So much that I want to say here, and I’m sure I won’t say it as eloquent as some of the others. This is coming from someone who started with mainstream games when I had sight. Then a mixed of both audio, and mainstream. I drifted away from audio games at one point, because they just weren’t doing enough for me. And that’s not a knock on those developers. Some of the thoughts expressed on here about making mainstream games accessible are scary. Specially someone that said that making the game accessible would change it to something else than what it was intended to be. That’s completely wrong, and something that we have discussed before. Adding accessibility features to a game would not take anything from the game itself. It’s not like those who don’t need the accessibility would be forced to use them. And that has already been proven with the games previously mentioned. We’re no longer a last thought, and the tools are available for developers to use. I’m glad we have both the laws, and the right people advocating. We have more, and more people joining the fight each day. And also more developers willing, and glad to help. I had more to say, but of course as soon as I start writing it all goes away. Lol And salute to all those in the previous post who are part of the movement.
You have to have a proper understanding of how video games work and how making products accessible work. The more you can understand these two things and come to terms with the fact that not everything can be made accessible, you may feel less negative.
I don't think we would be where we are now if we accepted the fact that not everything can be made accessible, or if we were satisfied with the fact that accessibility comes last.
Implementation is not a problem. It's certainly not easy at times, as I have mentioned before, it's just that there are various hurdles on the way to full accessibility. There are very good examples of how this can be done. I always mention MikeZ from Lab Zero Games, who really went out of his way to include blind and visually impaired gamers. After asking whether we are "hyped," he just said: "I have never done this before, I don't even know if it's going to work, but try and see. All I know is that this was a bit hard to implement, but I hope it's worth it." All because he believes that everyone should be equally included and he implemented an idea. This was just the start. He signed a Steam accessibility petition since, and had done other things that I cannot really talk about at this time.
Look dude you said that complex mechanics are massively harder, which isn't really true if you think of it in terms of building upon what's already there rather that how to communicate a whole mechanic non-visually from scratch. That is all.
You're wrong about the games. I can't tell you why without breaking NDAs. But suffice to say that there are more factors in the way things are than simply what level of priority something is regarded.
And yes, I've been working in game accessibility for a long time, I'm very much familiar with all the responses. Again there's often more to it than the surface impression. The classic being devs wanting to implement blind accessibility, going away and looking into it, finding out that their engine does not permit it, realising that to get voiceover support they'd need to dump Unity and remake their game as native Android and iOS apps.. and then saying that they do not have the resources to do it. Because it's true, doing so would be absurd. Which is why Unity working on native cross platform screenreader support is so awesome.
Personally I've been harassing Unity about it both in person and remotely for getting on for a decade and others have been for longer than me, it's about bloody time :)
Also re: Mike Zaimont - it took him a day to make his UI accessible. It doesn't have to be difficult or expensive.
I think both of us are coming from different backgrounds, we have different experiences that led to an accessibility bloom that you are seemingly more optimistic about than I am. Maybe because your journey was not as rough as mine so far, maybe not. I am not really sure and I am not willing to attempt to guess at this point. All I hope is that if if yours was indeed less rough, it stays that way in the future, because ultimately, everyone benefits from it, yourself included.
Both of us know what experiences we have, I only mentioned mine to give credibility to what I was stating, but neither of us knows what experiences the other had. But in this sense, it is irrelevant, both of us want the same thing and both of us are making steps towards it.
I listed factors and issues that potentially could make implementing accessibility harder. That's not because I sat down and thought hard about them, it is because they indeed did in the past, and looking at a lot of game developers who are still not implementing accessibility, to whom accessibility comes last, these are still ongoing issues. We would not have this forum topic as proof, if it wasn't, and everyone would be happy. Because there are cases when building upon what's there is just not possible, because there is nothing like it to draw from. But you don't have to accept this, nobody has to, I did not contribute to this topic to become a prophet to anyone.
To add to what you said, I am happy about the makers of Unity finally doing something, it is really about time. What I mentioned about MikeZ proves your point, accessibility does not have to be expensive, nor complicated to implement, but this complexity is not uniform across all games. Sometimes, implementing accessibility will be complex. If MikeZ implements it for Indivisible, it will be way more than just a day's work.
