Well, there's one experience I had with Capcom Uk which might sort of count.
this was a couple of years ago, before I'd discovered the Ag movement or Audiogames.

As far as main stream games go, I find it extremely difficult to play games from a 3D perspective, sinse the graphics are too complex for me and the spacial relationships aren't as symple as in 2D games. Also, as a braille user, games that involve huge amounts of text (like rpg's or stratogy games), are out for me as well.

One of my favourite game series is Capcom's Mega man series, which are 2D platform games (though a bit more complex than your average platform shooter).

Recently though, the Mega Man series (or ofshoots of it), have moved heavily into 3D and rpg style games, making them impossible for me to play.

A couple of years ago though, Capcom released a collection of the first 8 games in the mega Man series, non of which (because there extremely hard to get hold of here in the Uk), I'd ever played before.

then, Capcom stated they weren't releasing the collection in the Uk, so I looked at importing, but when I was told that the standard importing methods for Gamecube games didn't work on the collection I decided it was time to ring Capcom Uk and see what they might have to say about low vision players in the Uk.

to put it bluntly, the person I spoke to on the phone was a git of the first order.
He said that the markit wasn't right for the collection, I asked him if they'd considdered that part of the markit that can't play Capcom's recent offerings, (due to excessive text or three D graphics), he said to his knolidge there weren't any ---- and anyway Capcom were releasing a 2D game Mega man X 8.
I reminded him that Mega Man X 8 features heavily graphical, fast pased 3d flight stages, he told me that 2D games weren't sailable, and the company couldn't change policy for one person, then he hung up.

thankfully, after a bit of investigation of how to play Us region games on a Uk Gamecube, I discovered it was possible to get the collection to work, but no thanks to Capcom.

Sinse 7 games on the collection were released before 1994 and were graphically symple, it would've been great for low vision players.

I know this isn't precisely what the Ag movement is trying to do (sinse you couldn't play even the early Mega Man games just using audio), but it does say something about the attitude of big game companies towards visually impared gamers.

I sent an email to Blizzard once, being one of the companies that consistently cranked out good games. The guy said he'd pass the information on to the developers, but nothing else. I'll look into setting up a petition, I've been considering it lately.

We should really do that. I've always wanted to be able to play the Madden NFL games.

I'd just like to say that everyone having a free for all bombarding companies with emails will only result in annoying the companies concerned in my opinion. We have to present a unified front, and a petition is the ideal medium for this.

Thats why i thought that we should send them together, so they may convinced. If not, then , well, nothing to lose.
Robjoy

Do you really think it would be that expensive? Some of these companies spen hundreds of thousands on actors and music already. Especially since text-to-speech is getting better.
On another note. Another angle is to talk about the "press" factor. A large company making a game for the blind that is contemporary and cool? The media would eat that sh-- up! What do you think about that?
bb

I don't like Text to Speach. Nothing personal against those companies like PCS Games that use ATT Natural Voices, but I don't like those speach systems all that much. And in an RPG that would be totally out of place. I hate to say it but to me that's taking the easy way out. I'm not saying I'd never use those systems (well I wouldn't use Microsoft SAPI since I hate the sound of those voices), I just wouldn't use them for actual human characters. Maybe for computers and machines that are supposed to talk, but never actual characters.
  It probably would be somewhat more expensive to make mainstream games accessible because for one that's extra work for the voice actors, and I don't imagine they're cheap to begin with. But I still think that the amount of extra work that would actually have to be done to make a mainstream game both accessible and contemporary is relatively small. Heck, they could put the manuals on a CD or something so you could read it with a screen reader and a word processor since not everybody reads braille and I hear it's not cheap to have a print book translated. I do agree that this is probably not gonna happen unless the blind gaming community takes action in an orderly fashion. We had to take steps for everything else we have today and this is probably not going to be any different. It'll just take some research and a convincing argument. Heck, then maybe companies can hire blind people on their development teams and get the necessary info firsthand on how best to make the game accessible and have it still rock the house.

If you guys are going to have a pitition, I say go for it!

Hi. There is also the Neo Speech voices.

I can see using TTS for providing status information, although I will admit that if faced with a choice I would pick AT&T Natural Voices. At least that one has voices that sound relatively realistic. But when choosing which voice to use, I'd pick Crystal, since she has that calm, smooth voice that fits right into the game. I'd actually considered that for my Metroid style game (assuming of course that I do decide to start developing). I'd get an actual voice actor for the character and then use Crystal for her suit computer that would provide information on the character's status as well as warn you of approaching danger.
  I think it's great that AudioGames is gonna be at the game conference thing this year. It sounds promising. Maybe, just maybe, we're getting somewhere. Yeah it'll still take a while but it's still a good sign.

Actually using TTS in menus isn't an issue. Even if the menu is graphical all the company has to do is tell the TTS engine what to say, the TTS engine doesn't retrieve the information itself it just gets told what to speak. In the case of screen readers the screen reader does retrieve this information fronm the software, but in the case of games the game would likely need to be using TTS directly anyway for in game information so they only need to make sure the menu can be navigated by keyboard and then send the relevant text to be spoken when you press an arrow key. Even when I had full sight I also liked menus with keyboard navigation more, just because it made things that little bit more flexible. Keyboard navigation's great if your right hand (or whichever hand you prefer) is doing something like moving junk off your computer desk, using a mouse with my left hand wasn't as effective but I used to be able to tap keys with it whilst my other hand moved my clutter around.

Most modern games I've seen that imploy save files (I'm talking console games here), seem to save your config like controller set up, along with your game status anyway. Obviously the audio version would need to make the choice of save files self voicing, then start with the audio options on until a sited person who didn't want them turned them off. I don't think this is a major issue though, beside having the audio stuff in the first place.

I understand what you mean Cx2 reguarding Tts, sorry if I made a mistake, I just assumed that (like screen readers), for Tts to work there needed to be text there initially.

to somebody who knows, I do have a question.

If we say a company is developing a game ----- say a first person shooter along the lines of doom, wouldn't it take almost twice as much work to create an audio accessible extention?

Sorry about playing devil's advocate, I don't know how much audio game developement goes into making the game engine and routines, and how much into the sound interface.
If this is something being represented at E3, I'd guess creating the game environment in sounds (once you have a working engine), isn't going to be  overly hard (in comparison to making the game in the first place).
Obviously I've got a vested interest in this sort of game developement, that's why I'd like a realistic answer. Is this something (like subtitling), that companies could do without too much effort?