[nabs] game accessibility

[Laura Glowacki]

Please pass on the information that Leena shared about the 21st 
Century Video and Telecommunications Act as I believe it has 
addressed most of these things mentioned in this email.

While the organizations will not address gaming specifically, it 
is unfair to say that ACB is not interested in promoting 
accessibility and universal design of all technology.  It would 
be ridiculous, frankly, to expect that they take up gaming as a 
primary cause at this point in time in the US when there are much 
larger social issues at hand that need addressed first.  However, 
I do believe that the 21st Telecommunications Act is a huge step 
in that direction.  Google it and check it out for yourself.  And 
please pass this on to the email list from which this message 
originated.

Laura
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Josh Kennedy" <jkenn337 at gmail.com>
To: <nabs at acb.org>
Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 2010 8:34 AM
Subject: [nabs] game accessibility


Hi

I Read this on another list and I thought I'd pass it along.

Hi Hayden,

If you are talking about segregation that is a thing of the past 
in
the U.S. However, descrimination is a totally different story.
Descrimination is, and probably always will be, the human way of
things.It seams most people have some sort of pinheaded 
descrimination
based on someone's sex, disability, race, religion, or 
nationality.

With us though there are times companies can get away with
descrimination simply because we don't have a large enough
organization to fight for things like accessible video games or 
basic
things like making companies like G.E. to produce talking 
microwaves
for the general market. the organizations we do have such as NFB 
seam
to pass right over such issues and they rarely if ever take up an
issue or cause I think needs to be addressed.

Perhaps if NFB, ACB, and AFB got together and seriously pushed 
for
accessible vidio games for the XBox, Play Station, and Wii that 
might
actually get those companies attention and bring them to the 
table at
least. However, that's just dreaming because those organizations 
seam
to not have any interest in taking up game accessibility as an
important issue.

However, that's not the only one where organizations like that 
have
completely failed us. there are hundreds of devices from Track 
Phones
to DVD Recorders that are totally inaccessible from an 
accessibility
standpoint, and the NFB and friends sit by and do nothing, say
nothing, and we are falling behind the technological revolution. 
There
is frankly no excuse for companies not to add text to speech and 
other
features to their phone, DVD Recorder, etc other than they wanted 
to
cut costs somewhere, and we as customers of such devices are
expendable.





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