Look to be honest I really don't appreciate you making speculations about me like that. I have had an endless battle and had to make sacrifices to do so. In order to fight these battles I've had to move across the country away from my family and my friends, I've had to take a 75% pay cut, I've spent all the money I could find flying to conferences back in the days when nobody gave a shit and I'd be speaking to a room of 10 people, I've spent all the early years hanging out at gamedev meetups and expos cornering individual people and bending their ears until they saw sense, I've spent my days and my nights with my head in the dankest recesses of the internet fighting this fight with gamers as well as developers.
I've had all the abuse, I've had the death threats, enough that everything bounces off now, for the simple reason that there's nothing anyone can say to me that has not already been said.
One small example - at the start of this year a vile alt-right hate site spread misinformation about CVAA legislation, enormously damaging misinformation harmful to developers and harmful to the wider accessibility effort, especially blind accessibility which was the main thrust of the misinformation. That misinformation spread like wildfire.
Most of the people who know enough about CVAA to be able to combat misinformation work for big companies, and are prohibited by their legal teams from talking publicly about things that have legal implications. I've been working on CVAA for the past 5 years or so and have no corporate legal team restricting me, so responsibility fell on me.
Fixing the fallout from that cost me January. By January I mean 20 hours per day, barely eating or sleeping. Cancelling paid work to do so. All of that time was spent arguing those exact same arguments that you're referencing, and far worse - over and over, again and again, bringing people around one by one. This article was the friendly face of it - https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/IanHamilton/20190123/334910/Demystifying_CVAA.php, but the reality of it was DARK. I went through more advocacy hell in that month alone than many people have been through in their lives, and that's only one example.
So again, please do not speculate about my background. It isn't appropriate.
On a more positive note here's a concrete example of accessibility as a priority in a mainstream game, including blind accessibility. Not just implementation, investing in research early in development to ensure the best possible job is done. I hope this in some way reassures you that optmism is not misplaced and that things are squarely moving in the right direction.
Reading all of this back and forth, I'm becoming increasingly convinced that developers need to be shown the ways in which accessibility can be utilized. I definitely still think some times of games are far easier than others to make accessible. The Witcher 3 - arguably one of the greats in terms of open-world Role-Playing games for instance would have a very hard time being made accessible for a totally blind audience just because it is so vast. I don't know iff it could be done, because I'm ignorant about fundamental accessibility tools. But then, there is lots of text documents to read, menus to interact with and everything is already fully voiced. So the interface at the very least could be made accessible. I know what such a thing should sound like from an audio perspective, but not how it could be implemented from a technical perspective. And in the end, that is, I think, what's important for developers. To have a clear idea on the how, and hopefully that how will help make it seem more manageable. There are other types of games which could much more easily be made accessible. I can't speak for the racing and sports types, because even as a sighted gamer I avoid the heck out of those. But I imagine the framework is there.
Ian, I really don't understand why you are taking my posts, and my main message as personal attacks against you, what you believe in, or what you have achieved so far. If not personal attacks, then assumptions at the very least. Could you please read this paragraph of my previous post again?
I think both of us are coming from different backgrounds, we have different experiences that led to an accessibility bloom that you are seemingly more optimistic about than I am. Maybe because your journey was not as rough as mine so far, maybe not. I am not really sure and I am not willing to attempt to guess at this point. All I hope is that if if yours was indeed less rough, it stays that way in the future, because ultimately, everyone benefits from it, yourself included.
That' sthe thing. You said it. With ocr. We don't want OCR. We want these items to talk, or what not when possible. I have a heck of a time with let's say madden's play book and EA thinks that just because we use OCR they don't need to fix anything in that regard. We have told them they are wrong but many people think that many of us who want speach are just trols etc. Look on the audio games forum for more information.
I have no need to re-read anything, and I do not appreciate you telling me I need to re-read it. I've already read it plenty of times in my discussions with other people outside of these forums about what you have been saying. You're out of order. I am a difficult person to anger but you've done a pretty effective job of it. Your speculation about my background and experience is personally offensive. If you aren't going to apologise then you at least need to stop this line of conversation and thought, right now.
I heard about microsoft flight simulator. From an avid simmer such as myself, i cannot wait to test all of this out next year. Maybe if it is accessible or any better than p3d, I can kiss that good bye. And use fs2020.. If anyone has any question on how I as a visually impaired person do flight wsimming, ask. Or go to my youtube channel or twitch.tv/ke7zum and look there.
If I meant to speculate, and deliberately offend you, just because you have a different opinion, I would have had a lot of chance to do so and you could have done the same to me. And in that case I would not have included a sentence like this: "I am not really sure and I am not willing to attempt to guess at this point."
