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Visually Impaired Gamer Sues Sony
An anonymous reader writes "A visually impaired gamer has sued Sony because game products allegedly violate the Americans With Disabilities Act. 'According to the suit, Sony ignored repeated requests through postal mail and e-mail to come up with reasonable modifications to its games to make them more accessible.' This suit seems to be a combination of National Federation of the Blind v. Target, which complained of inaccessibility to the visually disabled (which settled for $6 million) and Martin v. PGA Tour, Inc., where the US Supreme Court ruled a disabled golfer was entitled to a golf cart where one was not already allowed as a reasonable accommodation. If the plaintiff wins, Sony will have to make 'reasonable accommodations' which are not an 'undue financial burden.' In my humble opinion, providing access for the disabled is not only the right thing to do but it will generate more profit for Sony."
I'd hate to to think what this guy would do when he realizes that cameras don't pander to the visually impaired market. On the other hand, I'm blind in one eye so maybe I can take a leaf out of his book and and sue camera companies anyway for products that don't suit my particular physical situation and finally realize that "??? profit" step.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
I was born with a crippled left hand making it impossible for me to play an immensely popular game, Guitar Hero.
Should I sue because they didn't accommodate for people with my particular disability? Plenty of people are missing limbs. Why aren't they in an uproar over Guitar Hero?
and what somebody sued and got 6 million dollars from the PGA? I don't think Lee Travino's putting challenge has anywhere near the popularity of Guitar Hero.
I'm an operating-system-ly impaired gamer. I'm using Debian to run my computer. I demand that all Windows games be immediately released for Linux.
In my humble opinion, providing access for the disabled is not only the right thing to do but it will generate more profit for Sony.
That's a fine-sounding liberal opinion, but when did accessibility to a video game, which presupposes a minimum level of vision, become a privilege mandated by the Federal Government? We are not talking about an essential service here, access to government records, we aren't even talking about a visually-impaired person being unable to order products online. It's a video game. Entertainment, no more.
Look, sometimes we can't do fun things that we'd like to do, but it doesn't mean we should start hiring lawyers. There was a time in my life when I'd go rock-climbing (only a few times, but it was fun and I was in pretty good physical shape back then.) Almost thirty years later and I wouldn't even bother trying: totally out of my league now, having been at a desk job for almost that long. So, that being the case, should I start complaining that rock faces should be made "accessible" to me in my "impaired" condition?
Please.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I doubt it'll provide more profit for Sony. But if Sony lose and are forced to mod their MMORPGs, I think it may mean more profit for gold farmers. Some of the mods are likely to make it easier for bots to navigate and do stuff :).
Somehow, I doubt it would be easy to enable people who are BLIND to play video games. :/
After years of not using a signature, I am going to make one to say the following: Fuck Beta
Why are game companies, or any companies for that matter, required to make every product accessible? I can understand government services, both because of their purpose but also because of the fact that they are paid for by public money (and generally don't actually need to be un-accessible), but products of corporations? If this guy wants to complain to the company and then not buy their products, fine. In fact, that's really the best way to deal with the issue.
Most screen readers can parse HTML so that visually impaired users can access web sites, as long as they properly write the web site to standards (not making the whole thing in Flash, for example).
It'd make sense if game developers got behind publishing a common API for all games, so that a user can just install a single program that'd give the proper clues to disabled gamers for every compatible game.
It is dark. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
>_
Knowing Sony, they might also consider the mass slaughter of the physically impaired to be a financially responsible action.
The Americans with Disabilities Act states that, "No individual shall be discriminated against on the basis of disability in the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations of any place of public accommodation by any person who owns, leases (or leases to), or operates a place of public accommodation."
This has kept a generation of lawyers employed by arguing over the definition of "public accommodation". The strict interpretation limits it to only physical places, which would rule out games. There have been many court battles over expanding the definition. This particular suit, if I read the various summaries correctly (IANAL), would be one of the more far reaching stretches of the definition and could have a significant impact on how much the ADA covers.
