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The start of 2019 brings about a new change involving future video game releases. In 2010, a law called the Communications and Video Visibility Act was passed in the United States which required media to be accessible to those of varying or disabled capabilities. Since then, the Electronic Software Association, (ESA), has appealed for a waiver that allowed video games to be exempt from this law. However, as of 2019, the waiver has expired, and all video games with development cycles starting in 2019, or pre-existing games with major updates in 2019 must adhere to the CVAA, lest they be fined by the FCC.

• Games that enter development after this date must be fully compliant.
• Games already in development after this date but released after it must be as compliant as possible, how far through development the game was at Dec 31st may be taken into account in case of a complaint.
• Games released before this date that receive substantial updates after it must also be compliant.

Something to note, is that the CVAA does not force all games to cater or tailor their gameplay to those with disabilities, but instead it means that communications aspects within gaming must be accessible. Game chats will need to ensure certain things, with examples such as their in-game chat UI's being readable to those with eyesight issues, or that voice communication is easy to use if it's an option as an alternative to reading chatlogs, or gaming chats having a text-to-speech toggle. This law focuses on the social aspect of gaming, rather than gameplay.

Source

 

[CrossOut]

I all for it. the more people who can enjoy games the better. I imagine a blind man on a brallie keyboard calling someone a twat, then the other bloke goes, you should have saw it comming....ha!.

 

[guicrith]

Does this apply to homebrew games or any not for profit game development?
I know they wont likely get sued but is there an exemption for people who are making there own game and want it exactly a certain way(or just dont want to or cant do the extra work)?

 

[Ev1l0rd]

Good!

In case anyone wonders relevance or wants to know more, I highly recommend Mark Browns series about gaming with disabilities. He has several episodes dedicated to subtitles, UI and that stuff.

Legally doing this makes sense, on TV we also expect subtitles for those with hearing disabilities.

I'd link the series but unfortunately I can't seem to find it rn on YouTube. Look up gaming with disabilities, it's really interesting.

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As long as these things are not forced for normal users, that's no issue in my eyes. If anything, allowing it to be toggled just makes it easier for others with disabilities to enjoy the games they love. Although, this seems to only affect online based games with chat systems or games with heavy amounts of dialogue,

If it's anything like games already providing this stuff (there's a lot of games that already offer this to a degree, varying from clearly outlining the UI to throwing a color filter on it), it'll be a settings thing and fully optional .

 

[TotalInsanity4]

Also add in-game cheats to make easier for people with disabilities to beat the game.

You joke, but I believe it was Contra that is considered the first handicap-accessable game due to having chest codes for variable difficulty

Also, I've only gotten through the first page and the amount of comments that could be summed up as "gotdam ess jay double-yews are taking over!" is disheartening, to say the least. This won't, and realistically has no capacity to even be, a bad thing, but clearly some of y'all hate the idea of having to consider how a disabled person might need accommodations when communicating so much that you feel the need to hit the forums in panic.

Never change, GBAtemp

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Okay, granted, video games should be more accessible to a wider audience, yes, that's incontrovertibly an issue. BUT, I wouldn't trust the government's involvement any further than I can throw a football.

Oh I'm sure it's an ulterior motive for someone, somewhere

Have you ever considered that, like, sometimes legislators do good things because they're just... The good thing to do?

 

[Dr.Hacknik]

If it's anything like games already providing this stuff (there's a lot of games that already offer this to a degree, varying from clearly outlining the UI to throwing a color filter on it), it'll be a settings thing and fully optional .

Indeed, a ton of games already do this. So I honestly think this whole thing is a waste of time, resources, and especially tax payer money. It's stupid, but whatever. What do you expect from the FCC these days?

 

[tech3475]

Why are people complaining again? Is it because it’s actually difficult to implement particularly if speech to text is involved or because it’s simply the government?

 

[FAST6191]

The goal of a fine isn't to make money, it's to ward off people from breaking that law.

Have a look at traffic light timings some time. Also that is a rather simplistic view -- it is only the law because they say it is, more accurate would be to say they are there to try to compel behaviours.

Everyone is in an uproar and this is basically the digital equivalent of requiring building signs to be in braille as well ...

Are they? Also the thing described is a fairly token effort. Subtitling, winding in text to speech or vice versa (much less one that is any good at either), or whatever this ambiguous piece of legislation aims to do is something else when applied to long form gaming. I have done lesser versions of it before for websites, restaurant menus (which also have to have all sorts of nonsense about allergies on them) and so forth... the thought of doing that for something the size of a game...