My speculation in regards to why your outlook is more optimistic than mine is just that. People who have more success in their career are generally more optimistic. I am sorry you are not seeing it this way and my posts still come down as offensive to you, when they are not meant to be, as I have repeatedly said.
Hopefully people reading this thread will be able to take something useful from both sides and accessibility can thrive on. Because ultimately, that's what we all want.
Again, on a more positive note, and moving the conversation back to the topic at hand, please read this. It contains some great info on the current state of affairs of accessibility. The attitudes and practices summarised in this article are representative of the shift in other studios too. We are not in some fabled promised land where every AAA game from here onwards will be completely accessible to all disabilities, but the state of the industry is really unrecognisable compared to just a couple of years ago. https://www.pcgamesn.com/microsoft-flight-simulator/accessibility
Sarah have you been in touch with the flight simulator devs? I'm sure they would love to hear from you. Try dropping Brannon Zahand a line, he may be able to hook you up.
to the person that keeps attacking ian just give it up and admit your just dead wrong, and you have no clue as to what you are talking about. frankly if you claim your a main stream gamer, you embarrass us and yes i go way back in gaming as well. you seriously need to just stop saying ian is wrong and he doesn't know what he is talking about because he knows a bit more then you do when it comes to accessibility. he helped work on a main stream game, and i can't say that about you.
Brandon, please continue the discussion in an appropriate manner. When you get to know me, which I frankly don't see happening any time soon, we can talk about what you can and can't tell about me. You would be surprised.
This was never a contest, and once again, I did not mean to, nor attack anyone to my knowledge, despite the fact that my post was taken offensively.
If you think I don't know anything and I am dead wrong, this is your sole opinion and I respect it. I have voiced my arguments. If they are not convincing enough for you, please move on.
i am also a blind simmer i have also been keeping in touch with the flight sim 20 stuff as well. can't wait to see how this will come out. i use p 3 d but if this is better i will start to use this more.
What has been put in place to make Gears 5 accessible. That's one of the shootiest of shooters. I'm curious to hear what they've implemented to make that possible.
first, the menues read, and I mean all of them as far as I know. The pause menu glitches sometimes, but there is an auto aim which I'm not sure how that works yet, The campaign node is not accessible but you can get to your base to buy amo with your points, there is a location beacon you can hear.
I think the menu reading thing is really cool. Wonder if supplementary text is red also. Still, that's a good start. The fact the campaigne isn't accessible is definetly a disappointment. Hopefully this isn't a case of creating a pretence of accessibility. Slapping on a couple of narrating menus and calling it a day. That's what Sony did with the PS4. There are several areas within the PS4 interface which Text-To-Speech will read. Including chat. But the friends list, trophy list, lots of the settings, and of course all of the store and other apps are not. It's great that they started out, but in some ways, giving up a tenth of the way through is almost worse, because it creates false hope. Even the Netflix app on the PS4 utilizes the TTS framework, all be it a little awkwardly at times. It actually used to be better than it is, but an update broke it a little. It is still the only accessible app on the PS4.
Apply what to Fortnite? Voiced menus? I assume that will be coming soon as their engine - Unreal - now has an early version of screenreader support.
Blind accessible gameplay? Not likely. That would IMO be the least suited type of game on the market to blind accessibility. I know people want to play it as it's what all the sighted kids are playing, but there are many other much lower hanging fruit.
Ke7zum it is Forza Motorsport, that's the track based one. Horizon is open world.
C. V.A.A., also known as 21st century communications and video accessibility act is a law passed in 2010. It mandates that communications and media services be accessible to those with disabilities. That includes content and equipment. It’s more involved, but basic synopsis.
Ian, i personally think that you are doing a fantastic job for the blind comunity. I have been audio gaming for a number of years now but slowly and surely I'm moving away into the mainstream video games part of gaming.
I still have some audio games on my harddrive, but the most enjoyment comes out of normal video games.
So, please keep up the awesome work if possible.
I really would love to help get accessibility further and check out new accessibility concepts, I don't know though how I could be of any assistance.
On another note, there was discussion about a game called indivisible on the AG.net forums, are you also involved in that project?
So Remy in 2015 the CVAA compliance deadline hit for games consoles. It required that blind people in the USA must be able to operate any text/voice chat functionality on the consoles, and any menus and information needed to navigate to and operate that chat functionality. Hence PlayStation and Xbox both gaining USA only text to speech for chat and related menus in 2015.
