[HN Gopher] For a legally blind player, Far Cry 6's accessibilit...
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For a legally blind player, Far Cry 6's accessibility options are
empowering
Author : adrian_mrd
Score : 133 points
Date : 2021-10-29 11:00 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.polygon.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.polygon.com)
| gundamdoubleO wrote:
| It's still insane to me that there are games being released that
| lack even the most basic of accessibility options like
| customisable control schemes.
|
| It's noticeably an issue for console games, even those made by
| big profile developers who don't really have any excuse.
| dmos62 wrote:
| I'll jump on the band wagon and echo the same sentiment for
| Web. Imagine using a screen reader.
| ladyattis wrote:
| In the early 2000s there were many games that allowed you to
| change up your control scheme and even UI elements. It seems as
| budgets got larger and games became mainstream those options
| have been ditched to focus on the wow-factor in games rather
| than making them accessible to more people.
| larrik wrote:
| I assumed it was less about budget and more about the
| directors and artists refusing to concede control over how
| their game looks and works.
|
| Kind of like how the Magic Mouse charging port placement is
| designed to prevent people from using it while charging,
| since that's "ugly"...
| cwkoss wrote:
| My pet peeves is games that require middle clicking and don't
| let you remap all of the functions of middle click. I have to
| plug a mouse into my gaming laptop to play them.
| tsywke44 wrote:
| WHy? It's a entertaiment business not a governmental service.
| Developing features that 0.1% of users will ever use, same time
| can be used for bugfixes that help the 99.9%
| fredleblanc wrote:
| Accessibility can mean two things: affordances that people
| _need_ to have an equal experience, but also affordance that
| people _would like_ to have a more pleasurable experience.
| And in the entertainment business, people experiencing
| pleasure tends to be good business.
|
| As noted in many introductions to accessibility, these
| features help more than just the stereotypical example you
| may think of when hearing that word. There are many forms of
| accessibility: lifelong, acquired, temporary, chronic, and
| situational. Between those 5 forms, these features really
| help _everyone_.
|
| It's all about context, consideration, dignity, but mostly,
| letting the challenge be the puzzle itself instead of the
| structure of the scaffolding holding the puzzle in place.
| asimpletune wrote:
| People think like this all time, until something happens to
| them. A few years ago I seriously hurt myself in a ski
| accident. I'm better now, but only then did I notice all the
| little things that we could do, without really much effort on
| our part, to make things accesible for other people. I'm not
| talking about treating anyone special at all, I mean
| accessible in the most literal sense of the word. To even
| have a seat at the metaphorical table.
|
| All I can say is that if you were in a similar situation you
| would just see this differently, which is an obvious thing to
| say, I know, but I really mean it. Like, you would with every
| fiber in your body, just see this entire situation completely
| differently.
|
| Any way, I don't think there's any harm in asking the "why"
| question, but it is harmful to ask it rhetorically I guess?
| I'm not saying that's what you were doing, but I mean just
| generally speaking, to ask the question as if to make a point
| assuming the answer is already known. It implies the question
| doesn't need asking, and the answer is obvious. The real
| truth couldn't be further from that, but it's kind of hard to
| understand if you can't experience it for yourself.
|
| Also, I really want to just head off any "truth is
| subjective" type comments, or "your reality vs my reality".
| It's like, yes, there is _always_ that, but what I mean is if
| someone suddenly lost their mobility and had to experience a
| world suddenly inaccessible, they would just understand what
| I mean in a way that 's deeper than petty rhetoric. It just
| wouldn't make any sense by that point to pretend that this
| isn't important.
| warning26 wrote:
| You're getting downvoted, but honestly I feel like this is
| the elephant in the room of accessibility efforts.
|
| A lot of them just feel like they're catering to a tiny slice
| of the user base that would probably be better served in some
| other way. In some cases, they arguably make things worse for
| everyone else, like WCAG 1.4.1, mandating that your links
| have ugly underlines just because _some_ people _might_ have
| trouble reading them. Fun fact: HackerNews 's links are
| noncompliant, and could get them sued in Canada.
