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Disabled Fans Shut Out of Galaxies
Ant writes "Wired News' Game|Life reports on Nick Dupree, a disability rights activist and writer who is confined to a wheelchair with severely limited mobility. He used to use one thumb and an index finger to play MMORPG Star Wars: Galaxies. This limited mobility was more than adequate to play the game when it was a sandbox-style adventure, and he was a devotee of the game. With the New Game Enhancements, he is no longer able to play because of the reliance on keyboard/mouse combinations and the action-style combat." There really is nothing good to report on this game update.
He could just set up a bot to play for him like half the other people who used to play galaxies...
Macro buttons/programs. They're either time consuming to set up(programs), or expensive, but so is all the other specialized equipment for someone that's severely(as TFA's subject) disabled.
The other answer, of course, is that these customers are a very small portion of the consumer base. While it sounds cold, it would be a bad marketing decision to hold the game back because someone couldn't play it(due to a lack of ability on their part).
Look behind you...
Is there not a different way to set up the game controls to allow for a simpler or older style control set to be used with the new interface?
If not, then there should be.
This does not just affect disabled people, but it also affects older people and the casual, non-computer proficient gamer. Even people who prefer a simpler interface. This affects a significant portion of their user base.
Here's another reason I dislike online-only games. You're forced to endure the updates they provide, good or bad. If you don't update, you can't play. At least with a single-player game, you can decide if you want to apply the next patch/update/enhancement or not.
"Content" publishers want control over everything. Well, guess what? *I* want some control as well.
Society has no obligation to people when a profit is unable to be made?
Is this the same slashdot that panders to the 1% who likes Linux?
Of course if you were blinded, or lost your arm, or can only sit for 3 hours a day, this product isn't for you. The mantra of the hacker to be certain.
Better yet, fuck the WASD key people, I like my arrow keys and that's how I'm programming it.
We should make a reasonable effort to help others. If that mean's a new preferance, do it. If that means a fork of the universe because the new feature requires typing OMFWTFBBQ, consider it.
When a freak accident occurs, and you face being in pain and incapacitated for life, that doesn't make you worthless.
Also, the NBA, the NFL, most soccer matches, Jenga, Twister, horse-shoe tossing, darts, snooker, being an airline pilot...
Look, being disabled means there are some thing you are not able to do. That's unfortunate, but the alternative is to limit all human activities to those things that quadraplegics can manage.
Paging Harrison Begeron...
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
The thing is that I have a gamer friend who fell down a flight of stairs. Games are the only thing that distracts from the pain. What's the difference between porting WoW to linux, and adding a custom interface for people with limited mobility? We are all one accident away from loosing our livelyhood, our gaming, our collegues, and our health. One shitty game of Nethack doesn't replace that. Were something to happen to you, I think you'd see things differently.
A relation of mine had MD and playing games was one of the few things he could do that put him on a level playing field with the vast majority of us.
I'm not saying that all games should be developed to allow access to all with every conceivable disability - for one thing it's impossible - but if small minor (and cheap) changes can be made to a game, then I can't see a reason not to.
Think of it in terms of buildings. Some old buildings are completely unsuitable to convert to wheelchair access, narrow doors, steps all over the place etc - not even cost effective to try to sort them out. New buildings are much better, open plan, elevators etc - so it's not that hard to go the extra mile to stick in the odd ramp etc (in fact most have been designed now not to even need that).
There are loads of small things that can be done. Deaf gamers get mightily pissed off with games that don't have subtitles (or just have them missing on cut-scenes). Not that much effort to add them is it? (Look at HL2 for a game that has made the effort)
WTF is wrong with a 'Playable by disabled person' sticker on the back? We already have them for 'playable by 18+', 'playable on ninja-PC' and all manner or random shit - just have a look on the back of the box, disk space, sound card blah blah (does anybody have problems with sound compatibility any more)?
How about if somebody came up with some teeny little icons and allowed them to be tucked discreetly on the back - 'subtitles throughout' or 'Full control with mouse only'? If anything they might shift more units - god help you currently if you have a specific problem and are trying to pick a shiny game off the shelf and wondering if you'll be able to play it.