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"Disabled Gaming"

A cold dark winter evening. A small room only lit by the blueish glow that is of the dreary moon staring at the world in the dark red sky. A child can be seen in the room. His name is Jake. He is just sitting there staring outside. His parents can be heard upstairs discussing the days events. A child is bored. A sad look on his face, that only disappears when the neighbour’s dog comes to play with him or his father bringing him a comic book. This is his life. He is ill, he is very ill. Since an accident few years ago, he has lost both his legs and his head was badly hurt. He couldn’t hear since he was 4…

Ok, this may sound like a depressing story, and many of us would simply stop reading and try to forget about it. Why? Well because no-one wants to be upset by something they can avoid. People just shake their heads and think that something like that will not happen to them. But it can…..And things like that happen a lot around the world. People suffer greatly from sight, hearing and developmental problems. Getting over a disability is hard, and especially so for a child. If a child is going through an age when he enjoys his life, makes friends in school and has hardly a worry in this world, it is extremely tough to get to grips with something as cruel as a disability. You may ask, what the hell does that have to do with gaming? Ok, I will explain…

Games have reflected society and been an integral part of their society and era. Games are events in the lives of the children and adults of their time. A computer game is a means of expression for its designers. The aim is to get players to see and hear what the designers have to say. The game is about communication, sharing and interaction. The designers of games want to approach people (especially the younger audience) , be their friends, convey the feelings they have experienced to the players and get players to share their thoughts.. When a player interacts with the game, he or she also interacts with the game’s designers through the game.

Interacting is also something disabled people need in order to continue their mental and physical development. Without interacting, people with multiple disabilities can easily fall behind in the development of communication, mobility and other areas of social competence. Then it all goes down to how seriously he disability is. If it is not serious, then the person can go out, meet friends and basically lead a normal life. But what happens if the person is paralysed, deaf or even mentally ill? What can these poor souls do to interact? Well the answer is games. Yes computer games can help disabled people keep up with the rest of the society and receive some enjoyment from it. Yes the games that are accused in causing violent behaviour in teenagers, that are accused of stealing the youth of the world and involve them in the “virtual reality” that starts playing with their minds and so on…..

Ok it is possible for the disabled to watch TV, and sure thing they will be able to gain a lot of knowledge plus keep up with the world events. They may get a lot of satisfaction from watching cartoons or sporting events, but even now in the 21st century there is one thing that Television still falls short of doing. It doesn’t provide enough interactivity that is essential for the disabled person to be able to act independently. Children need to do something in order to keep their minds “fit” and their senses active.

As with educational computer packages where young children are able to interact with the interface and do a number of easy tasks that can exercise their mind and entertain them, games are able to distract disabled people from the sad reality and transfer them to a different world where they have to worry about someone else and not themselves. They are able to take control of a character and the way they behave and think, will also affect the actions of the character. And this is a very important factor-people are able to independently take control of a certain objects-some people are unfortunate enough to not have control over their own lives. So games definitely would give these people a huge amount of confidence-success in a game can make a person believe in themselves and give them a huge amount of pride. By feeling good about themselves, these people will be able to transform their lives for the better.

So considering the scope of what games can do to disabled people, what do game developers think of their effect on the large chunk of the world’s population? Well not that much, because normally they are not even aiming their games at disabled people. Considering the fact that disabled people are still the minority of the population and with developers with mostly money on their minds, it is not a huge surprise that disabled people are not included in the target audience profiles of the developers. So just think what would happen if developers actually thought about disabled gamers and their needs. Games as they are bring a lot of joy in many people’s homes and should development houses begin to care slightly, they can really change lives.

But what do disabled gamers actually require? What do they need developers to do in order for them to receive what many have been waiting for-games that have actually been adjusted to suit their needs. So maybe, people with sight problems may require an option to resize the gaming environments and the characters themselves. Maybe specific joypads with bigger buttons and smoother, easier control. People with mental difficulties may require games that just involve simple tasks set in simple, colourful environments. And the deaf? Well subtitles in all games would to be a great start, colour coding to distinguish the characters speech, text speed control to choose how fast or slow they want the text to move. Yes, it he deaf gamers are probably the easiest to satisfy. So why is there just a few games that accommodate the required options? Final Fantasy games of course had written speech all the way through the game. But that wasn’t done with disabled people in mind; PSone couldn’t store that much human speech so developers had to get round that. Fair enough some games have options to switch on subtitles but there are far and few in between and might not feature subtitles during cut-scenes etc. In the new age of next-generation consoles only a handful of PS2 games provides subtitles for death gamers. An average The Mummy Returns is fully subtitled, but why not other games? If the developers of TMR bothered to do it, why don’t the bigger companies start implementing such options into their games?

Well again it all comes down to money. No one is going to bother thinking of minorities when there is no positive financial outcome in prospect. Whats the way round this you ask? Government funding is an idea, but this isn’t as easy as it sounds since the people running our country are much more interested in giving money to the Lottery. What about associations responsible for helping disabled people? It is hard to imagine companies like these parting with money they hardly ever get and they have many other needs to care for.

