling or using copyrighted game content without prier consent of the copyright holder is legally considered a crime in the USA. You and I can discuss the evils of not having game x accessible, and that company should either make it accessible or lend us the materials to make it ourselves, but that is nothing more or less than intilectual diferences of opinion. If I make a Star Wars I do it at my own personal risk, but know that I am legally forbidden to do so do to copyright laws. Hey, it is unfair, but 9 times out of 10 the law would side with the company than us. As the Rolling Stones once sang, Sometimes you can't always get what you want. No you can't always get what you want, but sometimes you just might find you'll get what you need. To look it another way consider public safety laws like speeding limits. A person might believe he has the right to go 80 or 100 miles per hour down this long stretch of road which seams totally empty when the limit is 60. Well, person x can argue with the policeman giveing him the speeding ticket or the judge that is asigning his sentense, but the law is on their side. No argument I have the right to do so, because I think I should because the road seamed empty is going to move the police or courts to not give him his ticket and tell him to go ahead and speed when there is no traffic around. Bottomline he was speeding in a 60 MPH speeding zone. Last year I was at my local court house and got to sit through traffic court. I heard lots of reasons why person x was speeding, some of them sounded quite convincing and reasonable to me, but the judge still fined them, and sent them packing. Sometimes I felt the law was too harsh, unreasonable, but on the other hand the law is there to serve and protect as well. Companies need good copyright laws to keep the compitition from steeling their hard earned work. However, the same laws sometimes blindly excludes the minority groups that falls nowhere inbetween the extremes. Josh wrote: so if we can't get the developers to make their games accessible, why not rip the audio from the mainstream games and make our own accessible versions with audio game maker? ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
Hi thom interesting stuff. I have similar troubles with the numbers of young blind people when trying to promote the cause of recording more Sf or Fantasy books, sinse here in the Uk, there is no government funding to make books accessible and it's left up to charities, who have limited resources and tend to cater to the majority, ie, the eldily. It's hard enough to try and persuade some of them, and they are charitable organizations set up specifically to help blind people and not (in theory anyway), make a prophit. So, while I totally support and would be glad to help with any efforts to make main stream companies more aware of accessible gaming issues, I'm not holding my breath for anything more than a few more titles like Sound voyager being released. Beware the Grue! Dark. - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 7:15 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility Hi all, Sorry, I am very late to this party, but you really must understand there is no way we can force developers much less game companies like activision, Nintendo, Sega, Microsoft Game Studios, to do anything. Especially, since we are a minority group with very little cash potential. In fact encouraging them with a good persuasively drafted position is the only way to even get started. You can get started by becoming part of and supporting groups like IGDA which is already attempting to do just that. Put together articles, code examples, etc to bring to the big name developers and their companies to promote more accessible game design implementations. Unfortunately, we also have to increase our ranks and have a higher number of statistics to show these companies. While Audyssey is a very active community we have on this list at most 200 to 300 members at a time. Now, assuming every single one of us bought a mainstream game made accessible for $45.00 that only comes to $13500 total for 300 units sold. That little amount of cash won't interest a company. The average dev for those companies triples that amount in his or her salary. Ok, from speaking to my fellow ag developers we estimate the total market strength right now at 2000 products sold by any one accessible company. Using our example of $45 times 2000 units sold $comes to $9. Looking better, but certainly not enough to interest a mainstream company which is grossing millions on Doom III, Jedi Knight X, Castlevania X, etc... I grant you if Activision or another big company like Microsoft put out an accessible game they could probably Brose more than $9 since they have channels to market to a wider audience. However, once you start ticking off the numbers like who does not have computers, who is old and elderly who is likely to be disinterested, and so on the numbers of potential customers shrinks rather rapidly. A statistical fact here is the majority of those blind in the US is those who have lost their sight later in life do to many common issues involved with old age. Having younger people with vision impairments is a significantly smaller group than the elderly with vision impairments. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