| simion314 wrote:
| >mandating that your links have ugly underlines just
| because some people might have trouble reading them
|
| I hare designers that chose terrible font sizes and
| terrible color contrast, do you designers use some extra
| special screens where light gray on white looks readable?
|
| I am wondering if a site with such fancy designs that look
| smooth and cool could do an experiment and offer a high
| contrast, big fonts, no animations version then let the
| user decides. Maybe we could get some data and see what
| people that use them able sites use, liek Gmail , do people
| chose themes with low contrast, many animations and cool
| looking links?
|
| I hope good designers will prevail in the end and get rid
| of the form over function crowd, where you need perfect
| vision and some super expensive screen to be able to
| proeprly use a web page.
| tomc1985 wrote:
| > do you designers use some extra special screens where
| light gray on white looks readable?
|
| Not a designer but I am a photo nerd, and yes these
| screens exist
| izacus wrote:
| "Tiny part" in reality usually ends up being as much as
| quarter (1/4, 25%) of user population. Just because people
| aren't completely blind/deaf/disabled doesn't mean they
| don't benefit from accessibility features.
| antasvara wrote:
| I think there's a massive difference between having
| accessibility options and hard-coded accessibility options.
| I don't like subtitles on my English language TV shows;
| however, having the option to turn them on doesn't affect
| my experience at all. Adding text to speech doesn't impact
| my gameplay either, provided I have the option to turn it
| off.
| warning26 wrote:
| Oh I completely agree, I love accessibility _options_ --
| what I don 't like is when the pursuit of accessibility
| ends up making the experience worse for users with the
| default settings.
| fredleblanc wrote:
| I mean, that's _one_ solution to WCAG 1.4.1, but not the
| only one. Per WebAIM's recommendations[1] on the matter:
|
| - Color is not used as the sole method of conveying content
| or distinguishing visual elements.
|
| - Color alone is not used to distinguish links from
| surrounding text unless the contrast ratio between the link
| and the surrounding text is at least 3:1 and an additional
| distinction (e.g., it becomes underlined) is provided when
| the link is hovered over and receives focus.
|
| Lots of options in there besides just slapping underlines
| on things. Could be bold where other text isn't. Could just
| be a color that stands out enough against your text. Etc.
|
| [1]: https://webaim.org/standards/wcag/checklist
| warning26 wrote:
| Contrast ratio between the link and the surrounding text
| is at least 3:1 sounds easy to achieve, but in practice
| it rules out almost every color, so it's a nonstarter in
| almost every case; WebAIM actually has a good article
| showing how few colors actually can hit a 3:1 ratio:
| https://webaim.org/blog/wcag-2-0-and-link-colors/.
|
| Sure, you _could_ make links bold, but no one does that
| for a reason: it looks ridiculous.
|
| The thing that I find particularly egregious about that
| rule about it is how this doesn't even seem like it helps
| that many people. A screen reader user would
| _necessarily_ know that an element was a link regardless
| of color, and even colorblind users are likely to be able
| to see that the text is lighter, even if they cannot make
| out the specific color, particularly if the color used
| isn 't red or green.
| alexfrydl wrote:
| I will always be amazed at how many people can type
| "because this group is a minority, meeting their needs is
| unimportant and shouldn't impact the majority" and think
| they've contributed a novel thought. Your elephant in the
| room is just basic everyday ableism. You can't even stomach
| a link being underlined for someone else's benefit lol.
| Loughla wrote:
| 26% of all citizens in the US have some type of disability.
| [CDC]
|
| 7,675,600 US citizens have visual disabilities. [National
| Federation of the Blind]
|
| 3.7% of all US citizens have fine motor skill disabilities.
| [NIH]
|
| Also, it's the right thing to do to ensure everyone can
| experience joy.
| conradludgate wrote:
| I've said this before and I will say it again, accessibility
| options benefit everyone, not just the 0.1%.