The approaches were very different. And Xbox is a forked version of Windows, meaning they already had narrator that they could hook into. So it was relatively straightforward for them to carry on past that, and upgrade the text to speech to cover more menus and more languages.
For PlayStation it's not so simple, they had to build their stuff from scratch.
On the plus side though they were in the early stages of developing the PS5 at that point, so hopefully the PS5 will be more accessible than the PS4.
I don't suppose you're into flight simulators? The Microsoft flight simulator developers might be interested in having a chat, they have been looking at how to make their game blind accessible
By those regulations, Sony is not meeting those guidelines. Chat functionality on the PS4 seems out, but the friends list is actually inaccessible. SO you can send, reply to and receive messages, but you can't go to your contacts list and view your friends list. Seems like extremely bare bones functionality in any case. So chat needs to be made accessible, but the menus to actually operate the console doesn't? Seems a little backwards to me. It will be interesting to see if the PS5 does any better. Honestly I'd be okay with in-game menus and documents being read at least. Thanks for the explanation.
At Ian well, I haven't flown in quite a few months though, but I'm starting up again and I am actually quite into flight simming. not as much as the majority of those blind persons who fly, but still quite a bit.
If that's the case Remy, contact Sony. they're required to fix it.
Companies who provide communication services are required to provide a contact point for CVAA issues, which you can find by searching on the FCC website. To save you time searching, Sony's contact for CVAA issues is Joe Alsterlind, Device Program Manager, Hardware. His number is 650-655-6053.
That will open up a formal dialogue moderated by the FCC, and kicks off a 30 day deadline for the issue to be fixed to your satisfaction.
"So chat needs to be made accessible, but the menus to actually operate the console doesn't? Seems a little backwards to me"
Some of the menus have to be accessible - the menus needed to navigate to and operate the chat functionality. The rest do not. This is because there is no law that says games consoles have to be accessible. There is just a law that says text/vice/video chat functionality must be accessible, regardless of what platform it appears on. It's an update to the old laws that required phone companies to provide text relay services for people who have difficulty hearing or speaking.
Back on the original topic... old games are generally played through emulators. For anyone not already aware, an emulator is a bit of software that simulates hardware. E.g. a SNES emulator is a program you can run that lets you play SNES games.
There's a very popular piece of software called RetroArch that acts as a front end for emulators for all kinds of different old consoles and arcade machines. An update is arriving any day now that adds both text to speech for the menus of the emulator itself, and also adds OCR for text in the games. Doesn't do anything for making gameplay more accessible, but it's something at least :)
I've been using emulators for a long time (though I haven't for just as long a time). how which generation does this emulator go up to? I imagine it would be very difficult to get a PS3 emulator to work, but PS2 emulation should be possible in 2019. PS2 is, in my opinion anyway still one of the best consoles with some of the best games. It would be interesting to test this out.
Retroarch does support PS2 emulation, but it uses a newer PS2 emulator that isn't quite up to the level as one which is older, takes more resources, and is restricted to Windows. The PS2, also, is a rather unique system, which is harder to emulate than other systems like the NES. Retroarch does have support for systems, I believe, up to the PS3 and 3DS.
Comments
Progress is being made
So much that I want to say here, and I’m sure I won’t say it as eloquent as some of the others. This is coming from someone who started with mainstream games when I had sight. Then a mixed of both audio, and mainstream. I drifted away from audio games at one point, because they just weren’t doing enough for me. And that’s not a knock on those developers. Some of the thoughts expressed on here about making mainstream games accessible are scary. Specially someone that said that making the game accessible would change it to something else than what it was intended to be. That’s completely wrong, and something that we have discussed before. Adding accessibility features to a game would not take anything from the game itself. It’s not like those who don’t need the accessibility would be forced to use them. And that has already been proven with the games previously mentioned. We’re no longer a last thought, and the tools are available for developers to use. I’m glad we have both the laws, and the right people advocating. We have more, and more people joining the fight each day. And also more developers willing, and glad to help. I had more to say, but of course as soon as I start writing it all goes away. Lol And salute to all those in the previous post who are part of the movement.
Must Understand How Games Work
You have to have a proper understanding of how video games work and how making products accessible work. The more you can understand these two things and come to terms with the fact that not everything can be made accessible, you may feel less negative.