but you already tried getting ahold of companies to ask them for permission and they seemed not to care. didn't you? Josh - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 3:43 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility Hi Josh, Sigh It is simply because the companies have legal copyrights over the media, (graphics story and sounds,) of the games they create. Using that media content could, (I repete could,) land a accessible game developer in hot water because steeling or using copyrighted game content without prier consent of the copyright holder is legally considered a crime in the USA. You and I can discuss the evils of not having game x accessible, and that company should either make it accessible or lend us the materials to make it ourselves, but that is nothing more or less than intilectual diferences of opinion. If I make a Star Wars I do it at my own personal risk, but know that I am legally forbidden to do so do to copyright laws. Hey, it is unfair, but 9 times out of 10 the law would side with the company than us. As the Rolling Stones once sang, Sometimes you can't always get what you want. No you can't always get what you want, but sometimes you just might find you'll get what you need. To look it another way consider public safety laws like speeding limits. A person might believe he has the right to go 80 or 100 miles per hour down this long stretch of road which seams totally empty when the limit is 60. Well, person x can argue with the policeman giveing him the speeding ticket or the judge that is asigning his sentense, but the law is on their side. No argument I have the right to do so, because I think I should because the road seamed empty is going to move the police or courts to not give him his ticket and tell him to go ahead and speed when there is no traffic around. Bottomline he was speeding in a 60 MPH speeding zone. Last year I was at my local court house and got to sit through traffic court. I heard lots of reasons why person x was speeding, some of them sounded quite convincing and reasonable to me, but the judge still fined them, and sent them packing. Sometimes I felt the law was too harsh, unreasonable, but on the other hand the law is there to serve and protect as well. Companies need good copyright laws to keep the compitition from steeling their hard earned work. However, the same laws sometimes blindly excludes the minority groups that falls nowhere inbetween the extremes. Josh wrote: so if we can't get the developers to make their games accessible, why not rip the audio from the mainstream games and make our own accessible versions with audio game maker? ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
but only blind people would be playing the games. And if you don't make money off it and give the original developers credit in the accessible games how could it still be copyright infringement? Josh - Original Message - From: Liam Erven [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 2:49 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility because that's copyright infringement - Original Message - From: Josh [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 1:34 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility so if we can't get the developers to make their games accessible, why not rip the audio from the mainstream games and make our own accessible versions with audio game maker? Josh - Original Message - From: Liam Erven [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 2:25 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility I get asked the same questions, and what you said is right on. The fact is is that our market just isn't big enough. I few years ago I was on the phone with a korg representative and we were discussing my korg x5. I pointed out that it would be great if there was some sort of module that made the korg speak. he said that he agreed with my thoughts, but the fact was was there was no market for that. We need to think in terms of market strength. I know the number of blind to sighted is very small, and even those who play video games is smaller still. I don't want to say it's a lost cause, but I'm not losing any sleep over whether or not I'll be able to play the next big release. - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 1:15 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility Hi all, Sorry, I am very late to this party, but you really must understand there is no way we can force developers much less game companies like activision, Nintendo, Sega, Microsoft Game Studios, to do anything. Especially, since we are a minority group with very little cash potential. In fact encouraging them with a good persuasively drafted position is the only way to even get started. You can get started by becoming part of and supporting groups like IGDA which is already attempting to do just that. Put together articles, code examples, etc to bring to the big name developers and their companies to promote more accessible game design implementations. Unfortunately, we also have to increase our ranks and have a higher number of statistics to show these companies. While Audyssey is a very active community we have on this list at most 200 to 300 members at a time. Now, assuming every single one of us bought a mainstream game made accessible for $45.00 that only comes to $13500 total for 300 units sold. That little amount of cash won't interest a company. The average dev for those companies triples that amount in his or her salary. Ok, from speaking to my fellow ag developers we estimate the total market strength right now at 2000 products sold by any one accessible company. Using our example of $45 times 2000 units sold $comes to $9. Looking better, but certainly not enough to interest a mainstream company which is grossing millions on Doom III, Jedi Knight X, Castlevania X, etc... I grant you if Activision or another big company like Microsoft put out an accessible game they could probably Brose more than $9 since they have channels to market to a wider audience. However, once you start ticking off the numbers like who does not have computers, who is old and elderly who is likely to be disinterested, and so on the numbers of potential customers shrinks rather rapidly. A statistical fact here is the majority of those blind in the US is those who have lost their sight later in life do to many common issues involved with old age. Having younger people with vision impairments is a significantly smaller group than the elderly with vision impairments. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