|
| My partner is ESL, she understands spoken English fine when
| it's slow and precise, but in the fast environments of TV and
| Games, it's often hard for her to quickly get what they just
| said. So, subtitles, the accessibility option for the hard of
| hearing, is beneficial to her.
|
| Similarly, I may want a more casual gaming experience but
| experience the same story as someone else - but difficulty is
| subjective. I may want just a larger reticle so I can see
| better, reduced motion blur and walking bounces so I don't
| feel sick.
|
| These little options are a relatively simple addition which
| benefits absolutely everyone
| rcthompson wrote:
| Yes, this is the thing people forget. As I've heard it
| said: good accessibility design is just good design. The
| classic real life example is curb ramps, which were
| mandated for accessibility for disabled people but are
| useful to everyone.
| jrootabega wrote:
| They don't benefit absolutely everyone; that's hyperbolic
| language. They /could/ benefit everyone in a situation of
| varying degrees of severity that that person /could/
| possibly be in at one time.
| criddell wrote:
| Do you think adding qualifiers makes the point any
| clearer? I think it just makes it harder to read.
| Accessibility options in video games do nothing for new
| born babies or people in a vegetative state, but that
| doesn't really need to be said.
| jrootabega wrote:
| The point being made was wrong, and the language suggests
| rhetoric more than reason.
| Zababa wrote:
| Totally agree with this. Subtitles and a good contrast are
| very important for me. On many games, with the basic
| contrast settings, I can't see much.
| User23 wrote:
| I don't remember where I saw it, but I recently read that
| an overwhelming majority of gamers prefer subtitles for cut
| scenes.
| anthk wrote:
| Subtitles can be trivially TTS'ed since the 80's.
| Literally.
| handrous wrote:
| Hell, I know people who can hear just fine but who
| nonetheless watch TV and movies--in their native
| language, mind you--with subtitles on 100% of the time.
| jrootabega wrote:
| The odds of anyone actually responding to you instead of just
| demonizing you, condescending to you, or talking past you are
| very slim, although a couple people have made good faith
| responses.
|
| Something they haven't said yet is that a lot of
| accessibility features are already a solved problem, or
| they're commonplace enough that they seem to be. So a big
| publisher (which is what your parent was referring to) would
| be able to get them in at low cost, relative to gigantic
| overall costs of publishing any AAA game. So it makes sense
| for them to do it to reach everyone they can. And they know
| people will write articles like this one and bring them
| publicity, and if not they'll just astroturf one anyway. The
| author of that article has had at least one other
| accessibility-related article published on the gaming web
| recently, so don't assume they're not just on a press junket.
|
| For all developers, your question is more of a question.
| Should every single game developed by every single type of
| developer be "accessible"? It would certainly be nice, but
| must they? Of course not.
| handrous wrote:
| As Gen X and Millennials eventually retire[0], there are
| going to be a _ton_ of people with lots and lots of time on
| their hands, with vision and hearing and fine motor control
| mostly ranging between "so-so" and "terrible" (thanks,
| aging!) who really want to spend some of their now-ample free
| time playing video games.
|
| [0] Well, I mean, hypothetically these generations might
| retire in significant numbers around "normal" retirement age,
| even if the numbers aren't looking so hot for that right
| now....
| bitwize wrote:
| Everyone is eventually disabled sometime.
| anthk wrote:
| I think blind people would like a text adventure or a good
| assisted Dungeon Crawl than Far Cry.
|
| There are really good IF stories out there. No, not Twine, that's
| just an enhanced gamebook. I meant the stories made against the
| Z-Machine (v5-8), and maybe the TADS ones.
| dharmab wrote:
| Most legally blind people have partial sight and only need some
| assistance from the software to enjoy the same games their
| sighted friends enjoy.
| robin_reala wrote:
| Why do you think that?
| junon wrote:
| If the author of the article is reading this, any chance of
| getting a stream or a video of you playing Far Cry? I'm sure a
| lot of developers, designers, etc. would love to see how you
| interact and overcome some of the obstacles that are typical of
| software and games alike, and would love to see (in action) how
| Far Cry goes about fixing them.