O what does the future for disabled gamers look like? Well many developers such as Capcom insist that all of their titles that have strong narratives have subtitles. Soon-to-be-released Metal Gear Solid 2 also is fully-subtitled. The Codec chats plus the cut-scenes are all accompanied by text. Its just that more developers need to be involved in projects such as adding options for disabled gamers. Its no good just having a couple of games boasting these opportunities for people. The industry needs to consider that even minorities will part with their money if they know that they are being served properly. Such small things as printing the details of subtitles support on the game cases would be an easy way of saving the customers a lot of time and money. And its not that developers are going to lose money by simply including a few lines of text-every single DVD release out there has them. So why not games?

If disabled gamers feel that they are being ignored by game publishers, they simply need to do something about it. Contacting local authorities and discussing the matter with them or maybe checking the Internet for possible contacts.

Disabled people can often play exactly the same computer games as non-disabled people when the conditions are right. Playing different types of games will also widen peoples visual experiences and the improvement of their social skills will be also promoted. So this is a call out to game developers out there; think about everyone, what people want and how much happier you can make the minorities out there. Don’t make excuses such “We have a very tight deadline” because in case of subtitles they cannot take THAT long to input. Ok maybe it is still too early to talk about improvements for disabled people with mental problems; they will have to do with specialist software etc. But slowly step-by-step, disabled people will become more involved in computer games if they are given a chance. So make it happen and remember that computer games make children like Jake more equal in this world…

Thank you and what have you got to say on this matter?

We are planning an a ride up the Garburn Pass meet at wheelbase car park for a 9.30 start

This isn`t the kind of topic I`d normally reply to, simply because I can`t joke about or make fun of things. This is a very serious, and thought provoking topic, making it perhaps unique on these forums.

I also can`t add a whole lot to what you wrote, so I`ll just end with - that was a great post you`ve made, and its made me think more than normal. Good work.

Cheers nh, I appreciate that.

As you said, even if people are only podting long topics to win a prize, it could make the forums better. It is worry though, when people are just writing a post with nothing else n#but GAD in mind. You simply have to put some thought into posts in order for them to be thought-provoking and sensible.

Firstly I would just like to say that this was a great and thought provoking post.

I read it yesterday but I was in too much of a flippant mood to post a reasoned and sensible reply so I left it alone - when people like Sub come along and just post rubbish like this it spoils what was a great piece of work that has had alot of thought, time and effort put into it.

The idea of having forums such as this is to promote discussion on topics that are on peoples minds in a constructive way, there are plenty of posts here which can be used for the quick jibes and witty remarks.

If people are only posting things like this to win GAD then hey - good luck to them. At least then it shows that the GAD system is making people put more thought into what they post in the first place which is surely a good thing. Maybe there is a hint of envy from Sub that he cannot produce such good work.

Anyway Triple H - great post - well done and thanks for making me sit and think, hopefully a few more people will read it properly and take in what you are saying.

All the best mate, good luck with your post. Like I said below it is a great post and you should win GAD. It got a good debate going (maybe not for the right reasons) but it's all good.

Sub, as you said GAD exist so that people put their efforts in writing good posts and obviously the best posts compete between each other to win. People probably dont want to admit that they are writing a GAD attempt. But as you said, people will try to win a GAD if say they havnt got enough money for a new game.

Your points was, that we should stop writing long posts because they are obvious GAD attempts and that if the GAD wouldnt exist, people would stop writing long posts.

But dont ya think it would be boring as hell? The forum would be littered with topics like, "Hey Fred get in here for a chat".

In your view long topics are blatant attempts to win GAD, but if they are good posts and they make for a pleasent read, what on earth is wrong with that??

GAD is a great bonus, but I post long posts mostly in order to interact with people and share our opinions.

okay i apologise for spoiling Triple_H's post.

But, I'm not a 'moron' .

It's that just in my considered opinion, I think that people would have better things to do than write lengthy posts if there wasn't any 'payment' for doing so.

you Pro Evo, every week or so post a lengthy topic. To me It's a fairy transparent attempt to win GAD. Which is fair enough I've got nothing against that.

Obviously that's why GAD exist. To encourage people to make a big effort with there posts. Like I said before it keeps the place more interesting and introduces competitiveness.

For some reason no ones got the nutts to admit that there trying to win GAD.

You don't need to, it's fairly obvious when you click on a GAD contender.

I'm not trying to offend anyone, I just want someone to take my point a little. And then maybe I'll shut up and go away for a while....

That wasnt my first intention no. I wrote it because i wanted to, like i have been doing 511 days. The GAD is something that i considered, like every over poster on here. But i dont post long post just for the sake of a GAD.

Anyway, this has gone way off subject and is spoiling Triple_H's post.

I post because i enjoy posting.

Nuff said.

Pro Evo wrote:
>It does annoy me when topics like this hardly get
> any replys when people like Triple_H, myself and some others spend alot of time
> writing them and get hardly any responce.


Just because people don't respond to a thred doesn't mean they haven'r read it.
They might just feel they don't have any relavent points to make on the subject.
Where as you will always get the occasional moron like sub whatever saying stuff about GAD.

You probably haven't got many replies because its on one of those 'grey' areas that people like to push to the back of their minds rather than be reminded about it.

Anyhoo I read it and thought it was a good read.
Nice work dude.
Gnarly.

Pro Evo wrote:
> You fool, did you not read below that i was joking.


So, were you or wernt you tring to win GAD with your post?