I agree with what has been said here. Its also the cost. Major games companies would have to spend a fair bit on making games accessible. It won't ever happen if it does then I'll be surprised. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Thomas Ward Sent: 17 February 2007 19:37 To: Gamers Discussion list Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility Hi Che, Exactly, my point as well. Not only do we not have the numbers to force the issue we are also sometimes asking the impossible from a programming standpoint. Sometimes these games are 3D not just in graphics and sound, but in fact the entire levels are 3D. I'd like to hold up the AQ, Audio Quake project, as an example. While Michael and others have been working towards making Quake accessible it is far from a real solution for total access. Much improved, playable yes, but far from as accessible as SOD, GTC, and other games out there. Back when I played around with AQ, quite a while ago, one thing that really got me lost was the full 3D environment. We can move in six directions, and presenting that to a totally blind gamer can be disorienting. I am seeing posts from Damien and others how hard 2D levels like SOD are I'd hate to see the same people take on a really challenging 3D maze such as many of the Star Wars games have etc. In the SW games the exits for the rooms are not really obvious to a sighted gamer let alone a blind one. You have to cut out grates, jump through holes in the ceilings, find secret and hidden buttons and switches,and you sometimes have to visually see where to jump to. No way of conveying the same info by audio. You eather see the place to jump to, or you fall to your doom off the side of a building. Even if an A.G. developer were to recreate one of those games some challenges would have to be removed to save over complexity or fix it so the player could jump to that next building without falling all the time. I could imagine what a major pain it would be to make all that accessible, and still keep the challenge in the game. Even Monty, an Atari game, and simple by sighted standards needs several special adaptations to make it playable for a totally blind gamer which would make the game boring to a sighted gamer that plays much faster than we do. Che wrote: I for one don't think we have any business trying to force companies to make their games accessible. First of all, for the vast majority of games, it simply cannot be done, it would be like trying to force the car manufacturers to make their automobiles accessible. Secondly, it places a black mark on the perception of blind folks in general, as people will roll their eyes and say Well here go the blind again, asking the many to sacrifice for the few for no good reason. If I thought even a small percentage of mainstream games could be made accessible, I would feel differently, but I'm afraid you are spitting in the wind on this one. We're just going to have to accept the fact we're dependant on a handful of developers to make games for us due to our small market, and help them out as much as we can by buying their games. Or, like me, you can learn how to program games yourself and create quality games for the blind. Out. Che ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
As far as legal issues go, I do believe there is some mileage to campeign for changes here, sinse some laws are clearly and simply unfair. For instance, one charity which reccords audio books here in the Uk has to borrow books directly from their public library. while their local library will freely let them exceed the lone period on books, if they get a book on interlibrary lone from the national British Library they are forced to pay the standard charge when keeping a book for an extended period, even when recording books. this makes it almost impossible for them to produce any book not available in their local public library. Sinse they don't have the cash to pay the extra lone fees it would take. Imho, this is certainly a case where the law, or at least the national British Library policy, is in error and should deffinately be changed. All the best, Dark. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
Because you're copying someone else's work? - Original Message - From: Josh [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 2:49 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility but only blind people would be playing the games. And if you don't make money off it and give the original developers credit in the accessible games how could it still be copyright infringement? Josh - Original Message - From: Liam Erven [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 2:49 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility because that's copyright infringement - Original Message - From: Josh [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 1:34 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility so if we can't get the developers to make their games accessible, why not rip the audio from the mainstream games and make our own accessible versions with audio game maker? Josh - Original Message - From: Liam Erven [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 2:25 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility I get asked the same questions, and what you said is right on. The fact is is that our market just isn't big enough. I few years ago I was on the phone with a korg representative and we were discussing my korg x5. I pointed out that it would be great if there was some sort of module that made the korg speak. he said that he agreed with my thoughts, but the fact was was there was no market for that. We need to think in terms of market strength. I know the number of blind to sighted is very small, and even those who play video