|
| Yes of course the article is rich with detail - thank you so much
| for writing this - but to be able to watch a video and hear in
| real-time "oh, that blood just popped on the screen as a visual
| effect, but it really makes it more difficult to perceive my
| environment" would be absolutely priceless commentary.
|
| I think a lot of the lack of accessibility isn't due to
| unwillingness but instead due to being unsure if what you're
| doing is _actually helpful_. I think it 's way too easy to try to
| do something clever and instead making your app/game/whatever
| _harder to use_ for both people with and without disabilities.
|
| Having that direct insight and the ability to observe firsthand
| how differently-abled individuals interact with software - both
| good _and_ bad software - would be monumentally helpful.
|
| I would imagine this already exists to some degree but, at least
| for me, it's quite hard to find. If anyone has any good recs for
| this, please let me know.
| tekromancr wrote:
| Hire disabled people to use your app, listen to what they say,
| integrate their feedback, iterate. That's really what it comes
| down to. There are AXE tools for testing obvious accessibility
| issues in websites; but that isn't a perfect replacement for
| hiring testers
| junon wrote:
| This is exactly my point though - hiring disabled people is
| simply not an option for most people. If information on
| _meaningful_ accessibility was as readily available and
| consumable as learning how to code, I 'd bet a lot of money
| people would be more inclined to make accessible software.
| Thaxll wrote:
| "I think a lot of the lack of accessibility isn't due to
| unwillingness"
|
| In most case it is because it requires time, effort and
| knowledge. You're average game dev studi does not have any of
| that.
| [deleted]
| dvtrn wrote:
| > You're average game dev studi does not have any of that.
|
| I sort of wonder, reading this, what kind of accessibility
| regulations exist in Canada (FC6 being developed by Ubisoft
| Toronto) has for gaming and how it compares to other
| technology providers, solutions or products?
| robin_reala wrote:
| The main one is the Accessibility for Ontarians with
| Disabilities Act, and applies to "goods, services,
| facilities, accommodation, employment, buildings,
| structures and premises".
| goohle wrote:
| It's easy to get first hand experience: get a remote mouse and
| keyboard and then try to perform task on your laptop from 20
| meters away.
| simion314 wrote:
| I have an eye condition, I am not fully blind but I have a lot
| of trouble with text (I use the zoom feature,TTS, and big fonts
| in my desktop and apps.
|
| What would be super helpful for me would be things like:
|
| 1 allow changing fonts and font size, some games use some weird
| "fantasy" or hand-writing fonts , this are very hard to read so
| give us the option to use plain Arial font.
|
| 2 implement UI scaling so fonts and icons can be larger
|
| 3 don't make important ame objects hard to be found, maybe an
| option to outline things if you press a key, when you have
| disabilities is always a doubt in your mind that there is
| something on the screen but you can't see it. This is super
| annoying in point and click adventure games where you need to
| sport 1 pixel sized item or some very well hidden object.
|
| 4 for games with lot of text like lot of dialog that is not
| voiced , lot of books,computers or stuff to read I would love
| if more games support TTS (text to speech), I don't mean
| include a TTS engine in your game, just send the text to an
| application , or local port that the user specified and the
| user can't use it's own TTS program with his preferred settings
| to listen for the text.
|
| 5 For dialog boxes give us the option to set a full opacity
| background, set the text font family,color and size , for some
| games I used OCR(Optical Character Recognition ) to read the
| dialog windows but OCR can fail or take a long time if the font
| family is a weird gaming font or the dialog background has
| transparency.
|
| 6 If you make a game because you want to make the game (and not
| because you are learning some cool language or how game engines
| work - witch is very good you want to learn) try to use
| existing game engines, this engines will have already some
| accessibility support or there is enough experience on how to
| mod things in. So if you want to make a text adventure game use
| the best tool for the job and not create your own engine.