How many devs have we seen say "fuck it" over the years when it comes to translations for spurious/dubious reasons? I don't see the need to legally mandate an actual reason to*. If people want to note it in reviews, create nice guidelines for devs to try to implement if they can, hack things, made overlay programs, make frameworks/APIs, some kind of box art symbols they can have, and so forth then more power to them (I have even helped do a few of those before) but to legally force it... yeah.
Mind you if there is the "do nothing" option I pondered earlier (text can't be wrong if there is no text at all, and people are then left with having to join third party communications) then that works well enough, still find compelling distasteful but hey. Similarly a carrot rather than a stick also works for me for this -- some kind of tax break, small grant.

*many things here are not trivial changes, and the way a lot of games are made are not prone to being as such.

 

[the_randomizer]

You joke, but I believe it was Contra that is considered the first handicap-accessable game due to having chest codes for variable difficulty

Also, I've only gotten through the first page and the amount of comments that could be summed up as "gotdam ess jay double-yews are taking over!" is disheartening, to say the least. This won't, and realistically has no capacity to even be, a bad thing, but clearly some of y'all hate the idea of having to consider how a disabled person might need accommodations when communicating so much that you feel the need to hit the forums in panic.

Never change, GBAtemp

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Have you ever considered that, like, sometimes legislators do good things because they're just... The good thing to do?

I've seen way more invasive/unnecessary legislation *cough* removing net neutrality and broken healthcare *cough* more than I've seen good from politicians. Unfortunately I'm too deeply ingrained in that mindset not to be cynical about it.

 

[TheDarkGreninja]

Have a look at traffic light timings some time. Also that is a rather simplistic view -- it is only the law because they say it is, more accurate would be to say they are there to try to compel behaviours.

I understand that, but that was why I said that would be the idealistic definition in a later post.

 

[Ev1l0rd]

Indeed, a ton of games already do this. So I honestly think this whole thing is a waste of time, resources, and especially tax payer money. It's stupid, but whatever. What do you expect from the FCC these days?

Dunno, the fact that a lot of games do it means that legalizing it is more of a case of "it's universally done and generally improves things, let's make sure that this improvement becomes the standard so that companies can't at some point budget it out if it ever gets unprofitable" (because you know those asshats will gladly stop investing into improving accessibility if it ever starts to get too expensive for their tastes.)

It seems more like a formality and an assurance to give those few publishers that refuse to do this a kick under their ass to do it.

 

[Xabring]

so, that means that Maybe Nintendo will be forced to DROP their insistence on using the freaking app that we clearly don't need as proven by epic with fortnite, of ALL game makers?
I mean, let's be honest, the app is harder to set up and make it work that simply plug a simple free-hands headphones from a smartphone you probably forgot on the smartphone box to the switch. and Maybe while we are at it, suggest to epic that add a font upgrade to their text chat (like, adding a black backdrop to the text to make it easier to read or something).

 

[FAST6191]

so, that means that Maybe Nintendo will be forced to DROP their insistence on using the freaking app that we clearly don't need as proven by epic with fortinte, of ALL game makers?

More like they will have a reason to continue to use it. If there is nothing in the game to complain about not catering to the whims of the differently abled as nobody has anything in the first place...

 

[Jvhellraiser]

Thats great lets make tomb raider series /GOW simple/easy, lets add in the select option for difficulty one thats says only for autism people then watch autism people conplain about it.

 

[bodefuceta]

I hope this makes developers think online will be too much hassle and just make games offline as I like them.

 

[TotalInsanity4]

Thats great lets make tomb raider series /GOW simple/easy, lets add in the select option for difficulty one thats says only for autism people then watch autism people conplain about it.

Reading comprehension must be hard

Plus, even if your snarky comment was relevant, that's one hell of a false dichotomy

 

[jt_1258]

For those who don't read the OP, put down the pitchforks. This relates only to communications. Not gameplay.

tldr: Game chats and voice chat need to be made easily accessible for everyone of varying traits. Gameplay is not held to this.

I forgot to sharpen my pitchfork this morning anyway so it's all good.

 

[ZachariasBarnham]

so maybe game text will be larger? There is no reason why game text has to be font size 5. The text has not increased in size with the resolution

THIS! THIS SO MUCH!!!

 

[osaka35]

Why should devolopers care about opening to a wider disabled audience. There is no profit to be made.

...more people buying games doesn't lead to more profit?

 

[the_randomizer]

...more people buying games doesn't lead to more profit?

Why was I quoted when I see nothing on what I said? WTF?

 

[osaka35]

Why was I quoted when I see nothing on what I said? WTF?

Not sure. I had a response on another tab, and responded to this person first and I guess it merged them. Sorry about that