I don't think we would be
I don't think we would be where we are now if we accepted the fact that not everything can be made accessible, or if we were satisfied with the fact that accessibility comes last.
Implementation is not a problem. It's certainly not easy at times, as I have mentioned before, it's just that there are various hurdles on the way to full accessibility. There are very good examples of how this can be done. I always mention MikeZ from Lab Zero Games, who really went out of his way to include blind and visually impaired gamers. After asking whether we are "hyped," he just said: "I have never done this before, I don't even know if it's going to work, but try and see. All I know is that this was a bit hard to implement, but I hope it's worth it." All because he believes that everyone should be equally included and he implemented an idea. This was just the start. He signed a Steam accessibility petition since, and had done other things that I cannot really talk about at this time.
I hate this subject field
Look dude you said that complex mechanics are massively harder, which isn't really true if you think of it in terms of building upon what's already there rather that how to communicate a whole mechanic non-visually from scratch. That is all.
You're wrong about the games. I can't tell you why without breaking NDAs. But suffice to say that there are more factors in the way things are than simply what level of priority something is regarded.
And yes, I've been working in game accessibility for a long time, I'm very much familiar with all the responses. Again there's often more to it than the surface impression. The classic being devs wanting to implement blind accessibility, going away and looking into it, finding out that their engine does not permit it, realising that to get voiceover support they'd need to dump Unity and remake their game as native Android and iOS apps.. and then saying that they do not have the resources to do it. Because it's true, doing so would be absurd. Which is why Unity working on native cross platform screenreader support is so awesome.
Personally I've been harassing Unity about it both in person and remotely for getting on for a decade and others have been for longer than me, it's about bloody time :)
Also re: Mike Zaimont - it took him a day to make his UI accessible. It doesn't have to be difficult or expensive.
Let's agree to disagree, then
Let's agree to disagree, then.
I think both of us are coming from different backgrounds, we have different experiences that led to an accessibility bloom that you are seemingly more optimistic about than I am. Maybe because your journey was not as rough as mine so far, maybe not. I am not really sure and I am not willing to attempt to guess at this point. All I hope is that if if yours was indeed less rough, it stays that way in the future, because ultimately, everyone benefits from it, yourself included.
Both of us know what experiences we have, I only mentioned mine to give credibility to what I was stating, but neither of us knows what experiences the other had. But in this sense, it is irrelevant, both of us want the same thing and both of us are making steps towards it.
I listed factors and issues that potentially could make implementing accessibility harder. That's not because I sat down and thought hard about them, it is because they indeed did in the past, and looking at a lot of game developers who are still not implementing accessibility, to whom accessibility comes last, these are still ongoing issues. We would not have this forum topic as proof, if it wasn't, and everyone would be happy. Because there are cases when building upon what's there is just not possible, because there is nothing like it to draw from. But you don't have to accept this, nobody has to, I did not contribute to this topic to become a prophet to anyone.
To add to what you said, I am happy about the makers of Unity finally doing something, it is really about time. What I mentioned about MikeZ proves your point, accessibility does not have to be expensive, nor complicated to implement, but this complexity is not uniform across all games. Sometimes, implementing accessibility will be complex. If MikeZ implements it for Indivisible, it will be way more than just a day's work.
Inappropriate
Look to be honest I really don't appreciate you making speculations about me like that. I have had an endless battle and had to make sacrifices to do so. In order to fight these battles I've had to move across the country away from my family and my friends, I've had to take a 75% pay cut, I've spent all the money I could find flying to conferences back in the days when nobody gave a shit and I'd be speaking to a room of 10 people, I've spent all the early years hanging out at gamedev meetups and expos cornering individual people and bending their ears until they saw sense, I've spent my days and my nights with my head in the dankest recesses of the internet fighting this fight with gamers as well as developers.
I've had all the abuse, I've had the death threats, enough that everything bounces off now, for the simple reason that there's nothing anyone can say to me that has not already been said.
One small example - at the start of this year a vile alt-right hate site spread misinformation about CVAA legislation, enormously damaging misinformation harmful to developers and harmful to the wider accessibility effort, especially blind accessibility which was the main thrust of the misinformation. That misinformation spread like wildfire.
Most of the people who know enough about CVAA to be able to combat misinformation work for big companies, and are prohibited by their legal teams from talking publicly about things that have legal implications. I've been working on CVAA for the past 5 years or so and have no corporate legal team restricting me, so responsibility fell on me.