|
| I am sure some of this would help a lot of people that have
| smaller eye issues and those would appreciate some of thios
| options.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| > _I don 't mean include a TTS engine in your game, just send
| the text to an application , or local port that the user
| specified and the user can't use it's own TTS program with
| his preferred settings to listen for the text._
|
| How does this kind of thing work? I'm only (passingly)
| familiar with the "official" accessibility APIs, e.g.
| IAccessible, AT-SPI2, but these are clearly inadequate; I'm
| very curious to know how real people use computers.
| simion314 wrote:
| I am not a regular user, what I done is edit open source
| engine and hack them to call my TTS program/script. For
| html engines I do a request to localhost on a specific port
| where I have a script listening. For a C++ engine I
| modified I used the run process functions to call directly
| my program, I think first I put the text to be spoken in a
| text file.
|
| One reason this is so hacky is that because this engines
| were not meant to do TTS I can get a lot of extra garbage
| or duplicates so I need to have the text first go through a
| game specific script to clean it up.
|
| so could you have this implemented:
|
| 1 user will input a path to a script/program
|
| 2 from the game engine you call that script and send to it
| the text as an argument , there might be limitations so it
| might be better alternatives.
|
| My TTS program implements a queue so it is fine if you just
| dump a lot of text into it, I have keyboard shortcuts to
| handle skipping/pausing.
|
| The Renpy game engine (python) supports TTS but I edited
| the tts plugin and replaced their Linux default to my
| script since I get more features and flexibility.
|
| P.S. I am tempted to try to also get the text from DirectX
| games, but I am not sure where to start, I am thinking I
| could intercept some DrawText function and replace it with
| my own but I am not sure what terms to Google for and if is
| something that can be done Or if there is a simple way to
| detect the code that does the dialog boxes in the games and
| intercept that function.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| For DirectX, I'd be tempted to intercept stuff from the
| text layout engine. (USP10.DLL, DirectWrite, or
| HarfBuzz.) Pretty much nothing lays out its own text.
| apozem wrote:
| I would love if all games let you change the font and font
| size. I loved Fire Emblem: Three Houses, but god, I'm too
| nearsighted to deal with text that small.
| izacus wrote:
| The Last of Us 2 also has some really great accessibility options
| - from high contrast mode, extra visibility markers, extra audio
| markers and more.
|
| https://www.polygon.com/2020/7/2/21310396/last-of-us-2-acces...
| n8cpdx wrote:
| I first learned about this through Twenty Thousand Hertz, a great
| podcast about sound that I highly recommend. I don't think about
| sound very often, so I find I learn a lot from every episode.
|
| https://www.20k.org/
| mbg721 wrote:
| It's certainly not as severe as legal-blindness, but colorblind-
| friendliness is essentially standard now in board games. The
| yellow cards have a triangle, the red cards have a star, etc.
| gitowiec wrote:
| What means legally blind? Can one be illegally blind?
| WJW wrote:
| Typically this phrase is used for someone who has very little
| eyesight remaining, but is not completely blind. Many countries
| have laws prescribing a minimum level of sight below which you
| are entitled to benefits accorded to blind people (for example,
| the right to do exams in Braille or orally, or financial
| compensation towards getting a guide dog in countries where
| that is part of social healthcare)
| fredleblanc wrote:
| An example of this challenge appearing elsewhere: in the US,
| long-haul effects of COVID have recently moved under the
| Americans with Disabilities Act umbrella. The problem,
| however, is there's not a single easy, testable way to
| determine if someone has it or not.
| shikoba wrote:
| > the right to do exams in Braille
|
| Because if someone has a perfect sight he is not allowed to
| do exams in Braille?
| PeterisP wrote:
| You have the right to require accommodations for a
| disability, you do not have the right to demand the same
| accommodations just because you would prefer it that way.
|
| Many types accommodations add extra burden or cost on the
| service provider, so if someone with e.g. perfect sight
| asks for a vision-related accommodation, they are allowed
| to refuse.
