Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices
I'm in agreement with that. Does rail racer still work? With mine it actually doesn't -Original Message- From: gamers-boun...@audyssey.org [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Hayden Presley Sent: 06 June 2010 21:32 To: 'Gamers Discussion list' Subject: Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices Hi Phil, $39? I can't believe they're charging nearly that much. Now, RailRacer was nearly 40 bucks, but it had a lot of unlockable content, a career mode with classes, and numerous upgrades and tracks to race, plus the ability to make more tracks if you wish, as crazy asyou like (I just recently made one with an 800 foot jump, heheh). Then there's entombed, which costs the same thing, but there are also countless pathways to play in that game, and to be honest Jason could charge even more to and we'dstill get our money's worth. But for APH games? Um...no. Best Regards, Hayden -Original Message- From: gamers-boun...@audyssey.org [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Phil Vlasak Sent: Sunday, June 06, 2010 1:16 PM To: Gamers Discussion list Subject: Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices Hi dark, I've been able to install and run all of the APH games. They had a beta system that allowed you to download an play a timed version of their games. You are correct in that they have not released a game in quite a while. And they sold some of the most expensive games, although they recently dropped their prices a bit. $39.00 Armadillo Army, $39.00 Termite torpedo, $39.00 Toodle Tiles, Phil --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices
Hi Ben, Oh, it still works. So long as you can play MOTA, you should be able to play RailRacer. Best Regards, Hayden -Original Message- From: gamers-boun...@audyssey.org [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Ben Sent: Sunday, June 13, 2010 1:57 AM To: 'Gamers Discussion list' Subject: Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices I'm in agreement with that. Does rail racer still work? With mine it actually doesn't -Original Message- From: gamers-boun...@audyssey.org [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Hayden Presley Sent: 06 June 2010 21:32 To: 'Gamers Discussion list' Subject: Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices Hi Phil, $39? I can't believe they're charging nearly that much. Now, RailRacer was nearly 40 bucks, but it had a lot of unlockable content, a career mode with classes, and numerous upgrades and tracks to race, plus the ability to make more tracks if you wish, as crazy asyou like (I just recently made one with an 800 foot jump, heheh). Then there's entombed, which costs the same thing, but there are also countless pathways to play in that game, and to be honest Jason could charge even more to and we'dstill get our money's worth. But for APH games? Um...no. Best Regards, Hayden -Original Message- From: gamers-boun...@audyssey.org [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Phil Vlasak Sent: Sunday, June 06, 2010 1:16 PM To: Gamers Discussion list Subject: Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices Hi dark, I've been able to install and run all of the APH games. They had a beta system that allowed you to download an play a timed version of their games. You are correct in that they have not released a game in quite a while. And they sold some of the most expensive games, although they recently dropped their prices a bit. $39.00 Armadillo Army, $39.00 Termite torpedo, $39.00 Toodle Tiles, Phil --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices
Hi Brian, Oh, the nastalja! Grin Actually, rounding decimals could be remedied by setting the precision. As for the games, yes, they were, and still are, excellent as far as they go. Best Regards, Hayden -Original Message- From: gamers-boun...@audyssey.org [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Bryan Peterson Sent: Thursday, June 10, 2010 7:55 PM To: Gamers Discussion list Subject: Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices Well I wouldn't know about that to be quite frank. I didn't use the Blazie Notetakers' calculator much because it had a tendency to round decimals up or down at times when that wasn't necessary and could result in wrong answers on assignments in scool when I'd try to verify what I'd already done. One thing I did do on a regular basis was get into trouble for playing the BNS games in class. BNS Blackjack. Now those were some good memories... We are the Knights who say...Ni! - Original Message - From: Hayden Presley hdpres...@hotmail.com To: 'Gamers Discussion list' gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Thursday, June 10, 2010 6:31 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices Hi Brian, The calculator on the Blazie Notetakers was excellent. You had all kinds of conversions, temperature, measurement and so forth, while the BrailleNote I have now lacks many of these features, though the way it handles statistics is considerly better. Best Regards, Hayden -Original Message- From: gamers-boun...@audyssey.org [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Bryan Peterson Sent: Wednesday, June 09, 2010 11:20 PM To: Gamers Discussion list Subject: Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices I agree. I actually liked JFW and JFD better back when it was Henter-Joyce. Same was true of the BLazie notetakers. But that does make sense. I imagine it's probably going to take a family member of one of these major game designers, programmers or whatnot to start losing their sight before one of them even begins to consider taking us seriously. We are the Knights who say...Ni! - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Wednesday, June 09, 2010 9:37 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices Hi Bryan, It does pose an interesting situation even if a bit unlikely. Making accesssible software like games is completely unimportant until it effects someone personally. It wouldn't necessarily have to be a CEO, but a family member, a board member, or one of the lead game developers for it to become a personal matter for someone in that company. That's always how change, real change, gets started. No one seams interested in making a change until it happens to the right person, at the right time, and then it suddenly becomes a personal matter of interest. The closest thing I can compare this to is Ted Henter coming up with Jaws for Dos around 1987. Before then if you were blind and wanted to use an IBM compatible PC running MS Dos or PC Dos there really wasn't much you could do about the situation. Then, Ted Henter had, I want to say, a motor cycle accident that left him blind, and instead of giving up on computers he got some sighted developers together and founded a company called Henter-Joice with the soul aim of creating screen readers and other adaptive software for the blind and low vision. That single change in one man's life has lead to a number of accessible products like Jaws and Magic which has greatly improved the lives of many blind computer users. I disagree with many of Freedom Scientifics current business practices, but I can say that what Ted Henter did was a dramatic improvement in my own life as I have used a number of his products like Jaws personally to get through high school, college, and even on some contract jobs. I think when it comes to mainstream accessible games something similar will have to happen to someone who has a lot of influence and power within a game company for that kind of revolutionary change in polacy to take place. What would happen, for example, if Bill Gates or someone he loves went blind tomorrow? Would he suddenly want the company he started to begin creating accessible XBox consoles and want a more powerful screen reader than Narrator to be incorperated into the Windows operating system? Would that event make software accessibility a more important issue for him and his company? As for Game Spot yeah I have noticed a number of posters there are pretty rude. I don't know the average age of the posters there, but they often strike me as young, very mouthy, punks with no respect for anyone out of their immediate circle of friends. There comments about blind people in general really irritated me as it was obvious to me the posters didn't have a clue what they were talking about and were just shooting there mouth
Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices
Hi tom. It's funny you mention colour blindness. As you know, I am registered blind here in the uk, however I have a small amount of vision. My vision is by no means great, but I have been playing graphical games with it for years. Just as I do with other games, i also look at low vision access, for instance, I currently am playing the roguelike Angband thanks to several graphical tweaks and a large set of graphic tyles, using Hal to read in game messages (I'm also discussing some extra look and coordinates options for the game to allow full access without reference to graphics as well).. usually though, if someone sticks visual access aides in games, they tend to stop at colour blindness changes. they don't for instance make it possible to change in game options by altering a conf fil which is readable by screen reading programs, or allow the game speed to be slowed to compensate for lowered field of vision issues. this is odd, sinse my colour perception is about the bit of my vision which works correctly ;D. People don't seem to considder this aspect of visual access however, which is strange. As regards my deffinition, well thiIn terms of my deffinition, another issue i see with the social ctheory of disability and the idea that disability is a purely social catagory, is it doesn't take into account un diagnosed disabilities, or occasions when a disability is very specific to only one thing. Take an allergy for instance. A person allergic to honey is unable, ie, disabled, to eat honey, which restricts their choice of food at a restaurant. Mental issues are even more problematic, sinse somethingg like clinical depression can stop a person doing many things and leading a normal life, however they're site, hereing and physical movement can be completely fine. My own deffinition therefore is entirely based on factors intrinsic to a persons' physical or mental self which adversely affect their qualitiy of life, ie, their ability to fulfill certain desires or choice of what desires to fulfill, rather than being based on purely social catagories such as blindness, deafness etc. Of course, people's atitudes and the general setup of society can have huge effects, but by separating this affect from the identity of the disability itself, i'm hoping to say more specifically what access is, what assistance is, and hopefully establish some reasonable ground work for making laws or access changes. One particularly interesting piece of work I had to do was come up with an actual deffinition of normality which i was interesting, sinse very few people seem to have even attempted it. Anyway this is getting severely ot and very long so i'll stop. Beware the grue! Dark. s is why rather than --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices
Hi Brian, The calculator on the Blazie Notetakers was excellent. You had all kinds of conversions, temperature, measurement and so forth, while the BrailleNote I have now lacks many of these features, though the way it handles statistics is considerly better. Best Regards, Hayden -Original Message- From: gamers-boun...@audyssey.org [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Bryan Peterson Sent: Wednesday, June 09, 2010 11:20 PM To: Gamers Discussion list Subject: Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices I agree. I actually liked JFW and JFD better back when it was Henter-Joyce. Same was true of the BLazie notetakers. But that does make sense. I imagine it's probably going to take a family member of one of these major game designers, programmers or whatnot to start losing their sight before one of them even begins to consider taking us seriously. We are the Knights who say...Ni! - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Wednesday, June 09, 2010 9:37 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices Hi Bryan, It does pose an interesting situation even if a bit unlikely. Making accesssible software like games is completely unimportant until it effects someone personally. It wouldn't necessarily have to be a CEO, but a family member, a board member, or one of the lead game developers for it to become a personal matter for someone in that company. That's always how change, real change, gets started. No one seams interested in making a change until it happens to the right person, at the right time, and then it suddenly becomes a personal matter of interest. The closest thing I can compare this to is Ted Henter coming up with Jaws for Dos around 1987. Before then if you were blind and wanted to use an IBM compatible PC running MS Dos or PC Dos there really wasn't much you could do about the situation. Then, Ted Henter had, I want to say, a motor cycle accident that left him blind, and instead of giving up on computers he got some sighted developers together and founded a company called Henter-Joice with the soul aim of creating screen readers and other adaptive software for the blind and low vision. That single change in one man's life has lead to a number of accessible products like Jaws and Magic which has greatly improved the lives of many blind computer users. I disagree with many of Freedom Scientifics current business practices, but I can say that what Ted Henter did was a dramatic improvement in my own life as I have used a number of his products like Jaws personally to get through high school, college, and even on some contract jobs. I think when it comes to mainstream accessible games something similar will have to happen to someone who has a lot of influence and power within a game company for that kind of revolutionary change in polacy to take place. What would happen, for example, if Bill Gates or someone he loves went blind tomorrow? Would he suddenly want the company he started to begin creating accessible XBox consoles and want a more powerful screen reader than Narrator to be incorperated into the Windows operating system? Would that event make software accessibility a more important issue for him and his company? As for Game Spot yeah I have noticed a number of posters there are pretty rude. I don't know the average age of the posters there, but they often strike me as young, very mouthy, punks with no respect for anyone out of their immediate circle of friends. There comments about blind people in general really irritated me as it was obvious to me the posters didn't have a clue what they were talking about and were just shooting there mouth off again. All they succeeded in doing is proving how truly ignorant they really are when it comes to anyone with disabilities. As for the Sony lawsuit I have to agree with you that it wasn't a good thing. For one thing there is no law mandating that these companies have to provide accessibility, any accessibility, making it a tough legal battle to begin with. Then, bringing attention to the problem via a lawsuit hasn't braught any sympathy to our cause. The mainstream gamers, like those on Game Spot, just think we are acting like spoiled brats demmanding our own way. Even worse the companies now like us less, because instead of trying to talk to them and get accessibility included through mutual cooperation and via peaceful means this one gamer has just braught the legal system into this trying to get accessibility into his favorite games through brute force. That just upsets the companies making them less likely to want to listen to organizations like Able Gamers and the Game Accessibility Project. The last thing we want is for this person to lose big in court, and then have the game companies simply tune us out completely. Which I am afraid will happen
Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices
Well I wouldn't know about that to be quite frank. I didn't use the Blazie Notetakers' calculator much because it had a tendency to round decimals up or down at times when that wasn't necessary and could result in wrong answers on assignments in scool when I'd try to verify what I'd already done. One thing I did do on a regular basis was get into trouble for playing the BNS games in class. BNS Blackjack. Now those were some good memories... We are the Knights who say...Ni! - Original Message - From: Hayden Presley hdpres...@hotmail.com To: 'Gamers Discussion list' gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Thursday, June 10, 2010 6:31 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices Hi Brian, The calculator on the Blazie Notetakers was excellent. You had all kinds of conversions, temperature, measurement and so forth, while the BrailleNote I have now lacks many of these features, though the way it handles statistics is considerly better. Best Regards, Hayden -Original Message- From: gamers-boun...@audyssey.org [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Bryan Peterson Sent: Wednesday, June 09, 2010 11:20 PM To: Gamers Discussion list Subject: Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices I agree. I actually liked JFW and JFD better back when it was Henter-Joyce. Same was true of the BLazie notetakers. But that does make sense. I imagine it's probably going to take a family member of one of these major game designers, programmers or whatnot to start losing their sight before one of them even begins to consider taking us seriously. We are the Knights who say...Ni! - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Wednesday, June 09, 2010 9:37 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices Hi Bryan, It does pose an interesting situation even if a bit unlikely. Making accesssible software like games is completely unimportant until it effects someone personally. It wouldn't necessarily have to be a CEO, but a family member, a board member, or one of the lead game developers for it to become a personal matter for someone in that company. That's always how change, real change, gets started. No one seams interested in making a change until it happens to the right person, at the right time, and then it suddenly becomes a personal matter of interest. The closest thing I can compare this to is Ted Henter coming up with Jaws for Dos around 1987. Before then if you were blind and wanted to use an IBM compatible PC running MS Dos or PC Dos there really wasn't much you could do about the situation. Then, Ted Henter had, I want to say, a motor cycle accident that left him blind, and instead of giving up on computers he got some sighted developers together and founded a company called Henter-Joice with the soul aim of creating screen readers and other adaptive software for the blind and low vision. That single change in one man's life has lead to a number of accessible products like Jaws and Magic which has greatly improved the lives of many blind computer users. I disagree with many of Freedom Scientifics current business practices, but I can say that what Ted Henter did was a dramatic improvement in my own life as I have used a number of his products like Jaws personally to get through high school, college, and even on some contract jobs. I think when it comes to mainstream accessible games something similar will have to happen to someone who has a lot of influence and power within a game company for that kind of revolutionary change in polacy to take place. What would happen, for example, if Bill Gates or someone he loves went blind tomorrow? Would he suddenly want the company he started to begin creating accessible XBox consoles and want a more powerful screen reader than Narrator to be incorperated into the Windows operating system? Would that event make software accessibility a more important issue for him and his company? As for Game Spot yeah I have noticed a number of posters there are pretty rude. I don't know the average age of the posters there, but they often strike me as young, very mouthy, punks with no respect for anyone out of their immediate circle of friends. There comments about blind people in general really irritated me as it was obvious to me the posters didn't have a clue what they were talking about and were just shooting there mouth off again. All they succeeded in doing is proving how truly ignorant they really are when it comes to anyone with disabilities. As for the Sony lawsuit I have to agree with you that it wasn't a good thing. For one thing there is no law mandating that these companies have to provide accessibility, any accessibility, making it a tough legal battle to begin with. Then, bringing attention to the problem via a lawsuit hasn't braught any sympathy to our cause. The mainstream gamers, like those on Game Spot, just think we
Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices
hi Tom. this is disturbingly true, in fact I myself don't own an accessible mobile phone for precisely the same reason, well my phone is perfectly accessible in that I can pick up and phone with it, but not in any other way. It is however interesting to view this problem in light of my own research. while the atitude of the corperations does indeed have a major effect, having viewed the academic literature and various documents used in the debate on making disability related laws, I have to say it's not adequate to discussing the problem. the vast majority produced recently tends to what to ignore the fact disability causes any access issues at all, and say it's all society's fault, blaming everything to do with access about the basic setup of society. in fact people's refusal to acknolidge the extra effort and cost of living with a disability is and want to catagorize it all as social is rather irritating. this is one of the major forces behind my own phd, an attempt to defign disability on a far more basic level, and through that deffiniation establish questions like what it is for a thing to be accessible, eg, one major factor will be cost. Beware the grue! Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices
he'd probably be replaced. Beware the grue! Dark. - Original Message - From: Bryan Peterson bpeterson2...@cableone.net To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Tuesday, June 08, 2010 8:28 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices I'd like to see the CEO, the head honcho of one of these major gaming companies go blind and see what happens then. Probably nothing but it's worth imagining. We are the Knights who say...Ni! - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Tuesday, June 08, 2010 12:22 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices Hi Dark, Yes, and unfortunately what this really tells me as a society, the majority of the human race, really has a problem dealing with disability issues head on. It is almost as though most people, especially companies, act as though as long as they ignore it the problem doesn't exist. However, as a society we are increasingly dependant on electronic devices like cell phones, computers, microwaves, you name it. As a result it is not just the mainstream game companies turning a blind eye to the problem but the corperate sector of our society in general. If and when they do decide to add accessibility to a product or service it usually comes at a much higher cost to the customer who in all likelyhood doesn't have the money to spend. Case in point. Back in the mid 1990's when I was getting ready to move out of my parents home, go away to college, my parents were looking into the idea of buying me a talking microwave that was being sold through one of the Independant Living Aids catalogs. It was a nice idea, but the whole problem with the idea was it was way too expensive. If memory serves me correctly the microwave in question was produced by General Electric, had a large print display, braille keypad, and of course could speak the time, etc. As I recall it cost something like $600 when your standard everyday G.E. microwave could be purchased at any department store for around $125. Why the insane difference in price? The way I see it G.E. could have simply made that accessible microwave the standard moddel, mass produced it, and shipped it, or something like it, to every store in the country. That way everyone would use that moddel of microwave weather they are young, old, disabled, or not. The cost of research and development of that microwave would be shared equally between all of General Electric's customers and so the cost of research and development wouldn't have really been that much in the long run. Instead of that, though, G.E. decided to produce your everyday standard microwave which they ship to department stores around the country, and then manufacturered an accessible version which could be purchased through accessibility catalogs for several times the cost of the standard moddel. So as a person with a physical disability I was expected to pay a higher price for something that came from the factory with accessibility in mind, and probibly didn't cost them much more to produce to begin with. It hardly mattered that I was on SSI, making less than minimum wage, and trying to save money for college and didn' have the money to buy their accessible microwave in the first place. One would think since microwaves are a standard household appliance used by young and old alike large displays and voice output would eventually become a standard feature, but of course it hasn't happened yet even though the technology exists to do it quite inexpensively. Admitedly microwaves can be brailled and used with out large print or speech output by the blind, but that is beside the point. The point is that the Baby Boomer generation is now in their early 60's and beginning to become disabled in some way. Their children and grand children grew up playing video games, using microwaves, using cell phones, etc and they aren't exactly getting any younger either. sooner or later weather it is five years or fifty years from now all those people are going to grow old, need accessible products designed for the elderly, and what exactly will the corperate answer be? Will it be something as harsh as so sorry but we only make games, appliances, cell phones, etc for younger healthier customers? Well, things are improving on that front,but it still doesn't mean it is necessarily affordable. It will be interesting to see how an aging technologically advanced society will handle the fact the moment they become blind, low vision, have motor impairment issues, etc the cost of everything goes up just to acquire accessible products made specifically for their needs. It isn't just microwaves but cell phones and everything else that costs more if you have a disability. Not long ago my wife and I decided to look into getting a couple of cell phones. As it turned out the smart phones that were accessible, those with Talks or Mobile Speak costs more
Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices
Hi Bryan, Unfortunately, I don't think even that would change anyones mind. Given the fact the average person's view of blindness is pretty limited in scope. They just assume we are in someway helpless, can't play games, can't do this, can't do that,etc all because the average sighted person out there has no idea how we live or what we can do. Sometimes they don't even think we can answer a simple question for ourselves. Case in point. I can't even tell you how many times I have gone out on a date, went to eat with a friend, or whatever and the person taking our order asks my companion what would I like to have? I don't know about you, but I personally find that extremely insulting. With those kinds of attitudes and general reactions to someone who is blind it is no wonder we can't convince the mainstream companies to take us seriously. I pretty much know what they are thinking weather it is said or unsaid. A couple of months ago i remember how some people took the news on Game Spot regarding the news Sony was going to be sued over game accessibility. The reactions generally were the law suit is stupid, how can a blind person play games, there is no way to make games accessible for a blind person, etc. They were wrong, of course, but that is the kind of stereotypical reaction we have to put up with. It isn't just the fact we have to convince a company to do it, but we have to somehow convince people we can do exactly the same kinds of things they do, live a similar life style, but just in a slightly different way. In other words we have to somehow get beyond their idiotic beliefs about blindness. However, getting back to your question about the game company CEO who suddenly goes blind I don't think games is going to rank high on his list. His first reaction is going to be like, how am I going to live like this. I'm blind. I cant' do anything. I'm helpless. Speaking from personal experience those are generally a sighted persons initial reactions to the discovery of losing his/her sight. They will learn to cope with it, get back to living a productive life after a year or two of rehab, but those first few months are going to be a downward spiral into depression, fear, and worry. After that maybe, just maybe, he'll be interested in creating accessible games, but he is now in the position of trying to convince his associates of that fact who probibly won't be that eager to take up his cause. - Original Message - From: Bryan Peterson bpeterson2...@cableone.net To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Tuesday, June 08, 2010 8:28 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices I'd like to see the CEO, the head honcho of one of these major gaming companies go blind and see what happens then. Probably nothing but it's worth imagining. We are the Knights who say...Ni! --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices
well myself I don't I'd get any phone of any sort if the local foundation had an aggreement with vodaphone to fund part of talks standard so its only 100 per licence as long as i get a supported phone. myself though I'd be happy with calling and texting abilities and nothing else. its all I use it for, calling almost never and answering the same. text i use a bit more but not as much as I do email or msn. and email mostly. At 09:56 p.m. 9/06/2010, you wrote: hi Tom. this is disturbingly true, in fact I myself don't own an accessible mobile phone for precisely the same reason, well my phone is perfectly accessible in that I can pick up and phone with it, but not in any other way. It is however interesting to view this problem in light of my own research. while the atitude of the corperations does indeed have a major effect, having viewed the academic literature and various documents used in the debate on making disability related laws, I have to say it's not adequate to discussing the problem. the vast majority produced recently tends to what to ignore the fact disability causes any access issues at all, and say it's all society's fault, blaming everything to do with access about the basic setup of society. in fact people's refusal to acknolidge the extra effort and cost of living with a disability is and want to catagorize it all as social is rather irritating. this is one of the major forces behind my own phd, an attempt to defign disability on a far more basic level, and through that deffiniation establish questions like what it is for a thing to be accessible, eg, one major factor will be cost. Beware the grue! Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices
Oh I know it's not likely to change anything, but it's worth imagining. Because if he did discover that contrary to popular belief he could still live and do things for himself, sooner or later he would, if he was a gamer during his sighted life, want to find ways to get back into that. Then the now former gaming company CEO would be right there in the same boat with the rest of us, in a small market with very few games that are likely to satisfy his need for an engrossing experience. Certainly MOTA and ENtombed and possibly Time of Conflict might go some way in the right direction but not many more of our games do. As for the Gamespot thing, those folks are generally pretty rude to one another anyway, whether someone blind posts there or not. I've read their replies to other articles having nothing whatsoever to do with blindness and that's pretty much par for the course over there. The same is true of the Game FAQs message boards, where people who violate the TOS more often than not tend to get off scott free while someone who didn't gets moderated as though they had. But I did hear about the article over there about the lawsuit against sony and, while I don't agree with the comments about blind people I do agree that the lawsuit was rather riddiculous since it only enhances the view that some sighted folks have that we blind folks are spoiled brats. Next, why not sue the auto industry for not making cars accessible? My next question would be how the heck would they go about making a car accessible? We are the Knights who say...Ni! - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Wednesday, June 09, 2010 2:15 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices Hi Bryan, Unfortunately, I don't think even that would change anyones mind. Given the fact the average person's view of blindness is pretty limited in scope. They just assume we are in someway helpless, can't play games, can't do this, can't do that,etc all because the average sighted person out there has no idea how we live or what we can do. Sometimes they don't even think we can answer a simple question for ourselves. Case in point. I can't even tell you how many times I have gone out on a date, went to eat with a friend, or whatever and the person taking our order asks my companion what would I like to have? I don't know about you, but I personally find that extremely insulting. With those kinds of attitudes and general reactions to someone who is blind it is no wonder we can't convince the mainstream companies to take us seriously. I pretty much know what they are thinking weather it is said or unsaid. A couple of months ago i remember how some people took the news on Game Spot regarding the news Sony was going to be sued over game accessibility. The reactions generally were the law suit is stupid, how can a blind person play games, there is no way to make games accessible for a blind person, etc. They were wrong, of course, but that is the kind of stereotypical reaction we have to put up with. It isn't just the fact we have to convince a company to do it, but we have to somehow convince people we can do exactly the same kinds of things they do, live a similar life style, but just in a slightly different way. In other words we have to somehow get beyond their idiotic beliefs about blindness. However, getting back to your question about the game company CEO who suddenly goes blind I don't think games is going to rank high on his list. His first reaction is going to be like, how am I going to live like this. I'm blind. I cant' do anything. I'm helpless. Speaking from personal experience those are generally a sighted persons initial reactions to the discovery of losing his/her sight. They will learn to cope with it, get back to living a productive life after a year or two of rehab, but those first few months are going to be a downward spiral into depression, fear, and worry. After that maybe, just maybe, he'll be interested in creating accessible games, but he is now in the position of trying to convince his associates of that fact who probibly won't be that eager to take up his cause. - Original Message - From: Bryan Peterson bpeterson2...@cableone.net To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Tuesday, June 08, 2010 8:28 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices I'd like to see the CEO, the head honcho of one of these major gaming companies go blind and see what happens then. Probably nothing but it's worth imagining. We are the Knights who say...Ni! --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail
Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices
Well, given the way I've seen atitudes in any sort of employment csector work (especially in this country), I wouldn't be surprised if in those circumstances the board of share holders got together and bought the Ceo off giving him the sack. Beware the Grue! Dark. - Original Message - From: Bryan Peterson bpeterson2...@cableone.net To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Wednesday, June 09, 2010 9:29 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices Oh I know it's not likely to change anything, but it's worth imagining. Because if he did discover that contrary to popular belief he could still live and do things for himself, sooner or later he would, if he was a gamer during his sighted life, want to find ways to get back into that. Then the now former gaming company CEO would be right there in the same boat with the rest of us, in a small market with very few games that are likely to satisfy his need for an engrossing experience. Certainly MOTA and ENtombed and possibly Time of Conflict might go some way in the right direction but not many more of our games do. As for the Gamespot thing, those folks are generally pretty rude to one another anyway, whether someone blind posts there or not. I've read their replies to other articles having nothing whatsoever to do with blindness and that's pretty much par for the course over there. The same is true of the Game FAQs message boards, where people who violate the TOS more often than not tend to get off scott free while someone who didn't gets moderated as though they had. But I did hear about the article over there about the lawsuit against sony and, while I don't agree with the comments about blind people I do agree that the lawsuit was rather riddiculous since it only enhances the view that some sighted folks have that we blind folks are spoiled brats. Next, why not sue the auto industry for not making cars accessible? My next question would be how the heck would they go about making a car accessible? We are the Knights who say...Ni! - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Wednesday, June 09, 2010 2:15 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices Hi Bryan, Unfortunately, I don't think even that would change anyones mind. Given the fact the average person's view of blindness is pretty limited in scope. They just assume we are in someway helpless, can't play games, can't do this, can't do that,etc all because the average sighted person out there has no idea how we live or what we can do. Sometimes they don't even think we can answer a simple question for ourselves. Case in point. I can't even tell you how many times I have gone out on a date, went to eat with a friend, or whatever and the person taking our order asks my companion what would I like to have? I don't know about you, but I personally find that extremely insulting. With those kinds of attitudes and general reactions to someone who is blind it is no wonder we can't convince the mainstream companies to take us seriously. I pretty much know what they are thinking weather it is said or unsaid. A couple of months ago i remember how some people took the news on Game Spot regarding the news Sony was going to be sued over game accessibility. The reactions generally were the law suit is stupid, how can a blind person play games, there is no way to make games accessible for a blind person, etc. They were wrong, of course, but that is the kind of stereotypical reaction we have to put up with. It isn't just the fact we have to convince a company to do it, but we have to somehow convince people we can do exactly the same kinds of things they do, live a similar life style, but just in a slightly different way. In other words we have to somehow get beyond their idiotic beliefs about blindness. However, getting back to your question about the game company CEO who suddenly goes blind I don't think games is going to rank high on his list. His first reaction is going to be like, how am I going to live like this. I'm blind. I cant' do anything. I'm helpless. Speaking from personal experience those are generally a sighted persons initial reactions to the discovery of losing his/her sight. They will learn to cope with it, get back to living a productive life after a year or two of rehab, but those first few months are going to be a downward spiral into depression, fear, and worry. After that maybe, just maybe, he'll be interested in creating accessible games, but he is now in the position of trying to convince his associates of that fact who probibly won't be that eager to take up his cause. - Original Message - From: Bryan Peterson bpeterson2...@cableone.net To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Tuesday, June 08, 2010 8:28 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices I'd like to see the CEO
Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices
Yeah probably. We are the Knights who say...Ni! - Original Message - From: dark d...@xgam.org To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Wednesday, June 09, 2010 4:29 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices Well, given the way I've seen atitudes in any sort of employment csector work (especially in this country), I wouldn't be surprised if in those circumstances the board of share holders got together and bought the Ceo off giving him the sack. Beware the Grue! Dark. - Original Message - From: Bryan Peterson bpeterson2...@cableone.net To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Wednesday, June 09, 2010 9:29 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices Oh I know it's not likely to change anything, but it's worth imagining. Because if he did discover that contrary to popular belief he could still live and do things for himself, sooner or later he would, if he was a gamer during his sighted life, want to find ways to get back into that. Then the now former gaming company CEO would be right there in the same boat with the rest of us, in a small market with very few games that are likely to satisfy his need for an engrossing experience. Certainly MOTA and ENtombed and possibly Time of Conflict might go some way in the right direction but not many more of our games do. As for the Gamespot thing, those folks are generally pretty rude to one another anyway, whether someone blind posts there or not. I've read their replies to other articles having nothing whatsoever to do with blindness and that's pretty much par for the course over there. The same is true of the Game FAQs message boards, where people who violate the TOS more often than not tend to get off scott free while someone who didn't gets moderated as though they had. But I did hear about the article over there about the lawsuit against sony and, while I don't agree with the comments about blind people I do agree that the lawsuit was rather riddiculous since it only enhances the view that some sighted folks have that we blind folks are spoiled brats. Next, why not sue the auto industry for not making cars accessible? My next question would be how the heck would they go about making a car accessible? We are the Knights who say...Ni! - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Wednesday, June 09, 2010 2:15 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices Hi Bryan, Unfortunately, I don't think even that would change anyones mind. Given the fact the average person's view of blindness is pretty limited in scope. They just assume we are in someway helpless, can't play games, can't do this, can't do that,etc all because the average sighted person out there has no idea how we live or what we can do. Sometimes they don't even think we can answer a simple question for ourselves. Case in point. I can't even tell you how many times I have gone out on a date, went to eat with a friend, or whatever and the person taking our order asks my companion what would I like to have? I don't know about you, but I personally find that extremely insulting. With those kinds of attitudes and general reactions to someone who is blind it is no wonder we can't convince the mainstream companies to take us seriously. I pretty much know what they are thinking weather it is said or unsaid. A couple of months ago i remember how some people took the news on Game Spot regarding the news Sony was going to be sued over game accessibility. The reactions generally were the law suit is stupid, how can a blind person play games, there is no way to make games accessible for a blind person, etc. They were wrong, of course, but that is the kind of stereotypical reaction we have to put up with. It isn't just the fact we have to convince a company to do it, but we have to somehow convince people we can do exactly the same kinds of things they do, live a similar life style, but just in a slightly different way. In other words we have to somehow get beyond their idiotic beliefs about blindness. However, getting back to your question about the game company CEO who suddenly goes blind I don't think games is going to rank high on his list. His first reaction is going to be like, how am I going to live like this. I'm blind. I cant' do anything. I'm helpless. Speaking from personal experience those are generally a sighted persons initial reactions to the discovery of losing his/her sight. They will learn to cope with it, get back to living a productive life after a year or two of rehab, but those first few months are going to be a downward spiral into depression, fear, and worry. After that maybe, just maybe, he'll be interested in creating accessible games, but he is now in the position of trying to convince his associates of that fact who probibly won't be that eager to take up his cause
Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices
Hi Dark, Very interesting research there. I hadn't thought about it much, but you are right. When it comes to passing laws protecting those with disabilities, or making products meant to aid those with same disability it would help to have a definition in place I.E. a standard to go by that isn't just another bare minimum approach to the problem. Just in our own disability, visual impairment, we have everything from simple color blindness to total blindness. A person who is color blind simply can not distinguish certain colors such as the difference between green and brown or say blue and purple. Someone who is totally blind can't see anything at all. Obviously being totally blind is more serious, but is color blindness a disability? Well, certainly color blindness would be a disability, and could be problematic in certain cases. It might not effect that persons ability to work, drive, or watch television, but it could effect his/her ability to view certain web pages where they use color schemes that don't take in acccount some of the commonly confused colors. In terms of vidio games, for example, there are usually health or energy bars that change color when the player's health status increases or decreases. Someone has a problem seeing green and red wouldn't be able to tell if the player's health is full or critical based on that color scheme. So even though color blindness may be a miner disability it still effects his/her life in some way. I think when it comes to disability the hardest to prove and define here are mental disabilities. All of us have our own level of intelligence which makes us unique. For example, when it comes to spelling my wife can practically spell anything off the top of her head. However, give her a basic math equation like solving the area of a triangle, and you can forget it. Is that considered a disability? So I think the definition of disability needs to be solved. We can never make laws or create products aimed at a certain disability if we don't even define what disability is. What does it mean to be disabled. Smile. On 6/9/10, dark d...@xgam.org wrote: hi Tom. this is disturbingly true, in fact I myself don't own an accessible mobile phone for precisely the same reason, well my phone is perfectly accessible in that I can pick up and phone with it, but not in any other way. It is however interesting to view this problem in light of my own research. while the atitude of the corperations does indeed have a major effect, having viewed the academic literature and various documents used in the debate on making disability related laws, I have to say it's not adequate to discussing the problem. the vast majority produced recently tends to what to ignore the fact disability causes any access issues at all, and say it's all society's fault, blaming everything to do with access about the basic setup of society. in fact people's refusal to acknolidge the extra effort and cost of living with a disability is and want to catagorize it all as social is rather irritating. this is one of the major forces behind my own phd, an attempt to defign disability on a far more basic level, and through that deffiniation establish questions like what it is for a thing to be accessible, eg, one major factor will be cost. Beware the grue! Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices
Hi Bryan, It does pose an interesting situation even if a bit unlikely. Making accesssible software like games is completely unimportant until it effects someone personally. It wouldn't necessarily have to be a CEO, but a family member, a board member, or one of the lead game developers for it to become a personal matter for someone in that company. That's always how change, real change, gets started. No one seams interested in making a change until it happens to the right person, at the right time, and then it suddenly becomes a personal matter of interest. The closest thing I can compare this to is Ted Henter coming up with Jaws for Dos around 1987. Before then if you were blind and wanted to use an IBM compatible PC running MS Dos or PC Dos there really wasn't much you could do about the situation. Then, Ted Henter had, I want to say, a motor cycle accident that left him blind, and instead of giving up on computers he got some sighted developers together and founded a company called Henter-Joice with the soul aim of creating screen readers and other adaptive software for the blind and low vision. That single change in one man's life has lead to a number of accessible products like Jaws and Magic which has greatly improved the lives of many blind computer users. I disagree with many of Freedom Scientifics current business practices, but I can say that what Ted Henter did was a dramatic improvement in my own life as I have used a number of his products like Jaws personally to get through high school, college, and even on some contract jobs. I think when it comes to mainstream accessible games something similar will have to happen to someone who has a lot of influence and power within a game company for that kind of revolutionary change in polacy to take place. What would happen, for example, if Bill Gates or someone he loves went blind tomorrow? Would he suddenly want the company he started to begin creating accessible XBox consoles and want a more powerful screen reader than Narrator to be incorperated into the Windows operating system? Would that event make software accessibility a more important issue for him and his company? As for Game Spot yeah I have noticed a number of posters there are pretty rude. I don't know the average age of the posters there, but they often strike me as young, very mouthy, punks with no respect for anyone out of their immediate circle of friends. There comments about blind people in general really irritated me as it was obvious to me the posters didn't have a clue what they were talking about and were just shooting there mouth off again. All they succeeded in doing is proving how truly ignorant they really are when it comes to anyone with disabilities. As for the Sony lawsuit I have to agree with you that it wasn't a good thing. For one thing there is no law mandating that these companies have to provide accessibility, any accessibility, making it a tough legal battle to begin with. Then, bringing attention to the problem via a lawsuit hasn't braught any sympathy to our cause. The mainstream gamers, like those on Game Spot, just think we are acting like spoiled brats demmanding our own way. Even worse the companies now like us less, because instead of trying to talk to them and get accessibility included through mutual cooperation and via peaceful means this one gamer has just braught the legal system into this trying to get accessibility into his favorite games through brute force. That just upsets the companies making them less likely to want to listen to organizations like Able Gamers and the Game Accessibility Project. The last thing we want is for this person to lose big in court, and then have the game companies simply tune us out completely. Which I am afraid will happen as a result of this court case. Speaking of your comment about accessible cars that was someone elses comment on Game Spot practically word for word. Someone basicly said if blind people are going to take Sony to court over game accessibility why aren't we taking automobile companies to court for automobile accessibility. They have a point, but you know and i know there is a big difference in playing a game and driving acar. It is far easier to make a game like Mortal Kombat accessible than make an automobile completely accesible to a totally blind driver. On 6/9/10, Bryan Peterson bpeterson2...@cableone.net wrote: Oh I know it's not likely to change anything, but it's worth imagining. Because if he did discover that contrary to popular belief he could still live and do things for himself, sooner or later he would, if he was a gamer during his sighted life, want to find ways to get back into that. Then the now former gaming company CEO would be right there in the same boat with the rest of us, in a small market with very few games that are likely to satisfy his need for an engrossing experience. Certainly MOTA and ENtombed and possibly Time of Conflict might go some way in the right
Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices
I agree. I actually liked JFW and JFD better back when it was Henter-Joyce. Same was true of the BLazie notetakers. But that does make sense. I imagine it's probably going to take a family member of one of these major game designers, programmers or whatnot to start losing their sight before one of them even begins to consider taking us seriously. We are the Knights who say...Ni! - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Wednesday, June 09, 2010 9:37 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices Hi Bryan, It does pose an interesting situation even if a bit unlikely. Making accesssible software like games is completely unimportant until it effects someone personally. It wouldn't necessarily have to be a CEO, but a family member, a board member, or one of the lead game developers for it to become a personal matter for someone in that company. That's always how change, real change, gets started. No one seams interested in making a change until it happens to the right person, at the right time, and then it suddenly becomes a personal matter of interest. The closest thing I can compare this to is Ted Henter coming up with Jaws for Dos around 1987. Before then if you were blind and wanted to use an IBM compatible PC running MS Dos or PC Dos there really wasn't much you could do about the situation. Then, Ted Henter had, I want to say, a motor cycle accident that left him blind, and instead of giving up on computers he got some sighted developers together and founded a company called Henter-Joice with the soul aim of creating screen readers and other adaptive software for the blind and low vision. That single change in one man's life has lead to a number of accessible products like Jaws and Magic which has greatly improved the lives of many blind computer users. I disagree with many of Freedom Scientifics current business practices, but I can say that what Ted Henter did was a dramatic improvement in my own life as I have used a number of his products like Jaws personally to get through high school, college, and even on some contract jobs. I think when it comes to mainstream accessible games something similar will have to happen to someone who has a lot of influence and power within a game company for that kind of revolutionary change in polacy to take place. What would happen, for example, if Bill Gates or someone he loves went blind tomorrow? Would he suddenly want the company he started to begin creating accessible XBox consoles and want a more powerful screen reader than Narrator to be incorperated into the Windows operating system? Would that event make software accessibility a more important issue for him and his company? As for Game Spot yeah I have noticed a number of posters there are pretty rude. I don't know the average age of the posters there, but they often strike me as young, very mouthy, punks with no respect for anyone out of their immediate circle of friends. There comments about blind people in general really irritated me as it was obvious to me the posters didn't have a clue what they were talking about and were just shooting there mouth off again. All they succeeded in doing is proving how truly ignorant they really are when it comes to anyone with disabilities. As for the Sony lawsuit I have to agree with you that it wasn't a good thing. For one thing there is no law mandating that these companies have to provide accessibility, any accessibility, making it a tough legal battle to begin with. Then, bringing attention to the problem via a lawsuit hasn't braught any sympathy to our cause. The mainstream gamers, like those on Game Spot, just think we are acting like spoiled brats demmanding our own way. Even worse the companies now like us less, because instead of trying to talk to them and get accessibility included through mutual cooperation and via peaceful means this one gamer has just braught the legal system into this trying to get accessibility into his favorite games through brute force. That just upsets the companies making them less likely to want to listen to organizations like Able Gamers and the Game Accessibility Project. The last thing we want is for this person to lose big in court, and then have the game companies simply tune us out completely. Which I am afraid will happen as a result of this court case. Speaking of your comment about accessible cars that was someone elses comment on Game Spot practically word for word. Someone basicly said if blind people are going to take Sony to court over game accessibility why aren't we taking automobile companies to court for automobile accessibility. They have a point, but you know and i know there is a big difference in playing a game and driving acar. It is far easier to make a game like Mortal Kombat accessible than make an automobile completely accesible to a totally blind driver. On 6/9/10, Bryan Peterson
Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices
Hi tom. that is right, as in fact an author I was reading for my phd research said Disability is a catagory which is always open However, the more I look into the motiviations and discussions of the indi games movement and the people who write games for it, the more I'm rather uncertain as to whether even in 10-15 years time when gamers who grew up in the 1970's and 80's begin losing their vision or motor control, whether the likes of sony will take notice. Even back in the 1990's, gaming was at most a special interest, and thus the player base was everyone who had that interest. now however, games are far more mainstream. Everyone, male, female under 30 or so is expected to know what grand theft auto, halo, wii sports etc are and own a console of some sort, indeed this is a ajor reason for why the various companies now have weather chanels, news and even limited net brousing from a console. Visual appeal, quirks of gameplay rather than design, high budgit special effects and generally all the commercialism that affect the cinema industry are rampent in gaming. Indeed, on the various mega man boards, there is a huge amount of hatred towards the battle network series, which essentially boils down to pokemon with Mega man characters because it doesn't feature half of the elements involved with mega man previously (they certainly aren't platform games), and is clearly branded and created to appeal to teenagers and kids, rather than the old school crowd. More and more developement time is going into network, and it's sequal series, and indeed a much smaller share into the continuing platform games in the original mega man style and universe. I thus wouldn't be surprised if eventually the companies simply say well, we'[re writing games for the ounger generation and leave it at that. On the other hand though, developement tools for the indi crowd are getting better and better. Everything from game engines with level editers so complex you can virtually write your own games (rocks n diamonds, T2002, hurrican , Angband etc), to game creation software and libraries which range from the appaulingly bad to the incredibly fantastic, such as the dark basic language especially made for graphical game creation. This is why I find bgt so profoundly interesting, sinse it seems to take accessible games very much in the same direction as the rest of the independent sector is going. Beware the grue! dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
[Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices
Thomas said: Recently I read the white paper 7128 has on their web site on exactly how much money mainstream and independant game companies stand to lose if they don't start making their games accessible to their aging customers. While I think Elinor and Steffany did a good job on the paper, made some very convincing arguments, I'm afraid the mainstream companies won't listen until it is too late, and they have a bunch of elderly gamers wanting to play the latest game releases. Thanks Thomas for your kind words about our white paper. Your contributions to the forum are always fun to read. Our intent was to shake up a few of the mainstream companies to make them aware - but I tend to agree that they won't listen! At least we tried. By the way - 7-128 Software does have offices - they happen to be located in the same building that our apartments are located in, but they are separate. Also I think your categorization of Inspector Cyndi games is correct. The game is really like the board game Clue!. Eleanor Robinson 7128.com --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices
Wow! 500 GB! My audio games for the blind group. Discussions off topic are welcome in the holidays. Talking about games is welcome, talking about computer problems is welcome when their are know holidays but that's only in easter holidays or know holidays. If you want to joyn, just send a blank email to. audiogamesfortheblind+subscr...@googlegroups.com With the subject subscribe in the subject line. Contact infermation. email: muhamme...@googlemail.com msn: muhammed123...@hotmail.co.uk Skype: muhammed.deniz Klango username. muhammed - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Monday, June 07, 2010 7:54 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices Hi, Well, before my wife and I moved into our current apartment we had a spare bed room which we used as a home office. Since I work from home that really turned out to be a good setup. We had a couple of desks in there with a couple of desktop PC's in there, book cases, filing cabinates, etc. For a while you could say that was the USAGames main office as well as any other jobs I might be doing at the time such as contract jobs. However, after my wife and I moved we ended up living in smaller acomidations. One of the desktops ended up going out to the living room where it got turned into a family PC with games, mp3s, audio books, and similar content. It really is not used for work per say although I do use it for testing my game releases on since it is the only PC in the house with XP still on it. The other desktop a newer PC with the Intel Pentium 2.8 processor is in our bed room. You could say that room has been split up into a bed room on one side of the room and a sort of home office on the other. That PC has a multiboot with Windows 7 and Ubuntu Linux 10 on it so I can work in either operating system environment as needed. However, while that use to be my main PC it really isn't the case any more. After Esther and I moved we pretty much decided in order to save space we would begin using laptops more. So in early 2008 we purchased two new laptops, which i recently updated to Windows 7, and as a result my Compaq notebook has become my main computer. So in a very real sense wherever I go the USAGames office goes with me, because all of the source code is on that laptop. Most of the time I work on the games from there and test the games on either one of the desktops before release. So I think that is the advantage of laptops and a lot of publicly available wi-fi internet access. You can pretty much take your office with you regardless where you are at, and running a mostly web based business from a portable notebook computer is pretty easy. On 6/7/10, Phil Vlasak p...@pcsgames.net wrote: Hi Lori, Well, I do have an office but it is our spare bedroom with computers and desks for me and my wife. And the dogs have pillows on the floor as they like to sleep under the desks while we are in the room. We had two HP vista computers that we got as the last of the 32 bit systems were on sale. And we have a 500 GB backup USB hard drive that only cost $100. I was thinking of offices outside the house where you have to travel to get to work. Phil --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices
If they think that, that's actually quite stupid. In my apinyin, sited games are cool, as well as blind games these days. Yes, blind games need alittle improvement, but they can't protend blind games don't igzist. Get my point? My audio games for the blind group. Discussions off topic are welcome in the holidays. Talking about games is welcome, talking about computer problems is welcome when their are know holidays but that's only in easter holidays or know holidays. If you want to joyn, just send a blank email to. audiogamesfortheblind+subscr...@googlegroups.com With the subject subscribe in the subject line. Contact infermation. email: muhamme...@googlemail.com msn: muhammed123...@hotmail.co.uk Skype: muhammed.deniz Klango username. muhammed - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Monday, June 07, 2010 8:36 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices Hi Dark, Right. Regardless of what Nintendo's motivation was or wasn't in creating the Sound Voyager games we really can not expect them to take us very seriously. At least not until it really begins hurting them financially. Recently I read the white paper 7128 has on their web site on exactly how much money mainstream and independant game companies stand to lose if they don't start making their games accessible to their aging customers. While I think Elinor and Steffany did a good job on the paper, made some very convincing arguments, I'm afraid the mainstream companies won't listen until it is too late, and they have a bunch of elderly gamers wanting to play the latest game releases. By then they'll have to add some sort of accessibility and my guess is as usual accessibility will come in the form of some half-baked solution. It will be there, but not as good as it could have been if they spent time fully researching and testing the problem. However, that really isn't the big picture. I'm not so much affended by the fact APH put out some lame accessible games, but by the fact they came out with something that has been done before and tried to initially market it under the false assumption that what they are doing is revolutionary technology. A simple google search would have turned up games like DynaMan, Aliens in the Outback, Troopenum, Hunter, Shades of Doom, etc. That alone would have probably gave the APH developers a better idea of what is and isn't out there, and their sales people may have at least tried to sell their games at competative prices. Instead they jumped into the market assuming this or that was true and I wonder how much money they really made off their games. I for one felt they were too high, more or less like what I already owned, and there, this is revolutionary, attitude just rubbed me the wrong way. What I'm getting at, though, is I wonder how many mainstream or indipendant developers will take the same attitude the moment they begin creating games more accessible. I know enough about marketing to know that they'll put a spin on it that will make it sound like company x has a new, revolutionary, special design to make games more accessible for the blind regardless if the game is very simplistic compared to existing accessible games. When in reality those of us who are currently making accessible games probibly initially came up with those ideas to begin with. It would be nice to get some credit from these companies and organizations rather than being treated as though our research into this field never existed. As you said having our existance denied is as bad as if not worse than being treated like an idiot. On 6/7/10, dark d...@xgam.org wrote: Hi tom. In the case of sound voyager, I don't think it was actually markited as games intended for blind people, so much as just games with sound intended for sited people. Afterall, i doubt despite the efforts of the game accessibility sig etc, that nintendo, sega, sony capcom etc even know blind people play games, in fact during my chalming chat with capcom uk about low vision access to mega man they streight out told me that I was the only low vision player in the entire uk, and all I was trying to have them do was produce a copy of the Mega man aniversery collection available for Uk systems (at it turned out unnecessary, sinse the freeloader disk can play Mamerican or japanese games on a european gamecube no problem). I therefore wouldn't assume nintendo's motives were quite the same as as aph's, though this isn't an excuse, as having your existance denied is just as bad as being treated like an idiot. this is again why, while I do approve the efforts to get the mainstream industry interested in producing accessible games, i think indi games developement is the real future as far as accessible games goes. Beware the grue! Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E
Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices
Hi Dark, Yes, and unfortunately what this really tells me as a society, the majority of the human race, really has a problem dealing with disability issues head on. It is almost as though most people, especially companies, act as though as long as they ignore it the problem doesn't exist. However, as a society we are increasingly dependant on electronic devices like cell phones, computers, microwaves, you name it. As a result it is not just the mainstream game companies turning a blind eye to the problem but the corperate sector of our society in general. If and when they do decide to add accessibility to a product or service it usually comes at a much higher cost to the customer who in all likelyhood doesn't have the money to spend. Case in point. Back in the mid 1990's when I was getting ready to move out of my parents home, go away to college, my parents were looking into the idea of buying me a talking microwave that was being sold through one of the Independant Living Aids catalogs. It was a nice idea, but the whole problem with the idea was it was way too expensive. If memory serves me correctly the microwave in question was produced by General Electric, had a large print display, braille keypad, and of course could speak the time, etc. As I recall it cost something like $600 when your standard everyday G.E. microwave could be purchased at any department store for around $125. Why the insane difference in price? The way I see it G.E. could have simply made that accessible microwave the standard moddel, mass produced it, and shipped it, or something like it, to every store in the country. That way everyone would use that moddel of microwave weather they are young, old, disabled, or not. The cost of research and development of that microwave would be shared equally between all of General Electric's customers and so the cost of research and development wouldn't have really been that much in the long run. Instead of that, though, G.E. decided to produce your everyday standard microwave which they ship to department stores around the country, and then manufacturered an accessible version which could be purchased through accessibility catalogs for several times the cost of the standard moddel. So as a person with a physical disability I was expected to pay a higher price for something that came from the factory with accessibility in mind, and probibly didn't cost them much more to produce to begin with. It hardly mattered that I was on SSI, making less than minimum wage, and trying to save money for college and didn' have the money to buy their accessible microwave in the first place. One would think since microwaves are a standard household appliance used by young and old alike large displays and voice output would eventually become a standard feature, but of course it hasn't happened yet even though the technology exists to do it quite inexpensively. Admitedly microwaves can be brailled and used with out large print or speech output by the blind, but that is beside the point. The point is that the Baby Boomer generation is now in their early 60's and beginning to become disabled in some way. Their children and grand children grew up playing video games, using microwaves, using cell phones, etc and they aren't exactly getting any younger either. sooner or later weather it is five years or fifty years from now all those people are going to grow old, need accessible products designed for the elderly, and what exactly will the corperate answer be? Will it be something as harsh as so sorry but we only make games, appliances, cell phones, etc for younger healthier customers? Well, things are improving on that front,but it still doesn't mean it is necessarily affordable. It will be interesting to see how an aging technologically advanced society will handle the fact the moment they become blind, low vision, have motor impairment issues, etc the cost of everything goes up just to acquire accessible products made specifically for their needs. It isn't just microwaves but cell phones and everything else that costs more if you have a disability. Not long ago my wife and I decided to look into getting a couple of cell phones. As it turned out the smart phones that were accessible, those with Talks or Mobile Speak costs more than your basic cell phone, and not only that if I wanted a smart phone with a screen reader on it I had to purchase a cell phone plan that includes internet access. I argued up and down with them saying I'd pay for the phone, but didn't want internet service on my smart phone as the plan was too high for our budget. As it turned out every cell phone carrier we spoke to had the exact same polacy, and if I wanted a phone that was fully accessible, or mostly so, I had to pay for a more expensive phone and a more expensive plan to get it. That's just wrong in my opinion, but that's our society for you. The thing is given the general attitude of companies towards the blind and other disabilities
Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices
I'd like to see the CEO, the head honcho of one of these major gaming companies go blind and see what happens then. Probably nothing but it's worth imagining. We are the Knights who say...Ni! - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Tuesday, June 08, 2010 12:22 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices Hi Dark, Yes, and unfortunately what this really tells me as a society, the majority of the human race, really has a problem dealing with disability issues head on. It is almost as though most people, especially companies, act as though as long as they ignore it the problem doesn't exist. However, as a society we are increasingly dependant on electronic devices like cell phones, computers, microwaves, you name it. As a result it is not just the mainstream game companies turning a blind eye to the problem but the corperate sector of our society in general. If and when they do decide to add accessibility to a product or service it usually comes at a much higher cost to the customer who in all likelyhood doesn't have the money to spend. Case in point. Back in the mid 1990's when I was getting ready to move out of my parents home, go away to college, my parents were looking into the idea of buying me a talking microwave that was being sold through one of the Independant Living Aids catalogs. It was a nice idea, but the whole problem with the idea was it was way too expensive. If memory serves me correctly the microwave in question was produced by General Electric, had a large print display, braille keypad, and of course could speak the time, etc. As I recall it cost something like $600 when your standard everyday G.E. microwave could be purchased at any department store for around $125. Why the insane difference in price? The way I see it G.E. could have simply made that accessible microwave the standard moddel, mass produced it, and shipped it, or something like it, to every store in the country. That way everyone would use that moddel of microwave weather they are young, old, disabled, or not. The cost of research and development of that microwave would be shared equally between all of General Electric's customers and so the cost of research and development wouldn't have really been that much in the long run. Instead of that, though, G.E. decided to produce your everyday standard microwave which they ship to department stores around the country, and then manufacturered an accessible version which could be purchased through accessibility catalogs for several times the cost of the standard moddel. So as a person with a physical disability I was expected to pay a higher price for something that came from the factory with accessibility in mind, and probibly didn't cost them much more to produce to begin with. It hardly mattered that I was on SSI, making less than minimum wage, and trying to save money for college and didn' have the money to buy their accessible microwave in the first place. One would think since microwaves are a standard household appliance used by young and old alike large displays and voice output would eventually become a standard feature, but of course it hasn't happened yet even though the technology exists to do it quite inexpensively. Admitedly microwaves can be brailled and used with out large print or speech output by the blind, but that is beside the point. The point is that the Baby Boomer generation is now in their early 60's and beginning to become disabled in some way. Their children and grand children grew up playing video games, using microwaves, using cell phones, etc and they aren't exactly getting any younger either. sooner or later weather it is five years or fifty years from now all those people are going to grow old, need accessible products designed for the elderly, and what exactly will the corperate answer be? Will it be something as harsh as so sorry but we only make games, appliances, cell phones, etc for younger healthier customers? Well, things are improving on that front,but it still doesn't mean it is necessarily affordable. It will be interesting to see how an aging technologically advanced society will handle the fact the moment they become blind, low vision, have motor impairment issues, etc the cost of everything goes up just to acquire accessible products made specifically for their needs. It isn't just microwaves but cell phones and everything else that costs more if you have a disability. Not long ago my wife and I decided to look into getting a couple of cell phones. As it turned out the smart phones that were accessible, those with Talks or Mobile Speak costs more than your basic cell phone, and not only that if I wanted a smart phone with a screen reader on it I had to purchase a cell phone plan that includes internet access. I argued up and down with them saying I'd pay for the phone, but didn't want internet service on my smart phone
Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices
Hi Muhammed, As for protending they can't exist? They quite obviouslycan. Either that, or they just don't care, and I believe the ladder is true. Best Regards, Hayden -Original Message- From: gamers-boun...@audyssey.org [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Muhammed Deniz Sent: Tuesday, June 08, 2010 10:29 AM To: Gamers Discussion list Subject: Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices If they think that, that's actually quite stupid. In my apinyin, sited games are cool, as well as blind games these days. Yes, blind games need alittle improvement, but they can't protend blind games don't igzist. Get my point? My audio games for the blind group. Discussions off topic are welcome in the holidays. Talking about games is welcome, talking about computer problems is welcome when their are know holidays but that's only in easter holidays or know holidays. If you want to joyn, just send a blank email to. audiogamesfortheblind+subscr...@googlegroups.com With the subject subscribe in the subject line. Contact infermation. email: muhamme...@googlemail.com msn: muhammed123...@hotmail.co.uk Skype: muhammed.deniz Klango username. muhammed - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Monday, June 07, 2010 8:36 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices Hi Dark, Right. Regardless of what Nintendo's motivation was or wasn't in creating the Sound Voyager games we really can not expect them to take us very seriously. At least not until it really begins hurting them financially. Recently I read the white paper 7128 has on their web site on exactly how much money mainstream and independant game companies stand to lose if they don't start making their games accessible to their aging customers. While I think Elinor and Steffany did a good job on the paper, made some very convincing arguments, I'm afraid the mainstream companies won't listen until it is too late, and they have a bunch of elderly gamers wanting to play the latest game releases. By then they'll have to add some sort of accessibility and my guess is as usual accessibility will come in the form of some half-baked solution. It will be there, but not as good as it could have been if they spent time fully researching and testing the problem. However, that really isn't the big picture. I'm not so much affended by the fact APH put out some lame accessible games, but by the fact they came out with something that has been done before and tried to initially market it under the false assumption that what they are doing is revolutionary technology. A simple google search would have turned up games like DynaMan, Aliens in the Outback, Troopenum, Hunter, Shades of Doom, etc. That alone would have probably gave the APH developers a better idea of what is and isn't out there, and their sales people may have at least tried to sell their games at competative prices. Instead they jumped into the market assuming this or that was true and I wonder how much money they really made off their games. I for one felt they were too high, more or less like what I already owned, and there, this is revolutionary, attitude just rubbed me the wrong way. What I'm getting at, though, is I wonder how many mainstream or indipendant developers will take the same attitude the moment they begin creating games more accessible. I know enough about marketing to know that they'll put a spin on it that will make it sound like company x has a new, revolutionary, special design to make games more accessible for the blind regardless if the game is very simplistic compared to existing accessible games. When in reality those of us who are currently making accessible games probibly initially came up with those ideas to begin with. It would be nice to get some credit from these companies and organizations rather than being treated as though our research into this field never existed. As you said having our existance denied is as bad as if not worse than being treated like an idiot. On 6/7/10, dark d...@xgam.org wrote: Hi tom. In the case of sound voyager, I don't think it was actually markited as games intended for blind people, so much as just games with sound intended for sited people. Afterall, i doubt despite the efforts of the game accessibility sig etc, that nintendo, sega, sony capcom etc even know blind people play games, in fact during my chalming chat with capcom uk about low vision access to mega man they streight out told me that I was the only low vision player in the entire uk, and all I was trying to have them do was produce a copy of the Mega man aniversery collection available for Uk systems (at it turned out unnecessary, sinse the freeloader disk can play Mamerican or japanese games on a european gamecube no problem). I therefore wouldn't assume nintendo's motives
Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices
Hi Muhammed, Don't gasp. There are harddrives with kmore than 15 tb of memory. Best Regards, Hayden -Original Message- From: gamers-boun...@audyssey.org [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Muhammed Deniz Sent: Tuesday, June 08, 2010 10:25 AM To: Gamers Discussion list Subject: Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices Wow! 500 GB! My audio games for the blind group. Discussions off topic are welcome in the holidays. Talking about games is welcome, talking about computer problems is welcome when their are know holidays but that's only in easter holidays or know holidays. If you want to joyn, just send a blank email to. audiogamesfortheblind+subscr...@googlegroups.com With the subject subscribe in the subject line. Contact infermation. email: muhamme...@googlemail.com msn: muhammed123...@hotmail.co.uk Skype: muhammed.deniz Klango username. muhammed - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Monday, June 07, 2010 7:54 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices Hi, Well, before my wife and I moved into our current apartment we had a spare bed room which we used as a home office. Since I work from home that really turned out to be a good setup. We had a couple of desks in there with a couple of desktop PC's in there, book cases, filing cabinates, etc. For a while you could say that was the USAGames main office as well as any other jobs I might be doing at the time such as contract jobs. However, after my wife and I moved we ended up living in smaller acomidations. One of the desktops ended up going out to the living room where it got turned into a family PC with games, mp3s, audio books, and similar content. It really is not used for work per say although I do use it for testing my game releases on since it is the only PC in the house with XP still on it. The other desktop a newer PC with the Intel Pentium 2.8 processor is in our bed room. You could say that room has been split up into a bed room on one side of the room and a sort of home office on the other. That PC has a multiboot with Windows 7 and Ubuntu Linux 10 on it so I can work in either operating system environment as needed. However, while that use to be my main PC it really isn't the case any more. After Esther and I moved we pretty much decided in order to save space we would begin using laptops more. So in early 2008 we purchased two new laptops, which i recently updated to Windows 7, and as a result my Compaq notebook has become my main computer. So in a very real sense wherever I go the USAGames office goes with me, because all of the source code is on that laptop. Most of the time I work on the games from there and test the games on either one of the desktops before release. So I think that is the advantage of laptops and a lot of publicly available wi-fi internet access. You can pretty much take your office with you regardless where you are at, and running a mostly web based business from a portable notebook computer is pretty easy. On 6/7/10, Phil Vlasak p...@pcsgames.net wrote: Hi Lori, Well, I do have an office but it is our spare bedroom with computers and desks for me and my wife. And the dogs have pillows on the floor as they like to sleep under the desks while we are in the room. We had two HP vista computers that we got as the last of the 32 bit systems were on sale. And we have a 500 GB backup USB hard drive that only cost $100. I was thinking of offices outside the house where you have to travel to get to work. Phil --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you
Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices
Hi Eleanor, No problem. As it is I really think your white paper hit the mark when it comes down to putting out the facts of the situation, and unfortunately I'm afraid the aging gamers out there are going to be ignored by the big mainstream companies anyway. For example, my grandma is in her mid 80's, and does like some simple computer games such as Monopoly, Solitaire, Hearts, Uno, things like that. Unfortunately, she really can't see well enough to see the card faces and things like that. Fortunately, Jim Kitchen and Spoonbill Software just happen to have games that she would like and that are completely self-voicing. I put them on a computer I picked up at the Goodwill and fixed up for her, and every now and then when I drop buy she is playing Solitaire, Monopoly, Uno, Yatzi, etc with Sapi speech output. If it weren't for developers like Jim Kitchen, Spoonbill Games, GMA Games, and all the rest my grandma would be completely locked out of even relatively simple accessible games like Solitaire and Yatzi which is really rediculous considering it wouldn't cost mainstream developers much to make games like that accessible with a little Sapi support and perhaps large print graphics. Yet they continually don't even do that much. My dad happens to be a member of the Baby Boomer generation, and now is in his early 60's. Over the past couple of years he has taken to using glasses for driving and reading. Plus needs them when playing some games on the computer which certainly counts as a visual impairment even if it isn't quite as bad as my own. Still he is the one that worked for several years for Rubber Made, worked 8 and 12 hours shifts Monday-Friday, and was the person in my family who purchased my Ataris, Nintendos, Sega, and all the games that went with those consoles when I was growing up. He was the guy with all the buying power, and even though he is semi-retired now he has a pretty healthy retirement check coming in each month. As you pointed out the Baby Boomers still have most of the buying power, most of it is in 401's, social security, and other retirement plans, but they still have a majority of the currency out there. Yet somehow I don't think the mainstream game companies seam to care about that, and are focused on aiming their products for the preteen to young adult market who really doesn't have the buying power their grandparents do. Yet that's where the game companies are heading anyway. It is like I said in another message on list the problem realy isn't just specific to game companies. Most companies don't have a realistic polacy for handling elderly and disabled customers. If they happen to have one it usually is expensive and costs more than a similar product or service for their mainstream customers. In my opinion it is really a form of victimization on part of the companies who make those products or offers those services. All that would change if the shoe was on the other foot. Cheers! --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices
And yet as far as low vision game access goes there's better going certainly sinse the gma engine and time of conflict have at least some graphics, and in terms of other developers there are some interesting developements indeed, in fact I'm testing one such at the moment. Beware the grue! Dark. - Original Message - From: Phil Vlasak p...@pcsgames.net To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, June 06, 2010 11:39 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices Hi Thomas, The sad thing is that APH sells their games mainly to schools who are their main customers. So blind kids who play their arcade games probably think that is the state of the art in audio games. They do have partially sighted kids in mind so have included full graphics with their games, and have a team of salaried people working on each game. They commission the music and make their own sound effects and do the audio voice in a recording studio but I think they lack the creativity of making a truly revolutionary game. Toodle Tiles is their version of Mahjong, Armadillo Army is like Pacman, and Termite torpedo is like Space invaders. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices
Hi tom. In the case of sound voyager, I don't think it was actually markited as games intended for blind people, so much as just games with sound intended for sited people. Afterall, i doubt despite the efforts of the game accessibility sig etc, that nintendo, sega, sony capcom etc even know blind people play games, in fact during my chalming chat with capcom uk about low vision access to mega man they streight out told me that I was the only low vision player in the entire uk, and all I was trying to have them do was produce a copy of the Mega man aniversery collection available for Uk systems (at it turned out unnecessary, sinse the freeloader disk can play Mamerican or japanese games on a european gamecube no problem). I therefore wouldn't assume nintendo's motives were quite the same as as aph's, though this isn't an excuse, as having your existance denied is just as bad as being treated like an idiot. this is again why, while I do approve the efforts to get the mainstream industry interested in producing accessible games, i think indi games developement is the real future as far as accessible games goes. Beware the grue! Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices
Ah Phil I thought you had an office, always pictured you as having one. - Original Message - From: Phil Vlasak p...@pcsgames.net To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, June 06, 2010 3:18 PM Subject: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices Hi Folks, The only two accessible game companies that I know have offices are, Paul Silva, Jeremie Spitzer, and Tim Keenan's All inPlay. Larry Skutchan's American Printing House for the Blind, with work by Elaine Kitchel, Rob Meredith, Rodger Smith, and John Hedges. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices
Hi Lori, Well, I do have an office but it is our spare bedroom with computers and desks for me and my wife. And the dogs have pillows on the floor as they like to sleep under the desks while we are in the room. We had two HP vista computers that we got as the last of the 32 bit systems were on sale. And we have a 500 GB backup USB hard drive that only cost $100. I was thinking of offices outside the house where you have to travel to get to work. Phil - Original Message - From: Lori Duncan lori_dunca...@hotmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Monday, June 07, 2010 10:27 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices Ah Phil I thought you had an office, always pictured you as having one. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices
Hi, Well, before my wife and I moved into our current apartment we had a spare bed room which we used as a home office. Since I work from home that really turned out to be a good setup. We had a couple of desks in there with a couple of desktop PC's in there, book cases, filing cabinates, etc. For a while you could say that was the USAGames main office as well as any other jobs I might be doing at the time such as contract jobs. However, after my wife and I moved we ended up living in smaller acomidations. One of the desktops ended up going out to the living room where it got turned into a family PC with games, mp3s, audio books, and similar content. It really is not used for work per say although I do use it for testing my game releases on since it is the only PC in the house with XP still on it. The other desktop a newer PC with the Intel Pentium 2.8 processor is in our bed room. You could say that room has been split up into a bed room on one side of the room and a sort of home office on the other. That PC has a multiboot with Windows 7 and Ubuntu Linux 10 on it so I can work in either operating system environment as needed. However, while that use to be my main PC it really isn't the case any more. After Esther and I moved we pretty much decided in order to save space we would begin using laptops more. So in early 2008 we purchased two new laptops, which i recently updated to Windows 7, and as a result my Compaq notebook has become my main computer. So in a very real sense wherever I go the USAGames office goes with me, because all of the source code is on that laptop. Most of the time I work on the games from there and test the games on either one of the desktops before release. So I think that is the advantage of laptops and a lot of publicly available wi-fi internet access. You can pretty much take your office with you regardless where you are at, and running a mostly web based business from a portable notebook computer is pretty easy. On 6/7/10, Phil Vlasak p...@pcsgames.net wrote: Hi Lori, Well, I do have an office but it is our spare bedroom with computers and desks for me and my wife. And the dogs have pillows on the floor as they like to sleep under the desks while we are in the room. We had two HP vista computers that we got as the last of the 32 bit systems were on sale. And we have a 500 GB backup USB hard drive that only cost $100. I was thinking of offices outside the house where you have to travel to get to work. Phil --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices
Hi Dark, Right. Regardless of what Nintendo's motivation was or wasn't in creating the Sound Voyager games we really can not expect them to take us very seriously. At least not until it really begins hurting them financially. Recently I read the white paper 7128 has on their web site on exactly how much money mainstream and independant game companies stand to lose if they don't start making their games accessible to their aging customers. While I think Elinor and Steffany did a good job on the paper, made some very convincing arguments, I'm afraid the mainstream companies won't listen until it is too late, and they have a bunch of elderly gamers wanting to play the latest game releases. By then they'll have to add some sort of accessibility and my guess is as usual accessibility will come in the form of some half-baked solution. It will be there, but not as good as it could have been if they spent time fully researching and testing the problem. However, that really isn't the big picture. I'm not so much affended by the fact APH put out some lame accessible games, but by the fact they came out with something that has been done before and tried to initially market it under the false assumption that what they are doing is revolutionary technology. A simple google search would have turned up games like DynaMan, Aliens in the Outback, Troopenum, Hunter, Shades of Doom, etc. That alone would have probably gave the APH developers a better idea of what is and isn't out there, and their sales people may have at least tried to sell their games at competative prices. Instead they jumped into the market assuming this or that was true and I wonder how much money they really made off their games. I for one felt they were too high, more or less like what I already owned, and there, this is revolutionary, attitude just rubbed me the wrong way. What I'm getting at, though, is I wonder how many mainstream or indipendant developers will take the same attitude the moment they begin creating games more accessible. I know enough about marketing to know that they'll put a spin on it that will make it sound like company x has a new, revolutionary, special design to make games more accessible for the blind regardless if the game is very simplistic compared to existing accessible games. When in reality those of us who are currently making accessible games probibly initially came up with those ideas to begin with. It would be nice to get some credit from these companies and organizations rather than being treated as though our research into this field never existed. As you said having our existance denied is as bad as if not worse than being treated like an idiot. On 6/7/10, dark d...@xgam.org wrote: Hi tom. In the case of sound voyager, I don't think it was actually markited as games intended for blind people, so much as just games with sound intended for sited people. Afterall, i doubt despite the efforts of the game accessibility sig etc, that nintendo, sega, sony capcom etc even know blind people play games, in fact during my chalming chat with capcom uk about low vision access to mega man they streight out told me that I was the only low vision player in the entire uk, and all I was trying to have them do was produce a copy of the Mega man aniversery collection available for Uk systems (at it turned out unnecessary, sinse the freeloader disk can play Mamerican or japanese games on a european gamecube no problem). I therefore wouldn't assume nintendo's motives were quite the same as as aph's, though this isn't an excuse, as having your existance denied is just as bad as being treated like an idiot. this is again why, while I do approve the efforts to get the mainstream industry interested in producing accessible games, i think indi games developement is the real future as far as accessible games goes. Beware the grue! Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices
It'll be interesting to see the reactions of companies like Nintendo and Sony if and when this happens, but like as not they'll assume elderly folk don't want to play games and shouldn't anyway. I agree also about Soundvoyager not necessarily being an attempt to passify us blind gamers (of course it didn't work if it was), more a different sort of game for sighted folks. As I understand it a lot of Japanese companies do actually make audio-only games and probably don't even have the blind in mind. It just so happens that said games might be playable by us. We are the Knights who say...Ni! - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Monday, June 07, 2010 1:36 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices Hi Dark, Right. Regardless of what Nintendo's motivation was or wasn't in creating the Sound Voyager games we really can not expect them to take us very seriously. At least not until it really begins hurting them financially. Recently I read the white paper 7128 has on their web site on exactly how much money mainstream and independant game companies stand to lose if they don't start making their games accessible to their aging customers. While I think Elinor and Steffany did a good job on the paper, made some very convincing arguments, I'm afraid the mainstream companies won't listen until it is too late, and they have a bunch of elderly gamers wanting to play the latest game releases. By then they'll have to add some sort of accessibility and my guess is as usual accessibility will come in the form of some half-baked solution. It will be there, but not as good as it could have been if they spent time fully researching and testing the problem. However, that really isn't the big picture. I'm not so much affended by the fact APH put out some lame accessible games, but by the fact they came out with something that has been done before and tried to initially market it under the false assumption that what they are doing is revolutionary technology. A simple google search would have turned up games like DynaMan, Aliens in the Outback, Troopenum, Hunter, Shades of Doom, etc. That alone would have probably gave the APH developers a better idea of what is and isn't out there, and their sales people may have at least tried to sell their games at competative prices. Instead they jumped into the market assuming this or that was true and I wonder how much money they really made off their games. I for one felt they were too high, more or less like what I already owned, and there, this is revolutionary, attitude just rubbed me the wrong way. What I'm getting at, though, is I wonder how many mainstream or indipendant developers will take the same attitude the moment they begin creating games more accessible. I know enough about marketing to know that they'll put a spin on it that will make it sound like company x has a new, revolutionary, special design to make games more accessible for the blind regardless if the game is very simplistic compared to existing accessible games. When in reality those of us who are currently making accessible games probibly initially came up with those ideas to begin with. It would be nice to get some credit from these companies and organizations rather than being treated as though our research into this field never existed. As you said having our existance denied is as bad as if not worse than being treated like an idiot. On 6/7/10, dark d...@xgam.org wrote: Hi tom. In the case of sound voyager, I don't think it was actually markited as games intended for blind people, so much as just games with sound intended for sited people. Afterall, i doubt despite the efforts of the game accessibility sig etc, that nintendo, sega, sony capcom etc even know blind people play games, in fact during my chalming chat with capcom uk about low vision access to mega man they streight out told me that I was the only low vision player in the entire uk, and all I was trying to have them do was produce a copy of the Mega man aniversery collection available for Uk systems (at it turned out unnecessary, sinse the freeloader disk can play Mamerican or japanese games on a european gamecube no problem). I therefore wouldn't assume nintendo's motives were quite the same as as aph's, though this isn't an excuse, as having your existance denied is just as bad as being treated like an idiot. this is again why, while I do approve the efforts to get the mainstream industry interested in producing accessible games, i think indi games developement is the real future as far as accessible games goes. Beware the grue! Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo
[Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices
Hi Folks, The only two accessible game companies that I know have offices are, Paul Silva, Jeremie Spitzer, and Tim Keenan's All inPlay. Larry Skutchan's American Printing House for the Blind, with work by Elaine Kitchel, Rob Meredith, Rodger Smith, and John Hedges. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices
Not to be funny, but does American printing house really count as a game developer? I just ask, because they don't seem to have produced any games in years, and in fact I've never managed to get their games to work at all on any machine I've tried them on (one reason why armadillow army has no description on audiogames.net, then it doesn't actually seem that their games are really intended for adults or serious game players anyway, it rather struck me from the descriptions that they seemed more education orientated and simplified and thus aimed very much at kids. Beware the grue! Dark. - Original Message - From: Phil Vlasak p...@pcsgames.net To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, June 06, 2010 3:18 PM Subject: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices Hi Folks, The only two accessible game companies that I know have offices are, Paul Silva, Jeremie Spitzer, and Tim Keenan's All inPlay. Larry Skutchan's American Printing House for the Blind, with work by Elaine Kitchel, Rob Meredith, Rodger Smith, and John Hedges. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices
I don't really think it does, as the america printing house is maybe something for the blind. If they sell games, probably something like card games or the bundjer. Oh, I think that was discontinued. Though, I really loved it, wished they made a new release of it. Maybe the America printing house for the blind is something like a fund for brail books, brail notes and new devices like brailnotes and new phones or something. Just like RNIB. My audio games for the blind group. Discussions off topic are welcome in the holidays. Talking about games is welcome, talking about computer problems is welcome when their are know holidays but that's only in easter holidays or know holidays. If you want to joyn, just send a blank email to. audiogamesfortheblind+subscr...@googlegroups.com With the subject subscribe in the subject line. Contact infermation. email: muhamme...@googlemail.com msn: muhammed123...@hotmail.co.uk Skype: muhammed.deniz Klango username. muhammed - Original Message - From: dark d...@xgam.org To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, June 06, 2010 6:00 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices Not to be funny, but does American printing house really count as a game developer? I just ask, because they don't seem to have produced any games in years, and in fact I've never managed to get their games to work at all on any machine I've tried them on (one reason why armadillow army has no description on audiogames.net, then it doesn't actually seem that their games are really intended for adults or serious game players anyway, it rather struck me from the descriptions that they seemed more education orientated and simplified and thus aimed very much at kids. Beware the grue! Dark. - Original Message - From: Phil Vlasak p...@pcsgames.net To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, June 06, 2010 3:18 PM Subject: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices Hi Folks, The only two accessible game companies that I know have offices are, Paul Silva, Jeremie Spitzer, and Tim Keenan's All inPlay. Larry Skutchan's American Printing House for the Blind, with work by Elaine Kitchel, Rob Meredith, Rodger Smith, and John Hedges. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices
Hi dark, I've been able to install and run all of the APH games. They had a beta system that allowed you to download an play a timed version of their games. You are correct in that they have not released a game in quite a while. And they sold some of the most expensive games, although they recently dropped their prices a bit. $39.00 Armadillo Army, $39.00 Termite torpedo, $39.00 Toodle Tiles, Phil --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices
I might give the games another try actually at some stage but certainly neither armadillo army, nor termite torpedo worked when I downloaded and tried them in order to give the demos a go. Beware the Grue! Dark. Beware the Grue! Dark. - Original Message - From: Phil Vlasak p...@pcsgames.net To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, June 06, 2010 7:16 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices Hi dark, I've been able to install and run all of the APH games. They had a beta system that allowed you to download an play a timed version of their games. You are correct in that they have not released a game in quite a while. And they sold some of the most expensive games, although they recently dropped their prices a bit. $39.00 Armadillo Army, $39.00 Termite torpedo, $39.00 Toodle Tiles, Phil --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices
Hi Dark, I did onece try Termite Torpedo myself, that's a hard one, especially as I didn't get a chance to really try it (I never registered it). Best Regards, Hayden -Original Message- From: gamers-boun...@audyssey.org [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of dark Sent: Sunday, June 06, 2010 3:21 PM To: Gamers Discussion list Subject: Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices I might give the games another try actually at some stage but certainly neither armadillo army, nor termite torpedo worked when I downloaded and tried them in order to give the demos a go. Beware the Grue! Dark. Beware the Grue! Dark. - Original Message - From: Phil Vlasak p...@pcsgames.net To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, June 06, 2010 7:16 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices Hi dark, I've been able to install and run all of the APH games. They had a beta system that allowed you to download an play a timed version of their games. You are correct in that they have not released a game in quite a while. And they sold some of the most expensive games, although they recently dropped their prices a bit. $39.00 Armadillo Army, $39.00 Termite torpedo, $39.00 Toodle Tiles, Phil --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices
Hi Phil, $39? I can't believe they're charging nearly that much. Now, RailRacer was nearly 40 bucks, but it had a lot of unlockable content, a career mode with classes, and numerous upgrades and tracks to race, plus the ability to make more tracks if you wish, as crazy asyou like (I just recently made one with an 800 foot jump, heheh). Then there's entombed, which costs the same thing, but there are also countless pathways to play in that game, and to be honest Jason could charge even more to and we'dstill get our money's worth. But for APH games? Um...no. Best Regards, Hayden -Original Message- From: gamers-boun...@audyssey.org [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Phil Vlasak Sent: Sunday, June 06, 2010 1:16 PM To: Gamers Discussion list Subject: Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices Hi dark, I've been able to install and run all of the APH games. They had a beta system that allowed you to download an play a timed version of their games. You are correct in that they have not released a game in quite a while. And they sold some of the most expensive games, although they recently dropped their prices a bit. $39.00 Armadillo Army, $39.00 Termite torpedo, $39.00 Toodle Tiles, Phil --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices
Hi, Well, I think the problem is that most of the people who work for APH don't have the foggiest idea we are out here, and therefore they don't have anything to compare their games too. As you pointed out there are certainly far better accessible games for the same price or less so buying the APH games seams rather rediculous to us. However, we only have that opinion because many of us have played Rail Racer, Entombed, Time of Conflict, and playing something like Termite Torpedo sounds laughable in comparison. I think those guys over at APH need a huge wake up call. On 6/6/10, Hayden Presley hdpres...@hotmail.com wrote: Hi Phil, $39? I can't believe they're charging nearly that much. Now, RailRacer was nearly 40 bucks, but it had a lot of unlockable content, a career mode with classes, and numerous upgrades and tracks to race, plus the ability to make more tracks if you wish, as crazy asyou like (I just recently made one with an 800 foot jump, heheh). Then there's entombed, which costs the same thing, but there are also countless pathways to play in that game, and to be honest Jason could charge even more to and we'dstill get our money's worth. But for APH games? Um...no. Best Regards, Hayden --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices
Hi Thomas, Very true that. I'd just like to shove a copy of Rail Racer in their face and say, Try this, and tell me how much you think it costs. Wonder what their price would be? I don't even want to think about it! Shutter Best Regards, Hayden -Original Message- From: gamers-boun...@audyssey.org [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Ward Sent: Sunday, June 06, 2010 4:54 PM To: Gamers Discussion list Subject: Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices Hi, Well, I think the problem is that most of the people who work for APH don't have the foggiest idea we are out here, and therefore they don't have anything to compare their games too. As you pointed out there are certainly far better accessible games for the same price or less so buying the APH games seams rather rediculous to us. However, we only have that opinion because many of us have played Rail Racer, Entombed, Time of Conflict, and playing something like Termite Torpedo sounds laughable in comparison. I think those guys over at APH need a huge wake up call. On 6/6/10, Hayden Presley hdpres...@hotmail.com wrote: Hi Phil, $39? I can't believe they're charging nearly that much. Now, RailRacer was nearly 40 bucks, but it had a lot of unlockable content, a career mode with classes, and numerous upgrades and tracks to race, plus the ability to make more tracks if you wish, as crazy asyou like (I just recently made one with an 800 foot jump, heheh). Then there's entombed, which costs the same thing, but there are also countless pathways to play in that game, and to be honest Jason could charge even more to and we'dstill get our money's worth. But for APH games? Um...no. Best Regards, Hayden --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices
I must confess I don't really have much sympathy for developers who planely have the skils and knolidge to create games, but take no effort to actually look at what Vi players would want, or what else has been developed in the same line. Entombed came about because jason Alan was interested in writing audio games, turned up on the audiogames.net forum in 2008 and said I'd like to make a game, what are people interested in? and of course we all said an audio rpg would rock, but nobody's made one yet and the rest is history. It's not particularly hard to find audiogames.net, pcs games, this list, or other resources if you just bang something like blind accessible games or audio games into google, but instead of doing such the people at aph, - rather I have to say like Azabat software, just interpreted what sort of games blind people want and pumped them out. In fact I must confess I feel rather as if I've been condescended to when someone suggests this is the sort of game I should play just because I have disfunctional eyeballs. this is of course completely different from people who begin with an easier game creation project, or try specifically to develope an arcade game the way Bsc did, sinse at least they are treeating their customers like reasonable human beings not overgrown children. Case in point, Luis briants' recent question about space invaders games. if Aph had asked people, well people would have told them exactly where to stick those torpedos and maybe we'd have got some better games out of it. Beware the Grue! Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices
Hi Thomas, The sad thing is that APH sells their games mainly to schools who are their main customers. So blind kids who play their arcade games probably think that is the state of the art in audio games. They do have partially sighted kids in mind so have included full graphics with their games, and have a team of salaried people working on each game. They commission the music and make their own sound effects and do the audio voice in a recording studio but I think they lack the creativity of making a truly revolutionary game. Toodle Tiles is their version of Mahjong, Armadillo Army is like Pacman, and Termite torpedo is like Space invaders. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices
Hi Phil, The similarities between Termite Torpedo and Space Invaders is, believe me, minimal. Best Regards, Hayden -Original Message- From: gamers-boun...@audyssey.org [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Phil Vlasak Sent: Sunday, June 06, 2010 5:39 PM To: Gamers Discussion list Subject: Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices Hi Thomas, The sad thing is that APH sells their games mainly to schools who are their main customers. So blind kids who play their arcade games probably think that is the state of the art in audio games. They do have partially sighted kids in mind so have included full graphics with their games, and have a team of salaried people working on each game. They commission the music and make their own sound effects and do the audio voice in a recording studio but I think they lack the creativity of making a truly revolutionary game. Toodle Tiles is their version of Mahjong, Armadillo Army is like Pacman, and Termite torpedo is like Space invaders. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices
Hi Dark, Yeah, I know. That's the fundimental problem with any well known company or organisation. They just assume what a blind person would want, would need, or figure what a blind person could play and produce an inferior product holy unaware of what else may be out there being produced by an independant developer. As you say it does feel a bit condisending, and makes me feel like I'm being treated as a child when APH comes out with what amounts to kiddy games expecting someone like me to play them. Worse they advertised them like APH was the very first company to produce fully accessible games for the blind, and we all know that isn't true. As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago I was very disappointed with Nintendo over their Sound Voyager games. Here it was, seamed like a mainstream game company was going to take accessible games serious, and then they put out three games that weren't all that interesting to play, and then had the nerve to say they didn't sell well. Apparently it never occurred to anyone that maybe we wanted something more complex and well known like Mario, Megaman, Castlevania, whatever. Give me accessible versions of the games I played in the 80's and 90's before I lost my sight and I would have purchased them no problem. However, don't give us kiddy games and expect us to jump up for jjoy when it isn't remotely as good as our more complex accessible games. Ah, well, that's life I suppose. Until people become more informed about this community, even our own blind agencies, we are going to run into these rediculous situations where the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. On 6/6/10, dark d...@xgam.org wrote: I must confess I don't really have much sympathy for developers who planely have the skils and knolidge to create games, but take no effort to actually look at what Vi players would want, or what else has been developed in the same line. Entombed came about because jason Alan was interested in writing audio games, turned up on the audiogames.net forum in 2008 and said I'd like to make a game, what are people interested in? and of course we all said an audio rpg would rock, but nobody's made one yet and the rest is history. It's not particularly hard to find audiogames.net, pcs games, this list, or other resources if you just bang something like blind accessible games or audio games into google, but instead of doing such the people at aph, - rather I have to say like Azabat software, just interpreted what sort of games blind people want and pumped them out. In fact I must confess I feel rather as if I've been condescended to when someone suggests this is the sort of game I should play just because I have disfunctional eyeballs. this is of course completely different from people who begin with an easier game creation project, or try specifically to develope an arcade game the way Bsc did, sinse at least they are treeating their customers like reasonable human beings not overgrown children. Case in point, Luis briants' recent question about space invaders games. if Aph had asked people, well people would have told them exactly where to stick those torpedos and maybe we'd have got some better games out of it. Beware the Grue! Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] accessible game companies with offices
Hi Phil, Yeah, I know. I tried the demos when they came out and I just wasn't impressed with there games. For one thing they were way too high, I had payed less for the GMA games I owned, and felt they were superior products to the APH games. However,the truly sad thing is when those games came out i seam to recall APH had made some comment that these games were revolutionary products specially made for blind and low vision computer users. If they truly believe that then they must be living in the twilight zone, because there were already plenty of accessible games out there as good as if not better than the APH products. Like give me a break. Where is there marketing and research staff at? On 6/6/10, Phil Vlasak p...@pcsgames.net wrote: Hi Thomas, The sad thing is that APH sells their games mainly to schools who are their main customers. So blind kids who play their arcade games probably think that is the state of the art in audio games. They do have partially sighted kids in mind so have included full graphics with their games, and have a team of salaried people working on each game. They commission the music and make their own sound effects and do the audio voice in a recording studio but I think they lack the creativity of making a truly revolutionary game. Toodle Tiles is their version of Mahjong, Armadillo Army is like Pacman, and Termite torpedo is like Space invaders. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