games is smaller still. I don't want to say it's a lost cause, but I'm not losing any sleep over whether or not I'll be able to play the next big release. - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 1:15 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility Hi all, Sorry, I am very late to this party, but you really must understand there is no way we can force developers much less game companies like activision, Nintendo, Sega, Microsoft Game Studios, to do anything. Especially, since we are a minority group with very little cash potential. In fact encouraging them with a good persuasively drafted position is the only way to even get started. You can get started by becoming part of and supporting groups like IGDA which is already attempting to do just that. Put together articles, code examples, etc to bring to the big name developers and their companies to promote more accessible game design implementations. Unfortunately, we also have to increase our ranks and have a higher number of statistics to show these companies. While Audyssey is a very active community we have on this list at most 200 to 300 members at a time. Now, assuming every single one of us bought a mainstream game made accessible for $45.00 that only comes to $13500 total for 300 units sold. That little amount of cash won't interest a company. The average dev for those companies triples that amount in his or her salary. Ok, from speaking to my fellow ag developers we estimate the total market strength right now at 2000 products sold by any one accessible company. Using our example of $45 times 2000 units sold $comes to $9. Looking better, but certainly not enough to interest a mainstream company which is grossing millions on Doom III, Jedi Knight X, Castlevania X, etc... I grant you if Activision or another big company like Microsoft put out an accessible game they could probably Brose more than $9 since they have channels to market to a wider audience. However, once you start ticking off the numbers like who does not have computers, who is old and elderly who is likely to be disinterested, and so on the numbers of potential customers shrinks rather rapidly. A statistical fact here is the majority of those blind in the US is those who have lost their sight later in life do to many common issues involved with old age. Having younger people with vision impairments is a significantly smaller group than the elderly with vision impairments. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
Because you're using someone else's audio. The only thing that might keep the dev from going after you, as Thomas has said in other similar topics,is the risk to their reputation. If, let's say Capcom, went after a blind guy for developing an accessible Mega Man game using their audio, chances were their reputation would suffer some serious trauma. But the would-be dev would suffer unnecessarily as well. You really gotta be careful about that sort of thing.While I myself an planing an audio Metroid style game I couldn't use Metroid audio and indeed I'm just using the basic concept and not the characters or any of that. But you have to be real careful about this sort of thing. Bryan and Jennie - Original Message - From: Josh [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 1:49 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility but only blind people would be playing the games. And if you don't make money off it and give the original developers credit in the accessible games how could it still be copyright infringement? Josh - Original Message - From: Liam Erven [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 2:49 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility because that's copyright infringement - Original Message - From: Josh [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 1:34 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility so if we can't get the developers to make their games accessible, why not rip the audio from the mainstream games and make our own accessible versions with audio game maker? Josh - Original Message - From: Liam Erven [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 2:25 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility I get asked the same questions, and what you said is right on. The fact is is that our market just isn't big enough. I few years ago I was on the phone with a korg representative and we were discussing my korg x5. I pointed out that it would be great if there was some sort of module that made the korg speak. he said that he agreed with my thoughts, but the fact was was there was no market for that. We need to think in terms of market strength. I know the number of blind to sighted is very small, and even those who play video games is smaller still. I don't want to say it's a lost cause, but I'm not losing any sleep over whether or not I'll be able to play the next big release. - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 1:15 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility Hi all, Sorry, I am very late to this party, but you really must understand there is no way we can force developers much less game companies like activision, Nintendo, Sega, Microsoft Game Studios, to do anything. Especially, since we are a minority group with very little cash potential. In fact encouraging them with a good persuasively drafted position is the only way to even get started. You can get started by becoming part of and supporting groups like IGDA which is already attempting to do just that. Put together articles, code examples, etc to bring to the big name developers and their companies to promote more accessible game design implementations. Unfortunately, we also have to increase our ranks and have a higher number of statistics to show these companies. While Audyssey is a very active community we have on this list at most 200 to 300 members at a time. Now, assuming