Fixing the fallout from that cost me January. By January I mean 20 hours per day, barely eating or sleeping. Cancelling paid work to do so. All of that time was spent arguing those exact same arguments that you're referencing, and far worse - over and over, again and again, bringing people around one by one. This article was the friendly face of it - https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/IanHamilton/20190123/334910/Demystifying_CVAA.php, but the reality of it was DARK. I went through more advocacy hell in that month alone than many people have been through in their lives, and that's only one example.
So again, please do not speculate about my background. It isn't appropriate.
On a more positive note here's a concrete example of accessibility as a priority in a mainstream game, including blind accessibility. Not just implementation, investing in research early in development to ensure the best possible job is done. I hope this in some way reassures you that optmism is not misplaced and that things are squarely moving in the right direction.
https://www.pcgamesn.com/microsoft-flight-simulator/accessibility
I really think the how is extremely important
Reading all of this back and forth, I'm becoming increasingly convinced that developers need to be shown the ways in which accessibility can be utilized. I definitely still think some times of games are far easier than others to make accessible. The Witcher 3 - arguably one of the greats in terms of open-world Role-Playing games for instance would have a very hard time being made accessible for a totally blind audience just because it is so vast. I don't know iff it could be done, because I'm ignorant about fundamental accessibility tools. But then, there is lots of text documents to read, menus to interact with and everything is already fully voiced. So the interface at the very least could be made accessible. I know what such a thing should sound like from an audio perspective, but not how it could be implemented from a technical perspective. And in the end, that is, I think, what's important for developers. To have a clear idea on the how, and hopefully that how will help make it seem more manageable. There are other types of games which could much more easily be made accessible. I can't speak for the racing and sports types, because even as a sighted gamer I avoid the heck out of those. But I imagine the framework is there.
Ian, I really don't
Ian, I really don't understand why you are taking my posts, and my main message as personal attacks against you, what you believe in, or what you have achieved so far. If not personal attacks, then assumptions at the very least. Could you please read this paragraph of my previous post again?
I think both of us are coming from different backgrounds, we have different experiences that led to an accessibility bloom that you are seemingly more optimistic about than I am. Maybe because your journey was not as rough as mine so far, maybe not. I am not really sure and I am not willing to attempt to guess at this point. All I hope is that if if yours was indeed less rough, it stays that way in the future, because ultimately, everyone benefits from it, yourself included.
That' sthe thing. You said it
That' sthe thing. You said it. With ocr. We don't want OCR. We want these items to talk, or what not when possible. I have a heck of a time with let's say madden's play book and EA thinks that just because we use OCR they don't need to fix anything in that regard. We have told them they are wrong but many people think that many of us who want speach are just trols etc. Look on the audio games forum for more information.
No, Erion.
I have no need to re-read anything, and I do not appreciate you telling me I need to re-read it. I've already read it plenty of times in my discussions with other people outside of these forums about what you have been saying. You're out of order. I am a difficult person to anger but you've done a pretty effective job of it. Your speculation about my background and experience is personally offensive. If you aren't going to apologise then you at least need to stop this line of conversation and thought, right now.
Again, on a more positive note, and moving the conversation back to the topic at hand, read this. It may even brighten your day. https://www.pcgamesn.com/microsoft-flight-simulator/accessibility
I heard about microsoft
I heard about microsoft flight simulator. From an avid simmer such as myself, i cannot wait to test all of this out next year. Maybe if it is accessible or any better than p3d, I can kiss that good bye. And use fs2020.. If anyone has any question on how I as a visually impaired person do flight wsimming, ask. Or go to my youtube channel or twitch.tv/ke7zum and look there.
Okay
If I meant to speculate, and deliberately offend you, just because you have a different opinion, I would have had a lot of chance to do so and you could have done the same to me. And in that case I would not have included a sentence like this: "I am not really sure and I am not willing to attempt to guess at this point."
My speculation in regards to why your outlook is more optimistic than mine is just that. People who have more success in their career are generally more optimistic. I am sorry you are not seeing it this way and my posts still come down as offensive to you, when they are not meant to be, as I have repeatedly said.
Hopefully people reading this thread will be able to take something useful from both sides and accessibility can thrive on. Because ultimately, that's what we all want.
Stop it
That line of conversation is over Erion.