In short, it could fund an entire new generation of lawyers by expanding the ADA to an almost unlimited scope. Blind or not, I hope this guy goes down in flames.
For reference: http://www.law.duke.edu/shell/cite.pl?50+Duke+L.+J.+297
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
http://www.wow.com/2009/07/06/visually-impaired-players-the-unseen-inhabitants-of-azeroth/
What if you were to play around with the frets with your right hand and mod the controller out to replace the strum bar with two foot pedals? (A bit of a roundabout solution, but Its better than the other replies you've gotten...) What I'd really like to see is the content of these letters that he's sent to Sony. Theres another article linked inside of this one about a guy who is blind and helps other blind people play commercial games through screen readers, surround sound, and menu guides. He's even gone so far as to send mail to developers and publishers to suggest how they might better help the blind. That could be the key difference between these two. If this guy just sent a bunch of letters about how "OMGZ UR GAME ISH HARD FUR BLIND PEEPS" and then giggled to himself how they didn't respond to him, then he's just being an idiot trying to get some cash out of this. If Sony's been ignoring valid suggestions on how to help and giving him the silent treatment, then he might have a case.
Many large organizations today seem to use their customer-facing staff solely as a means for getting rid of people who phone up to complain, or to request things or make enquiries. This isn't necessarily the fault of the staff in question, or the intention of the organization. Yet somehow things get structured so that it becomes the function of the support staff. For instance, I suspect that under-staffing the help desk or measuring performance by calls "resolved" as opposed to customers satisfied tends to push things towards a "When customers call, make them go away, otherwise they're stopping us talking to our customers" mode of operation.
The other problem is that it's pretty easy in a large organization (or even a small, highly bureaucratic one) to get into situations where large swathes of problems are "somebody else's responsibility", or likely "nobody in particular". Much as I dislike the idea of a work environment where inappropriate work is dumped on people, or staff are lumped with resolving things they're not responsible for, at the end of the day the buck ought to stop *somewhere*, even if it's just a customer service supervisor writing back. If a customer has a real and legitimate question to which there is *an* answer but there's *nobody* in the organization whose job description allows or requires them to answer it, you're doing something wrong. It's not possible to satisfy all people all of the time but I think most organizations can do a heck of a lot better than they do!
In this instance, the allegation is that Sony ignored requests made of them. Did they ignore them outright, did they fob off the (potential?) customer, or did they make the effort to respond but the gamer didn't like the answer anyhow? Sony may have done everything as well as they possibly could in this case but they should nonetheless evaluate whether engaging more with the gamer in question could have saved them a court case.
Some of the claims in the case could seem a bit dubious but as the article points out, various other companies have at least allowed 3rd parties to develop plugins that assist disabled gamers. So it's not like anybody's saying Sony must develop (for instance) a braille interface to WoW on their own budget.
The Americans With Disabilities Act was written so loosely that there are so many of these litigious bullshitteries going on nation wide. It is basically a form of extortion facilitated by poorly written 'laws'.
We need reform on the ADA as soon as possible! Locally, a predatory woman has sued over 80 local businesses (this is her JOB now), represented by a lawyer who has sued over 250.
I hope sony lobbies to get reform.
I say all of this with the great respect for the disabled and the true intent of the ADA. It is the exploit of the act that bothers me so much.
In this case, Sony makes visual video games and a guy who can't see thinks Sony OWES him a game. That's like being allergic to peanut butter and suing Reeses for not making you a hazelnut cup. THEY DONT OWE YOU A HAZELNUT CUP!
Next he can sue auto manufacturers for not making cars accessible to the blind.
That lawsuit is entirely possible and winnable under the current ADA. Reform is necessary NOW! Predatory lawyers and litigious garbage (yes, they can be disabled too) are ruining this country and the ADA facilitates it for being written too loosely!
I don't disagree that ADA is written too loosely, but a lot of the abuse depends on the judge. The "reasonable accommodations" part of the act is important.