every single one of us bought a mainstream game made accessible for $45.00 that only comes to $13500 total for 300 units sold. That little amount of cash won't interest a company. The average dev for those companies triples that amount in his or her salary. Ok, from speaking to my fellow ag developers we estimate the total market strength right now at 2000 products sold by any one accessible company. Using our example of $45 times 2000 units sold $comes to $9. Looking better, but certainly not enough to interest a mainstream company which is grossing millions on Doom III, Jedi Knight X, Castlevania X, etc... I grant you if Activision or another big company like Microsoft put out an accessible game they could probably Brose more than $9 since they have channels to market to a wider audience. However, once you start ticking off the numbers like who does not have computers, who is old and elderly who is likely to be disinterested, and so on the numbers of potential customers shrinks rather rapidly. A statistical fact here is the majority of those blind in the US is those who have lost their sight later in life do to many common issues involved with old age
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
That doesn't matter. It's still illegal and you do it at your own risk. Yeah, it bites, but we didn't make the laws. We just have to abide by 'em. Take Phil and his Sarah game. He could, could being the key word there, find himself in hot water both from the creators of Labyrinth and Warner Bros. for this game. Bryan and Jennie - Original Message - From: Josh [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 1:52 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility but you already tried getting ahold of companies to ask them for permission and they seemed not to care. didn't you? Josh - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 3:43 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility Hi Josh, Sigh It is simply because the companies have legal copyrights over the media, (graphics story and sounds,) of the games they create. Using that media content could, (I repete could,) land a accessible game developer in hot water because steeling or using copyrighted game content without prier consent of the copyright holder is legally considered a crime in the USA. You and I can discuss the evils of not having game x accessible, and that company should either make it accessible or lend us the materials to make it ourselves, but that is nothing more or less than intilectual diferences of opinion. If I make a Star Wars I do it at my own personal risk, but know that I am legally forbidden to do so do to copyright laws. Hey, it is unfair, but 9 times out of 10 the law would side with the company than us. As the Rolling Stones once sang, Sometimes you can't always get what you want. No you can't always get what you want, but sometimes you just might find you'll get what you need. To look it another way consider public safety laws like speeding limits. A person might believe he has the right to go 80 or 100 miles per hour down this long stretch of road which seams totally empty when the limit is 60. Well, person x can argue with the policeman giveing him the speeding ticket or the judge that is asigning his sentense, but the law is on their side. No argument I have the right to do so, because I think I should because the road seamed empty is going to move the police or courts to not give him his ticket and tell him to go ahead and speed when there is no traffic around. Bottomline he was speeding in a 60 MPH speeding zone. Last year I was at my local court house and got to sit through traffic court. I heard lots of reasons why person x was speeding, some of them sounded quite convincing and reasonable to me, but the judge still fined them, and sent them packing. Sometimes I felt the law was too harsh, unreasonable, but on the other hand the law is there to serve and protect as well. Companies need good copyright laws to keep the compitition from steeling their hard earned work. However, the same laws sometimes blindly excludes the minority groups that falls nowhere inbetween the extremes. Josh wrote: so if we can't get the developers to make their games accessible, why not rip the audio from the mainstream games and make our own accessible versions with audio game maker? ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
I just wandered if we are doing it all wrong. What about this approach. Instead of companies writing or making their games accessible, what about those that can writing interface modifications for them. I wander if all the company that does the game needs to give the rights to the devs to mod the game for accessibility or somehow allows the blind devs to write accessible interfaces, I wander if that would work. You would buy the game As normal. And it would have an accessible interface, you probably would want to buy this as a package or something or have it as all one thing. Its just an idea. Another would to be to show the devs, stuff like audiogamemaker. At 08:15 a.m. 18/02/2007, you wrote: Hi all, Sorry, I am very late to this party, but you really must understand there is no way we can force developers much less game companies like activision, Nintendo, Sega, Microsoft Game Studios, to do anything. Especially, since we are a minority group with very little cash potential. In fact encouraging them with a good persuasively drafted position is the only way to even get started. You can get started by becoming part of and supporting groups like IGDA which is already attempting to do just that. Put together articles, code examples, etc to bring to the big name developers and their companies to promote more accessible game design implementations. Unfortunately, we also have to increase our ranks and have a higher number of statistics to show these companies. While Audyssey is a very active