Again, on a more positive note, and moving the conversation back to the topic at hand, please read this. It contains some great info on the current state of affairs of accessibility. The attitudes and practices summarised in this article are representative of the shift in other studios too. We are not in some fabled promised land where every AAA game from here onwards will be completely accessible to all disabilities, but the state of the industry is really unrecognisable compared to just a couple of years ago. https://www.pcgamesn.com/microsoft-flight-simulator/accessibility
Ke7zum
Sarah have you been in touch with the flight simulator devs? I'm sure they would love to hear from you. Try dropping Brannon Zahand a line, he may be able to hook you up.
just give it up
to the person that keeps attacking ian just give it up and admit your just dead wrong, and you have no clue as to what you are talking about. frankly if you claim your a main stream gamer, you embarrass us and yes i go way back in gaming as well. you seriously need to just stop saying ian is wrong and he doesn't know what he is talking about because he knows a bit more then you do when it comes to accessibility. he helped work on a main stream game, and i can't say that about you.
Brandon, please continue the
Brandon, please continue the discussion in an appropriate manner. When you get to know me, which I frankly don't see happening any time soon, we can talk about what you can and can't tell about me. You would be surprised.
This was never a contest, and once again, I did not mean to, nor attack anyone to my knowledge, despite the fact that my post was taken offensively.
If you think I don't know anything and I am dead wrong, this is your sole opinion and I respect it. I have voiced my arguments. If they are not convincing enough for you, please move on.
Thanks. Will do. I'm not
Thanks. Will do. I'm not feeling too hot right now but when I'm back on my feet I will def do that.
Thanks.
flight sim 20 and access.
i am also a blind simmer i have also been keeping in touch with the flight sim 20 stuff as well. can't wait to see how this will come out. i use p 3 d but if this is better i will start to use this more.
Gears 5: Really
What has been put in place to make Gears 5 accessible. That's one of the shootiest of shooters. I'm curious to hear what they've implemented to make that possible.
first, the menues read, and I
first, the menues read, and I mean all of them as far as I know. The pause menu glitches sometimes, but there is an auto aim which I'm not sure how that works yet, The campaign node is not accessible but you can get to your base to buy amo with your points, there is a location beacon you can hear.
Well it's a start I suppose
I think the menu reading thing is really cool. Wonder if supplementary text is red also. Still, that's a good start. The fact the campaigne isn't accessible is definetly a disappointment. Hopefully this isn't a case of creating a pretence of accessibility. Slapping on a couple of narrating menus and calling it a day. That's what Sony did with the PS4. There are several areas within the PS4 interface which Text-To-Speech will read. Including chat. But the friends list, trophy list, lots of the settings, and of course all of the store and other apps are not. It's great that they started out, but in some ways, giving up a tenth of the way through is almost worse, because it creates false hope. Even the Netflix app on the PS4 utilizes the TTS framework, all be it a little awkwardly at times. It actually used to be better than it is, but an update broke it a little. It is still the only accessible app on the PS4.
Fortnight
Ok, how would you apply that to a game such as fortnight?
.
Are you familiar with CVAA Remy?
Fortnite
Apply what to Fortnite? Voiced menus? I assume that will be coming soon as their engine - Unreal - now has an early version of screenreader support.
Blind accessible gameplay? Not likely. That would IMO be the least suited type of game on the market to blind accessibility. I know people want to play it as it's what all the sighted kids are playing, but there are many other much lower hanging fruit.
Ke7zum it is Forza Motorsport, that's the track based one. Horizon is open world.
Playstation
Here is someone from playstation talking about how they have had 14 meetings about accessibility in the past 72 hours.
This doesn't mean blind accessibility, it means disability in general. But it's a good sign of the direction that the industry is moving in.
https://twitter.com/markusfriend/status/1203030629862035458
Question about the Twitter link
Do I need to get a subscription to listen to this link?
CVAA
Ian, I feel like CVAA is something I have heard of before, but I'm not familiar enough to have a working knowledge of it.
C. V.A.A., also known as 21st
C. V.A.A., also known as 21st century communications and video accessibility act is a law passed in 2010. It mandates that communications and media services be accessible to those with disabilities. That includes content and equipment. It’s more involved, but basic synopsis.
At Ian
Hi.
Ian, i personally think that you are doing a fantastic job for the blind comunity. I have been audio gaming for a number of years now but slowly and surely I'm moving away into the mainstream video games part of gaming.