If there are modifications that can be made without undue financial strain, I don't see a problem with asking the company to modify the game.
The red herrings mentioned elsewhere, about making cars work for the blind and the like, would be examples of UNreasonable accommodations.
An important change for education.
Reasonable accommodations are in the eye of the beholder.
The first part of his suit seems reasonable, he claims that Sony should do what other MMOs have done to make the game more accessible to the visually impaired (seems to be a lot of voice-over stuff). The article seems to say that Blizzard allows third party mods that have voice compasses and stuff, so it seems like Sony could easily throw together a few of those (and it would probably net them a larger selection of players so they really should).
However, the second part is what seems ridiculous to me. He claims that Sony's online auction site for selling/buying games isn't fit for the visually impaired. So not only is Sony not allowing him full entertainment of the games, they're actually costing him extra money. That's just stupid. Every computer I've seen within the last 5-6 years has come with some sort of zoom feature for the visually disabled. I know my computer (Alienware bought at the end of 2008) has an Ease of Access section in my start menu with a magnifier, narrator, on-screen keyboard, and voice recognition. They're probably not the best out there considering them came with it, but I'm sure it would allow him to use an auction site.
Sounds cramped.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
I am totally blind, and I have played video games, specifically Punch Out, so I can definitively say that it is possible, at least to play some games. Whether or not this lawsuit is justified depends on many facts that haven't been revealed. If this guy is expecting the game to be substantially altered, then I think he's wrong, and the ADA (based on my reading) would not support his position. However, if he is simply asking Sony to add some small features to the game that would make it more accessible, then I think his suit is reasonable and he should win. My understanding of the ADA is that it doesn't allow you to sue to change the laws of the universe. It just allows you to sue when a company does not provide reasonable accommodation when it is within their power to reasonably do so. Unfortunately, the definition of reasonable is quite relative.
This one has 70 Hit Dice.
It depends on the website. I'm no expert and you need an account to view the actual site but the lack of alt texts on the images and using images as titles, here, does not bode well for screen readers.
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
So, if YOU were Sony, you think that YOU should do so.
But do you think that the law should tell Sony what they SHOULD do?
The point of what I'm talking about is the vague wording of the ADA and how it has led to tons of litigious shakedowns for cash. Because of the vague wording, people whos think that a company should be obliged to do something are enabled to legally FORCE these things (and get paid), despite the topic at hand having almost nothing to do with the true intent of the ADA which is to facilitate fair public access.
If you want Sony to spend the extra money, why don't you and others raise the money and fund the work? In this specific topic, it is unreasonable to FORCE sony to spend even one cent on this conceptual product. They don't owe you a game for the blind, and just because someone else isn't doing it, doesn't make it ok to try and force them to. THEY DON'T OWE YOU A GAME FOR THE BLIND.
If I have an anxiety disorder, but I want to play violent video games and not get anxiety, do they owe me some specially developed FPS that won't trigger anxiety? No. The if the game doesn't do what I want, I don't buy it. And if I really want a certain kind of game that people aren't making yet, then maybe I should start it with my own work and ingenuity.
As someone with 20/20 vision I would still kill for an option to crank up font size in every single game made for consoles in the last three years. I have a 32" CRT screen, which is by no means small and THEORETICALLY supported for most games... but the fonts are absolutely unreadable without sitting so close that your breath is practically fogging the screen. It isn't like the fonts are huge on high res screens either. It's easy to see how someone with compromised vision could have difficulties. You don't have to be stone blind to be visually impaired, it isn't like they need brail screens. But allowing the user to crank up the font size would be an all around positive move, IMHO.
The software requirements clearly stated:
Clearly, he should probably be suing the hardware manufacturer. Let's hope his mom has some cash.
You don't understand. The reasoning goes like this:
There's nothing that can't be justified by that reasoning. Any time a blind person isn't experiencing perfect joy, you can be argued to have failed in your obligation. It doesn't cross a line. There's no line.