community we have on this list at most 200 to 300 members at a time. Now, assuming every single one of us bought a mainstream game made accessible for $45.00 that only comes to $13500 total for 300 units sold. That little amount of cash won't interest a company. The average dev for those companies triples that amount in his or her salary. Ok, from speaking to my fellow ag developers we estimate the total market strength right now at 2000 products sold by any one accessible company. Using our example of $45 times 2000 units sold $comes to $9. Looking better, but certainly not enough to interest a mainstream company which is grossing millions on Doom III, Jedi Knight X, Castlevania X, etc... I grant you if Activision or another big company like Microsoft put out an accessible game they could probably Brose more than $9 since they have channels to market to a wider audience. However, once you start ticking off the numbers like who does not have computers, who is old and elderly who is likely to be disinterested, and so on the numbers of potential customers shrinks rather rapidly. A statistical fact here is the majority of those blind in the US is those who have lost their sight later in life do to many common issues involved with old age. Having younger people with vision impairments is a significantly smaller group than the elderly with vision impairments. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
To whom it may concern, I am writing to explain my earlier note that was published in this forum. We are not looking to force anyone into doing things we would like to change the programming but if it is not possible we believe that packaging should state clearly that it will not access the proper software for the handicapped computer. We believe that if we bring this to the attention of programmers and that in the future they will begin to make gaming software more compatible. Please do not misunderstand that force isnt what we want to do. We want to bring this to the main stream attention so that no one else has to go thru the troubles of buying an expensive game and then not being able to access it. Sincerly Dennis Need a quick an -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of john snowling Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 2:43 PM To: 'Gamers Discussion list' Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility I agree with what has been said here. Its also the cost. Major games companies would have to spend a fair bit on making games accessible. It won't ever happen if it does then I'll be surprised. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Thomas Ward Sent: 17 February 2007 19:37 To: Gamers Discussion list Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility Hi Che, Exactly, my point as well. Not only do we not have the numbers to force the issue we are also sometimes asking the impossible from a programming standpoint. Sometimes these games are 3D not just in graphics and sound, but in fact the entire levels are 3D. I'd like to hold up the AQ, Audio Quake project, as an example. While Michael and others have been working towards making Quake accessible it is far from a real solution for total access. Much improved, playable yes, but far from as accessible as SOD, GTC, and other games out there. Back when I played around with AQ, quite a while ago, one thing that really got me lost was the full 3D environment. We can move in six directions, and presenting that to a totally blind gamer can be disorienting. I am seeing posts from Damien and others how hard 2D levels like SOD are I'd hate to see the same people take on a really challenging 3D maze such as many of the Star Wars games have etc. In the SW games the exits for the rooms are not really obvious to a sighted gamer let alone a blind one. You have to cut out grates, jump through holes in the ceilings, find secret and hidden buttons and switches,and you sometimes have to visually see where to jump to. No way of conveying the same info by audio. You eather see the place to jump to, or you fall to your doom off the side of a building. Even if an A.G. developer were to recreate one of those games some challenges would have to be removed to save over complexity or fix it so the player could jump to that next building without falling all the time. I could imagine what a major pain it would be to make all that accessible, and still keep the challenge in the game. Even Monty, an Atari game, and simple by sighted standards needs several special adaptations to make it playable for a totally blind gamer which would make the game boring to a sighted gamer that plays much faster than we do. Che wrote: I for one don't think we have any business trying to force companies to make their games accessible. First of all, for the vast majority of games, it simply cannot be done, it would be like trying to force the car manufacturers to make their automobiles accessible. Secondly, it places a black mark on the perception of blind folks in general, as people will roll their eyes and say Well here go the blind again, asking the many to sacrifice for the few for no good reason. If I thought even a small percentage of mainstream games could be made accessible, I would feel differently, but I'm afraid you are spitting in the wind on this one. We're just going to have to accept the fact we're dependant on a handful of developers to make games for us due to our small market, and help them out as much as we can by buying their games. Or, like me, you can learn how to program games yourself and create quality games for the blind. Out. Che ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
