Decline CVAA: US government disability regulation on videogames is now in effect

[rusty_shackleford]

For those of you that missed it, CVAA's final extension ended this month.

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/IanHamilton/20190123/334910/Demystifying_CVAA.php

A few highlights:

Briefly, CVAA requires EACH communication service (if you have text chat and voice chat each of them must independently meet all of the requirements) AND any UI or information needed to navigate to and operate the communication functionality to be accessible as reasonably possible to the following groups:

• Blind
• Low vision
• No colour perception
• Deaf
• Limited manual dexterity
• Limited reach and strength
• Prosthesis
• Unable to use time-dependent controls
• No speech
• Limited cognitive skills

(1) Input, control, and mechanical functions shall be locatable, identifiable, and operable in accordance with each of the following, assessed independently:

(i) Operable without vision. Provide at least one mode that does not require user vision.

You have to wonder if the people writing these laws are actually aware of what a videogame even is.

(viii) Operable without time dependent controls. Provide at least one mode that does not require a response time or allows response time to be by passed or adjusted by the user over a wide range.

Did the government just regulate QTEs?
...Alright then.

(x) Operable with limited cognitive skills. Provide at least one mode that minimizes the cognitive, memory, language, and learning skills required of the user.

Insert pop-a-mole joke here.

(2) All information necessary to operate and use the product, including but not limited to, text, static or dynamic images, icons, labels, sounds, or incidental operating cues, [shall] comply with each of the following, assessed independently:

(i) Availability of visual information. Provide visual information through at least one mode in auditory form.
Examples: Text to speech for chat-related UI and for text chat messages

If you were wondering why a lot of new online games don't have any text chat(Anthem, Divison 2, etc.,) now you know.

 

[Icewater]

Doesn't this completely murder any potential indie multiplayer games? How can they possibly meet those requirements? There's exceptions allowed for this situation of not having the resources available to provide these features, but wouldn't the developers have to demonstrate that? Even not having the resources to provide those features ultimately requires more resources because of that. What the fuck.

 

[ADL]

By the time any project this would actually affect actually releases, there'll be a bunch of middleware solutions available for anyone to use. That being said, fuck middleware because every component used makes it harder and harder to open source.

 

[J_C]

Thank God this idiotic law finally murders the modern game industry, so we can go back and play the hundreds of great game created in the last 30 decades.

But seriously, as i read it, everything in this law is only about the communication services in games (e.g. chat). General gameplay is not effected.

 

[Morkar Left]

Finally! Every rpg needs to be turnbased from now on!

 

[Icewater]

Thank God this idiotic law finally murders the modern game industry, so we can go back and play the hundreds of great game created in the last 30 decades.

But it won't. It only murders the industry of smaller developers. Large developers have the resources to meet these dumb requirements. The cynic in me says that was the point all along.

 

[Neanderthal]

Bit late with this, most modern games are squarely aimed at the amoeba accessible demographic.

 

[gaussgunner]

If you were wondering why a lot of new online games don't have any text chat(Anthem, Divison 2, etc.,) now you know.

> 1488
> 148 gang gang
> 148 gang gang
> 1488
> N I G G E R
> 1488
> N I G G E R
> N I G G E R
> 148 gang gang
> 1488
> 1488
> 1488
> OP is a faggot

I'm pretty sure that's why.

 

[Bester]

What I see this majorly affecting is games made in engines that aren't open source and are difficult to integrate this stuff into. Like if you can't hook up external libraries and you can only code in Lua for instance. Then you're truly fucked.

I'm also annoyed by the "you have to keep documentation at all times" point. Nigga I'm an indie, I don't have any documentation, not even for my own code, and I don't see any clear rules on what you want from me in that regard. I'd like to release games without this stuff and if it happens to be a product that sells well (let's say nets over $10k), I can implement these additional colorbind things. Otherwise, I don't have the resources. I'm already cutting out important mechanics as it is to meet deadlines, I simply have no time for this. I wish they'd allow that...