| mbg721 wrote:
| There's an unspoken assumption that acting with a
| disability plus an accommodation should not produce a
| greater result than the unaided and non-disabled act. I
| don't know whether that's fair or not, but I think that's
| the source of the trouble here.
| hollerith wrote:
| Whether it is _allowed_ or not is up to the exam 's
| administrator.
|
| The relevant law in the US, the Americans with Disabilities
| Act, does not _require_ the admin to allow it unless the
| exam taker provides a letter from a health-care
| professional asserting a disability _and_ reimburses the
| admin for any extra costs in accommodating the disability.
| swixmix wrote:
| Here's an example of legally blind... Higher
| Standard Deduction for Blindness ... 1. You can't
| see better than 20/200 in the better eye with glasses
| or contact lenses, or 2. Your field of vision is 20
| degrees or less.
|
| See https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p501.pdf
|
| I believe 20/200 means you can read only the top letter, E, on
| vision charts.
| lessthanseventy wrote:
| 20/200 means that a person with that level of vision is able
| to read something from a 20 foot distance that someone with
| 20/20 vision would be able to read from 200 feet away.
| User23 wrote:
| It depends on the laws of the country. I believe in the USA it
| means uncorrectable 20/200 or worse vision.
|
| The eye is a remarkably complex organ and thus it can fail in
| many different ways. There are many people with eye disorders
| who do not fit the legal definition. Either their condition is
| correctable (not curable), or their usable vision is above
| 20/200. Since many conditions are degenerative a person with an
| eye condition may become legally blind over time.
| neither_color wrote:
| One example is having SOME eyesight but not correctable enough
| to qualify for a driver's license.
| lessthanseventy wrote:
| Most visually disabled people retain some usable vision. The
| levels for qualifying for a driver's license are different
| than the definition of legally blind. For instance, my state
| requires vision correctable to at least 20/40 in one eye, and
| a FOV of at least 60 degrees to drive without special bioptic
| lenses (basically a monocular that attaches to a pair of
| glasses.) To be classified as legally blind (at least in the
| United States) you must have vision that cannot be corrected
| to better than 20/200, or a field of view of less than 20
| degrees. It gets complicated because you can be on disability
| even if you don't meet the definition of "legally blind" if
| you have vision issues that cause you to be unable to work.
| This is on a case by case basis and requires a hearing in
| front of a disability judge.
| bool3max wrote:
| It probably means that the person's blindness is sufficient
| enough as to be recognized by the legal system. Just a guess.
| ramchip wrote:
| It's a specific threshold e.g. 20/200 vision or worse. Some may
| be able to see to some extent, but it's still bad enough to be
| considered blind for disability purposes.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| There's a thread[1] over at Egosoft's forums about improving
| their X4 game for blind players.
|
| I admit I was quite surprised to find blind people playing this
| game, given the primary activity is flying around in space
| ships... but it does have trade/build elements and you don't
| _have_ to fly a ship.
|
| Was very interesting to read about just how they achieved this,
| and the tweaks needed to make it viable.
|
| [1]: https://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?f=146&t=440905
| notjustanymike wrote:
| I'm told most of the Egosoft QA team is blind.
| prox wrote:
| I wonder how accessible Elite Dangerous is together with hcs
| voice packs. The game should be mostly accessible with voice
| and still very atmospheric. Not sure about Combat, but trading
| and exploration would be possible I am guessing.
| treeman79 wrote:
| True blindness is very rare. More often it's low vision on a
| scale between poor and true blindness.
|
| Or for some, focusing is painful. (Nerve damage) on a bad day I
| can see fine. But more then a few seconds can be horrifically
| painful.
|
| Extra large text helps a lot. Avoiding red / blue mixed colors
| is a big help.
| speeder wrote:
| Meanwhile mixing red and blue help a lot with certain eye
| conditions :(
| treeman79 wrote:
| Which? If I'm wearing prism glasss then the text floats
| around. Blue goes to behind the terminal, red way in front.
| Purple is in between depending on shade.
|
| Absurdly distracting.
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