I still have some audio games on my harddrive, but the most enjoyment comes out of normal video games.
So, please keep up the awesome work if possible.
I really would love to help get accessibility further and check out new accessibility concepts, I don't know though how I could be of any assistance.
On another note, there was discussion about a game called indivisible on the AG.net forums, are you also involved in that project?
Greetings Moritz.
CVAA
Yep that basis synopsis is spot on!
So Remy in 2015 the CVAA compliance deadline hit for games consoles. It required that blind people in the USA must be able to operate any text/voice chat functionality on the consoles, and any menus and information needed to navigate to and operate that chat functionality. Hence PlayStation and Xbox both gaining USA only text to speech for chat and related menus in 2015.
The approaches were very different. And Xbox is a forked version of Windows, meaning they already had narrator that they could hook into. So it was relatively straightforward for them to carry on past that, and upgrade the text to speech to cover more menus and more languages.
For PlayStation it's not so simple, they had to build their stuff from scratch.
On the plus side though they were in the early stages of developing the PS5 at that point, so hopefully the PS5 will be more accessible than the PS4.
Thanks Moritz
Kind words, thank you!
I don't suppose you're into flight simulators? The Microsoft flight simulator developers might be interested in having a chat, they have been looking at how to make their game blind accessible
Soni isn't meeting those standards
By those regulations, Sony is not meeting those guidelines. Chat functionality on the PS4 seems out, but the friends list is actually inaccessible. SO you can send, reply to and receive messages, but you can't go to your contacts list and view your friends list. Seems like extremely bare bones functionality in any case. So chat needs to be made accessible, but the menus to actually operate the console doesn't? Seems a little backwards to me. It will be interesting to see if the PS5 does any better. Honestly I'd be okay with in-game menus and documents being read at least. Thanks for the explanation.
I'm actually quite into flight simulators.
qHi.
At Ian well, I haven't flown in quite a few months though, but I'm starting up again and I am actually quite into flight simming. not as much as the majority of those blind persons who fly, but still quite a bit.
Greetings Moritz.
Sony & CVAA
If that's the case Remy, contact Sony. they're required to fix it.
Companies who provide communication services are required to provide a contact point for CVAA issues, which you can find by searching on the FCC website. To save you time searching, Sony's contact for CVAA issues is Joe Alsterlind, Device Program Manager, Hardware. His number is 650-655-6053.
If you would rather go through the FCC, or if contacting Sony directly doesn't get you anywhere, you can use this form: https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=37160
That will open up a formal dialogue moderated by the FCC, and kicks off a 30 day deadline for the issue to be fixed to your satisfaction.
"So chat needs to be made accessible, but the menus to actually operate the console doesn't? Seems a little backwards to me"
Some of the menus have to be accessible - the menus needed to navigate to and operate the chat functionality. The rest do not. This is because there is no law that says games consoles have to be accessible. There is just a law that says text/vice/video chat functionality must be accessible, regardless of what platform it appears on. It's an update to the old laws that required phone companies to provide text relay services for people who have difficulty hearing or speaking.
Flight simulators
See this twitter thread:
https://twitter.com/BrannonZ/status/1204324130075529217
Accessibility of retro games
Back on the original topic... old games are generally played through emulators. For anyone not already aware, an emulator is a bit of software that simulates hardware. E.g. a SNES emulator is a program you can run that lets you play SNES games.
There's a very popular piece of software called RetroArch that acts as a front end for emulators for all kinds of different old consoles and arcade machines. An update is arriving any day now that adds both text to speech for the menus of the emulator itself, and also adds OCR for text in the games. Doesn't do anything for making gameplay more accessible, but it's something at least :)
https://www.libretro.com/index.php/retroarch-1-8-2-coming-soon-accessibility-features-for-blind-people/
Retro Arch
I've been using emulators for a long time (though I haven't for just as long a time). how which generation does this emulator go up to? I imagine it would be very difficult to get a PS3 emulator to work, but PS2 emulation should be possible in 2019. PS2 is, in my opinion anyway still one of the best consoles with some of the best games. It would be interesting to test this out.
Retroarch
Retroarch does support PS2 emulation, but it uses a newer PS2 emulator that isn't quite up to the level as one which is older, takes more resources, and is restricted to Windows. The PS2, also, is a rather unique system, which is harder to emulate than other systems like the NES. Retroarch does have support for systems, I believe, up to the PS3 and 3DS.