Hi Josh, Honestly allot of it comes down to how the end user license agreement, (ula,) is written. I've seen some on one extreme that states clearly go ahead and do what you want to the other extreme which says any use of characters, sounds, graphics, for free or commercial use is absolutely out of the question. Then, there are license agreements less strict and more strict than others. The only way you really know where you stand is check the ula first. One clear time where open source software was challenged by a commercial company happend a couple of years ago. Back then the makers of the big name Linux distrubutions Red Hat, Suse, etc were trying to really advertise the Linux os. They use to have great screen shots of the KDE operating gui environment announced X-Windows everywhere, and tried to get off by saying this was like Windows without stepping on Microsoft's toes. Well, they did anyway. Microsoft took Red Hat or one of the manufacturers to court over their graphical user interface and claming Linux was attempting to copy the MS Windows operating environment. As I recall the way it ended was Linux would not use the term Windows in any of there apps but would reference their Windows-like desktops, (Gnome and KDE,) as a graphical user interface or desktop operating environment. Since Gnome and KDE are visually different from Windows Linux got off from being out right accused of copying Windows, but their attempts to leverage the Windows concept to go in their favor back-fired and landed them in court defending there GUI. The point being is that Linux is and has always been a Unix-like based operating system, built and maintained by the open source community, totally free, and the minute they begin trying to begin looking and acting a bit like the more popular OS Microsoft was right there to try and stop it. Now, I don't think you and I will be facing the same kind of issues, but if the major companies did find out you or I were copying their games to make free blind games we could be served with a court order to sease and desist production, distribution, or face some kind of fine. Josh wrote: but only blind people would be playing the games. And if you don't make money off it and give the original developers credit in the accessible games how could it still be copyright infringement? Josh ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
Hi Josh, Quote how could it still be copyright infringement? End quote Short answer anytime you do anything that is outside of the end user license agreement that the company has not signed off on or agreed to is copyright infringement. It doesn't matter if you gave it away for free or not to some companies. If they say no copying sounds and redistributing them for free or commercial use that is what they mean. I know. It sucks eggs. However, welcome to the world of courts and lawyers. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
Hi Josh, Yes, I did, and we ended up not talking about accessible games but market potential and money. Which was all they cared about. The Lucas Licenseing department isn't there to discuss weather all their products should be accessible, but just a bunch of lawyers trying to get the best deals for their company Lucas Inc. Some background about that. Back when I began working on my Star wars title I contacted Lucas, the company not the man, about getting the rights to sell it to the blind. When I finally did get a response they asked me all kinds of questions about how big was my expected market potential, and other business arrangements. By the end of it I was clearly not able to work with them, because they are use to dealing with Hazbro and major toy companies that can deliver millions if not billions of dollars of sales. If I can only expect around 250 to 500 sales total that is a laughable amount to them. Then, even if the deal had gone through they would have taken a big cut out of the money I might have made. Leaving it not worth bothering for either side. I am not angry at them, but there is really no interest from these companies unless you can show them it is financially in their best interests to do so. Showing them there is a list on the internet dedicated to blind gaming and a few hundred gamers wanting to play their game is not a financially convincing argument. Show them a couple hundred thousand blind gamers, and you might have a convincing argument. Then, they might make a few million off the product. I think what Richard and others is doing is the right approach. Educate the developers themselves about what they can to do add accessibility slowly to their games. Offer some proven time tested code examples, and if it is easy enough the devs just might put it in. Money and market strength won't work for us I am afraid. Josh wrote: but you already tried getting ahold of companies to ask them for permission and they seemed not to care. didn't you? Josh ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
Hi Bryan, Right. I am sure any accessible dev could bring such a case to USA Today, New York Times, or any other major publication in hopes of getting comunity support. It could create a fire storm, a mud slinging contest, but in the end bottom line there could be a number that will say, sorry pal, you broke the law. Could being the word of the day. Hard to say what a court would or would not say, but it certainly would be a bucket full of snakes. In the end all such a case would do is hurt both the accessible developer, heroic to some, public enemy number one to others. Same with the company that took him to court. They would lose face, but I sincerely doubt any cash. Sighted gamers would go on buying those games because they like them after it was all said and done who cares if some blind guy got it up the rear for trying to help his fellow blinks. Bryan Peterson wrote: Because you're using someone else's audio. The only thing that might keep the dev from going after you, as Thomas has said in other similar topics,is the risk to their reputation. If, let's say Capcom, went after a blind guy for developing an accessible Mega Man game using their audio, chances were their reputation would suffer some serious trauma. But the would-be dev would suffer unnecessarily as well. You really gotta be careful about that sort of thing.While I myself an planing an audio Metroid style game I couldn't use Metroid audio and indeed I'm just using the basic concept and not the characters or any of that. But you have to be real careful about this sort of thing. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility
Hi Shaun, The problem is the accessibility has to come from the game's core commonly called the engine. If a game engine supports only stereo than there is absolutely no way to add something like 3D audio without having the original source code for the game. If an engine does not have SAPI support then there is no way to mod that in without having the engine source. I think you are now seeing the problem with that approach. As for audio game maker I think it will be something to show off to mainstream companies as a demonstration of what accessible games can do, but it is still far too primative for actual pro game developers to work with. SHAUN EVERISS wrote: I just wandered if we are doing it all wrong. What about this approach. Instead of companies writing or making their games accessible, what about those that can writing interface modifications for them. I wander if all the company that does the game needs to give the rights to the devs to mod the game for accessibility or somehow allows the blind devs to write accessible interfaces, I wander if that would work. You would buy the game As normal. And it would have an accessible interface, you probably would want to buy this as a package or something or have it as all one thing. Its just an idea. Another would to be to show the devs, stuff like audiogamemaker. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility was: deal or no deal
i would love to find out how to make games yes you do have a point on this - Original Message - From: Che [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 1:44 AM Subject: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility was: deal or no deal I for one don't think we have any business trying to force companies to make their games accessible. First of all, for the vast majority of games, it simply cannot be done, it would be like trying to force the car manufacturers to make their automobiles accessible. Secondly, it places a black mark on the perception of blind folks in general, as people will roll their eyes and say Well here go the blind again, asking the many to sacrifice for the few for no good reason. If I thought even a small percentage of mainstream games could be made accessible, I would feel differently, but I'm afraid you are spitting in the wind on this one. We're just going to have to accept the fact we're dependant on a handful of developers to make games for us due to our small market, and help them out as much as we can by buying their games. Or, like me, you can learn how to program games yourself and create quality games for the blind. Out. Che - Original Message - From: Dennis [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'Gamers Discussion list' gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Friday, February 16, 2007 4:09 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] deal or no deal? Hi, my friend and I are attempting through legal remendies to force companies to make there computer games accessible to people with visual impairments or any other handicap the more people we have the better our chances! Feel free to contact me or my friend penny my email is [EMAIL PROTECTED] Penny's email [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your thoughts and suggestions are appreciated. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.441 / Virus Database: 268.18.0/689 - Release Date: 15/02/2007 17:40 ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility was: deal or no deal
and when audio game maker comes out I'm sure we'll see the number of games dramatically go up as audio game maker will make it real easy to make games. Josh - Original Message - From: Che [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Friday, February 16, 2007 8:44 PM Subject: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility was: deal or no deal I for one don't think we have any business trying to force companies to make their games accessible. First of all, for the vast majority of games, it simply cannot be done, it would be like trying to force the car manufacturers to make their automobiles accessible. Secondly, it places a black mark on the perception of blind folks in general, as people will roll their eyes and say Well here go the blind again, asking the many to sacrifice for the few for no good reason. If I thought even a small percentage of mainstream games could be made accessible, I would feel differently, but I'm afraid you are spitting in the wind on this one. We're just going to have to accept the fact we're dependant on a handful of developers to make games for us due to our small market, and help them out as much as we can by buying their games. Or, like me, you can learn how to program games yourself and create quality games for the blind. Out. Che - Original Message - From: Dennis [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'Gamers Discussion list' gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Friday, February 16, 2007 4:09 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] deal or no deal? Hi, my friend and I are attempting through legal remendies to force companies to make there computer games accessible to people with visual impairments or any other handicap the more people we have the better our chances! Feel free to contact me or my friend penny my email is [EMAIL PROTECTED] Penny's email [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your thoughts and suggestions are appreciated. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
