The Blind Gamer

[joshdmoore16]

In the early years of videogames missing a vital element to complete a level wasn't as difficult as it is now with the gorgeously elaborate games such as "Uncharted" or "Infamous". It helps add that layer of exploration and a bit more of a challenge. What about gamers who are legally blind? Does that extra layer affect whether that gamer can get past the task at hand? In some cases, yes it can.

There's not much a legally blind gamer can do to adjust the game to make their job less difficult. Yes there is a "Brightness Setting" option, but what if the crosshairs are too small or too light in a certain situation of an area in a level? What if the map has little contrast making it difficult to understand where you are going? What can the blind gamer accomplish?

I feel that developers should take in consideration adding more adjustable settings so legally blind gamers, such as myself, can have more of an equal playing ground. I want to be able to play a phenomenal game and not have to worry about reaching a point that I can't get past just because I'm legally blind. If we can get the word to these developers, then we can help many gamers out there that might be having similar issues!

[joetbd]

Originally Posted by joshdmoore16

I feel that developers should take in consideration adding more adjustable settings so legally blind gamers, such as myself, can have more of an equal playing ground.

First, yes. Games should have more options in general. Its always been the case, that console games have had few or no options to adjust (for any thing from sound to visuals), but now many PC games are also scaling back the amount of options they offer.

And some games, they make no allowance at all for slightly poor vision. And heaven forbid your not playing on a 40 or 50 inch TV.

High Definition has made things even worse. Developers now make everything very finely detail. Text is smaller now, crosshairs are smaller (its a dot in the new Red Dead game), and menus and inventories can some times be a huge pain to manage.

Sadly, I dont think developers are going to do anything for you. Unless they think something affects a large percentage of their users, they dont address these sorts of problems.

Im thinking my next TV should be a plasma screen (for the increased contrast, and strong black levels). Thats what we have to do, find our own solutions. Because "options" is a dirty word in the game console business.

[crackajack]

Originally Posted by joetbd

Games should have more options in general. ...but now many PC games are also scaling back the amount of options they offer.

yeah, it's a shame, because i doubt it's a real big thing to add some more options.
Can't remember the last game where i saw it, but different sizes of crosshairs was once possible to select, maybe it was Unreal 1, or ST: Elite Force, so a rather long time ago. ok, by choosing a dot, they actually want it to almost disappear, like with the whole hud in Dead Space... but yeah if someone needs it to be different it shouldn't be fixed in this way.

Gothic 4 or Arcania: A Gothic tale or whatever it will be called at release will have an american, a more colorful option and a european, more dark style variant. Just by adjusting the brightness and lightning as i understand.

Developers might not want their game to look ugly because someone changed it without any necessity and then doesn't like the looks and complains it's a bad game or whatever (and forgets to select load defaults...), but Uncharted or Far Cry offered some alternative rendering styles, just for fun. So i don't think adding some adjustable settings for gamers with eye issues should be hard, impossible work.

[Richard Naik]

This is definitely a worthwhile topic, but not really appropriate for the user submission section since it isn't really an article. Moving to Game Culture.