 

[what am i doing]

The part I find most appalling is the demand that games must now have godawful console style UIs instead of traditional cursor based UIs. It's bad enough that it's been spreading onto PC due to multiplatform games but now they want every game to have it?

To clarify, what I've seen happen in console style UIs is that buttons appear to only accept a click once they're "selected" either by a controller moving through buttons one by one or a cursor passing over them. This creates a situation where if you move your cursor over a button and click too soon, the UI either ignores your click or makes it apply to whatever was selected just before. This is very annoying as it forces you to navigate the UI deliberately slowly instead of at a more natural pace. This doesn't happen all the time but it's enough to notice.

By contrast a traditional cursor UI just reads a mouse click and whatever you clicked on is activated. As it should be.

 

[GrainWetski]

Thank God this idiotic law finally murders the modern game industry, so we can go back and play the hundreds of great game created in the last 30 decades.

But it won't. It only murders the industry of smaller developers. Large developers have the resources to meet these dumb requirements. The cynic in me says that was the point all along.

And big companies can just move their studios to other countries and stop caring about this nonsense.

 

[J_C]

Thank God this idiotic law finally murders the modern game industry, so we can go back and play the hundreds of great game created in the last 30 decades.

But it won't. It only murders the industry of smaller developers. Large developers have the resources to meet these dumb requirements. The cynic in me says that was the point all along.

And big companies can just move their studios to other countries and stop caring about this nonsense.

It's not about where you are based. If you are selling games on the US market, then it applies to you.

But chill out people, this is not effecting gameplay, it's about player to player communication services in games.

Does CVAA apply to me?
CVAA’s communication article (#1 above) covers communication services in all industries, including communication present in games. If you’re providing player to player communication via text (messages sent between individuals in text form in real/near real time over communication networks), voice (voice over IP) or video (interoperable video conferencing) in a game for release in the US market, that functionality falls under CVAA.


CVAA requires EACH communication service (if you have text chat and voice chat each of them must independently meet all of the requirements) AND any UI or information needed to navigate to and operate the communication functionality

No game developer in the world could make a game, which is playable by every disabled person in the world. Everybody knows that, and that law is not about making games like that.

 

[GrainWetski]

It's not about where you are based. If you are selling games on the US market, then it applies to you.

But chill out people, this is not effecting gameplay, it's about player to player communication services in games.

Ah, well that's even worse. I know it's just for communication AKA every multiplayer game ever made. It's purely a waste of money and time and I hope developers ignore this garbage.

I would understand if the government paid developers if they included these features to encourage them to do it or something, but trying to force everyone to waste resources on 0.0001% of the audience is just stupid beyond belief.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Just out of curiosity, what video games do blind people play?

Do people actually make video games for blind people and which ones are they, got any vids?

 

[aweigh]

there are a few blind Street Fighter players. google them. (they learned how to play by following sound effects).

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Despite this whole act looking, sounding and smelling like a constipated camel fart, I'm all for it as I think this will accelerate the demise of the current video game industry.

I'm also all in for it as it looks like (haven't confirmed myself) that this will FORCE game developers to allow for customizable controls, regardless of whether the game has multiplayer or not. I'm tired of seeing AAA+ games that half-ass keyboard customization ("Oh, you want to use this key? Sorry, we're saving that for a... uh... vital function, can't be changed!") and I'm long tired of seeing indie devs just sticking an image file in their game saying "These are your controls, there are no alternatives, git gud!" instead of taking the time to learn to code input integers.

I can only hope.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Just out of curiosity, what video games do blind people play?

Text adventures with the computer reading the text. This has been possible for over three decades.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Apparently there's enough of a demand that there's a blind mode for DoomRL, which boggles the mind.