Indeed. That would seem to be the next target if a lawsuit were to actually succeed.
The whole point of the Act in question was to assure that basic and essential services were available to the disabled, not that every single potential activity must be catered to. Shall we have laws forcing automakers to make cars that can be driven by the tongue for quadriplegics?
Maybe there's a market out there for video games for the blind, I dunno, but to demand a company do substantial modifications (and for a lot of games, they would be substantial, if possible at all) is ludicrous.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
You right.. never thought to look, but playstation.com fails miserably at xhtml According to http://valiadator.w3c.org/ the http://www.us.playstation.com/ site throws up 159 errors and 88 warnings. It looks like none of the images have alt tags... and they did some real bad coding.
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
To demand the company make any modifications is ludicrous. If it's profitable then Sony will do it on its own, or not. Who cares? Blind people can't do a lot of things. Video games are one of them.
There's a big difference between meeting standards for government websites and forcing developers to make a different game from what they envisioned.
I'm aesthetically impaired i'm going to sue because i can't sleep with Megan Fox.
Seriously guys, it's easy to go "Tut tut, blind people can't possibly play games, what an unreasonable fellow". But the article says *visually impaired*, which does not necessarily mean total blindness. There are phases in between where you can see the computer screen but it'd be nice if the game didn't have to make it really hard to follow what's happening. Are there really as many people here as the posts would indicate who can't see this distinction?
Also: are you the same crowd of people who bitch at Microsoft for releasing OSes that are too bloated to run on your hardware without an upgrade. You *can* at least upgrade your hardware!
Yep, a lot of theatres do now. Read about the Rear Window Captioning System. You may have watched a movie with it without even realizing.
The ADA only applies to "commercial speech", where the intent is to sell. [...] Games aren't usually "commercial speech".
Do advertisements in video games count as "commercial speech"? What about Sony's "official auction site where gamers can sell their in-game items for real money" that the article mentions?
Exactly a judge should be able to look at the WHY reasonable accommodations are required, and work accordingly. Let us just not forget there was a REASON why the ADA was passed, and it wasn't for asshats like this. When my late sister had to go to court over someone stealing her identity the local courthouse, which was built in the 20s, naturally didn't work with her wheelchair, but since there is the ADA they couldn't just tell her to "figure it out" (Which in the 70s they would have done).
So the judge simply thought about it for a few minutes, and had court on the steps during lunch break. It only took them a couple of minutes to get her testimony and get everything resolved in her favor. It didn't cost anyone anything but a little extra time and allowed my sister to have her day in court despite her handicap.
And THAT is why we have the ADA, not so some asshole can play golf or blind guys can play video games. It was so the handicapped couldn't be discriminated against when it came to the important stuff like access to government services. It really burns me up when some douche takes what was a perfectly reasonable request...make it so the handicapped can have access to basic services, and tries to turn it into his/her own personal lotto. Just another proof that scum sucking lawyers and greedy douches are running this country into the ground IMHO.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Being disabled myself, I can sympathize with such frustrations... but guess what... even the disabled can be totally unreasonable!
Sure, it's one thing to expect handicapped accessible ramps and bathrooms at places of business which deal directly with the public, but it's something completely different to expect a business to cater to any and every conceivable disability when the person in question isn't even on their property or being dealt with on a personal basis.
Why should this person be suing Sony for problems extending beyond the scope of their hardware's intended use when the guy could just as easily find a 3rd party solution for such issues and get government assistance to acquire it? Are they somehow entitled to a first party solution simply because a third party solution might not be as pretty to use or look at? Is there a reason this person should expect every piece of software/hardware he encounters to have a built-in zoom function, when he could just as easily use something like a display magnifying glass like that featured in the film version of "1984"? And how would they prove that using such an external solution would "damage" them to the point that the only logical solution is to sue not the display hardware's manufacturer, but the manufacturer of other hardware using that display?
After all, is it Sony's fault that this person purchased a TV with pixels too small for them to view the images shown on it adequately?
