2015-05-14 19:47:54

Hello everyone,

Today, I downloaded a game to my Android phone called Music Quis. However, when I tried to play, the game was totally inaccessible with Talkback. I thought it would be accessible since guessing songs, as long as their titles were in text format, would be no big deal for us audio gamers. However, not even the first screen was accessible. I tried to contact the developers, but although I had very good responses from some of other game makers, like Pirates and Traders' developer, I Always think that together we stand. And as you all might know, Pirates and Traders, although not originally all accessible, had many accessible features from the start, so even not knowing about our screen reader needs, it was well developed. Music Quis, on the other hand, is just unplayable, so I guess that, if we sent e-mails to them talking about what could be improved, it would be a fun game to play too! What do you all think?

Good day!
André.

2015-05-14 23:10:09

Hi André.


I'm not an android user myself, but I do have experience in discussing access with developers on Ios an Windows.
The problem is that quite frequently when a game's text is inaccessible, it's due to the fact that the developer has created the game to not use actual text written by a keyboard that could be read with a screen reader, but graphics with the printed letters on, indeed there is a current mode of game development used on many mobile platforms called canvasing where a developer literally photographs the screen and then just sets the game to respond where that photograph is clicked. No links, no labeles zippo, the game might as well be fully graphical. For a sighted user this makes no practical difference, sinse she/he just sees letters and clicks, for a blind user however it's all the difference in the world sinse the graphics are entirely unreadable by screen reading programs.

This is why for example on Ios the game called text quest is actually completely unreadable with voiceover despite from the description being an entirely text based old school adventure type game.
When a game already has readable text in some areas and just needs some extra elements labelling, adding access is comparatively easy sinse it just means the developer putting in correct labels. When however a game has no readable text at all, adding access would effectively mean rewriting the entire game interface to use text as opposed to graphics.

a lot of indi developers respond very favourably if your saying effectively "hay if you just labeled those direction buttons or wrote some better ways of navigating the map the game would be accessible" however asking a developer to essentially rewrite a gigantic part of her/his game code is just beyond reasonable in terms of expectations.

No, it isn't fair, and in an ideal world developers wouldn't be allowed! to publish games unless they were accessible, but sinse your essentially asking a developer to put in a lot of work just for access your request has to be reasonable, ie, be a task the developer could complete without too much effort on their part rather than  essentially asking them to rewrite a large percentage of their game.

Think of it this way, you might ask an assistant in a shop to read you what products they have and assist you in finding them, but you wouldn't ask the shop itself to manually braille label every item they sell before putting it on the shelves.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2015-05-15 01:26:38

Well, in that case, I guess I'll have to go the other way:
If it is too much work for a developer to re-write his/her game, the solution, in theory, would be to try and attack them where it hurts the most: their pockets! Not suing them for discrimination, at least not in the beginning, but telling them about the fact that, if they make the game accessible, especially since they sell some features of the game, it could be more published, and accessibility could be even mentioned on their introductory message, such as Dice World developers and also Star Traders ones do. And more publishing means more players and, eventually, more paying ones...?

Regards,
André.

2015-05-15 11:22:20

The problem André is that practically speaking there really aren't that many visually impared gamers. Why is it that games like mortal kombat don't have access fixes already? It's that it's not prophetable to  nether realm  studios and other big companies to add such sinse the extra sales they get wouldn't make a difference.

To an Indi developer the situation is pretty much the same in a market like Ios, sinse they'll get plenty of sales an exposure anyway, indeed I had one developer on Ios freely tell me that he wasn't willing to add access to his game because he saw it as not prophetable enough sinse the time he spent working on access wouldn't gane him any more sales as opposed to the time he spent working on extra game features which he could advertise to the sighted public (yes, he was a big fat scumbag, but unfortunately that's business for you).

Remember of course that to most sighted people blind people playing computer games is just a plane weerd concept, indeed the very language is against the idea, blind people and video! games, iegames using vision.

Suing for discrimination just wouldn't be held up here sinse the law simply doesn't favour access to entertainment, plus by the time you'd paid the legal costs god knows how much you'd have spent.
Eventually, it is hoped the law will change and access adjustments to entertainment will be a requirement, but until that happens we're at the moment in a position where access needs to be achieved by cooperation, by a degree of give and take, and asking a developer for a total rewrite of his/her interface is a little too much take for not enough give.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2015-05-15 15:33:40

Well, I would agree with you if a music-based game were a video game, but that is not the case, so I guess the topic continues. After all, nothing comes from the heavens, don't you agree? The request goes on, independently on if it will or will not be a success; trying is still free!

2015-05-15 16:00:52

Well it's worth a try, I just wouldn't expect too much or devote all your time into trying, better to focus on things that have more milage for success.

What I meant with the "video game" comment wasn't about this music game specifically, it was the fact that by default in a lot of places the term "video games" is a catch all for all computer games, even textual or sound based ones, so the idea of "an audio game" is to many sighted people like the idea of an audio photograph, the language just doesn't allow for the concept sinse the language is specifically visual, ---- heck I've even encountered some developers who reffuse to believe screen reading programs exist sinse they are so tied to the idea that writing is something visual.

This all comes down to the blind = alien sterriotype, which is a pain in the arse in games just as it is elsewhere.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2015-05-15 16:59:01

Well, I don't say we need to devote most of our time searching for inaccessible game developers, but that we should, if we do have a bit of spare time, try to talk to them. Some developers, by what I have understood, just don't make the games accessible because of total ignorance on the subject. As you have stated, some people even think that it would be impossible for a screen reader to even exist, so think about those same people starting to be curious when the topic accessibility comes to them, not from some standards, but from people who could, in general, even offer themselves as beta testers! I know that profit is something people love to think about, but I still believe there are some people, like Dice World, star traders and Pirates and Traders developers, who would just put accessibility into the games because it would mean equality of rights!