8==8 Bones 8==8
The Americans with Disabilities Act only applies to PLACES of Public Accommodation. Physical places like a store or a workplace or a concert hall etc...
Products are not covered.
- A Frog in a pond utters an azure cry. -
the Target case is completely different, and I don't think it applies here. And the Martin v. PGA case relates to employment, and appears to be completely irrelevant to video games intended for home use. Sorry, you don't have a legal right to play video games in an ideal manner. What's next, suing Ford an Toyota because their speedometers can not easily be read by the visually impaired? Suing the MPAA (not that I'm opposed to that)? I am not able to derive optimal enjoyment from most of Sony's crap, er, leisure products either, so I buy other things instead, rather than suing them to make what I want. Geepers creepers.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
It's actually got a point.
The main issue appears to be Everquest and the other MMOs they make. These games do not feature reasonable accomodation for visually impaired users. There is only so far you can accomodate visually impaired people in a visual medium, but it's good to go as far as you can without damaging the experience for those with normal vision.
The lawsuit refers to World of Warcraft and some other games to show that such accomodation is in fact possible in an online video game context at a reasonable cost.
I'm not sure the ADA actually applies to online games, but if they can convince the court that it does, they seem to have a solid argument for trial.
After reading TFA:
*It seems mostly focused on MMOs, but doesn't name any specific games.
*"Visually impaired" is not a euphemism for "blind" here - he literally means "people who can see, but not well". So much of the backlash is misguided ("Blind people are suing to play video games? LOLWUT? Next they'll want to drive???!!!?")
*His list of things that would make a difference are reasonable - high-contrast display modes, audio navigation cues, audio descriptions of items, and the like.
*HOWEVER... he then proceeds to state that Sony's causing him to LOSE MONEY because he could be selling his in-game items for real-world cash. Ugh.
So this thing isn't entirely over-the-top, but it definitely falls apart when he argues monetary loss.
He's complaining about the features of a game, which are a good, or good/service combination, using legislation that specifically targets location based attractions. If he's going after Sony because of its SonyStyle stores, then any possible equitable remedy would also apply to every store that has a game kiosk, or anything interactive at all, like the easy listening CD machine at Bed Bath and Beyond.
Personally, I really, really hope that this case is dismissed. First, for inapplicability of the statute, but more importantly so that game developers are not saddled with the additional economic burden of adding disability compliance to all games. The mechanics of a video game are not like walking up a ramp, including a braille menu, or using the bathroom. They are varied, and hinge fundamentally on a wide variety of combinations of audio and visual stimuli that cannot generally be summed in a way to make them equally accessible given some sensory impairment. There is no single, predictable means of meeting such a requirement, adding more uncontrollable variable cost to game development, leading to less ambitious titles, less experimentation among developers, less development time and resources for the core functionality of the game. Having been a software developer, a game developer, and now a legal scholar, this just seems bad, bad, bad.
This is where I get my recommended daily allowance of "Foot in Mouth."
then quite frankly that's YOUR problem. It shouldn't become the problem of a company that develops something specifically for a medium that REQUIRES you to be able to see. You don't like common sense yet? wait till it pushes the price of your game up and the quality of the build down. Some people will think I am being too harsh here but these sorts of things are being taken to ridiculous extremes. Maybe we need a version of pong that uses sound to indicate bat and ball positioning? That's just stupid. Can deaf people sue the makers of MP3 players because they can't appreciate the music? Maybe we could create an MP3 player that converts the bass to a rhythmic tap on the forehead. I am all for installing ramps for people in wheelchairs and signs in braille but let's have some sensible limits. Should fat people who go shopping in their electric scooters get special preferences? or should they just put down that piece of chocolate fscking cake and get a sense of perspective. All these minority special interest groups are going to end up screwing everything up for the majority sooner or later. I personally can't wait to get my copy of Guitar Hero Nose! What makes this post even sicker is the fact that somewhere I have probably committed a hate crime - the world is going fscking crazy.
The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.