Anyways, I can't imagine this actually mattering. It's not like whatever agency is going to oversee this will have the resources to examine all the games released on steam. This is going to be about phones and social media and maybe some AAA games. Nobody is going to be banging on Illwinter's door demanding they include text-to-voice for their in game chat when they release Dominions 6.

Still a retarded premise though. There are communication services that cater to various disabilities precisely because trying to cover everything at once is impractical and wasteful. It's like insisting that all vehicles are able to run on gasoline, diesel, electiricity, propane and muscle.

 

[gaussgunner]

It's not about where you are based. If you are selling games on the US market, then it applies to you.

But chill out people, this is not effecting gameplay, it's about player to player communication services in games.

Ah, well that's even worse. I know it's just for communication AKA every multiplayer game ever made. It's purely a waste of money and time and I hope developers ignore this garbage.

I would understand if the government paid developers if they included these features to encourage them to do it or something, but trying to force everyone to waste resources on 0.0001% of the audience is just stupid beyond belief.

Yeah, I assume most will ignore it, if they're even aware of it. You can't run a business without breaking a shitload of regulations. You just have to cross your fingers and hope nobody enforces them, and if they do you deal with it. This is exactly the kind of red tape Trump has stopped enforcing. You just have to get the attention of someone like Tucker and it should stop.

 

[J_C]

Apparently there's enough of a demand that there's a blind mode for DoomRL, which boggles the mind.

Anyways, I can't imagine this actually mattering. It's not like whatever agency is going to oversee this will have the resources to examine all the games released on steam. This is going to be about phones and social media and maybe some AAA games. Nobody is going to be banging on Illwinter's door demanding they include text-to-voice for their in game chat when they release Dominions 6.

Still a retarded premise though. There are communication services that cater to various disabilities precisely because trying to cover everything at once is impractical and wasteful. It's like insisting that all vehicles are able to run on gasoline, diesel, electiricity, propane and muscle.

Pretty much agree. I think there is no office which will examine all the games, it would be impossible. Probably games will be examined on a case by case basis if some customer files a complaint about a game not meeting this criteria, which I don't think will happen too often.

 

[thesheeep]

Ah, good old politics.
Well meaning ideas, good intentions, borderline insanely terrible execution.

This isn't only about blind people, though.
There is also dyslexia. While blind people obviously wouldn't be able to play most video games anyway, people with dyslexia can.
And Text-to-speech is easily implemented, many free cross-platform libs around.

I think that most AAA devs are aware, but choose not to have text chat in order not to have to deal with filtering, toxicity, etc. The law gives them a good cop-out reason.

 

[a Goat]

and play the hundreds of great game created in the last 30 decades

30 decades or gaming brought us here. Gamers lived and died like chumps while stacies just dated chads. Now they want to take away the only thing that makes us happy.

 

[Tacgnol]

As others have said, I suspect many devs will just remove in game communication features rather than comply with these rules.

 

[Beastro]

If you were wondering why a lot of new online games don't have any text chat(Anthem, Divison 2, etc.,) now you know.

> 1488
> 148 gang gang
> 148 gang gang
> 1488
> N I G G E R
> 1488
> N I G G E R
> N I G G E R
> 148 gang gang
> 1488
> 1488
> 1488
> OP is a faggot

I'm pretty sure that's why.

Yup, same reason restriction shit started years ago with WoW taking out cross faction chat - to cut down on customer service from all the frivolous petitioning that came from PvP smacktalk and hurt losers bitching hoping to get others in trouble.

 

[laclongquan]

This sounds like busy legal works that completely fuck up the business environment of game development.

So if a game doesnt have accessibility to disabled people, what? Shouldnt disabled people just vote with their wallets and doesnt buy it anyway? After all, games are luxury products, people dont need it to survive or work. Why should government mess around this aspect?

What it does is increasing costs to game development unless devs just cut out that aspect, in which case their products lack feature due to artificial restraints... And for what? The few thousand (disabled) people who would use communication features in games?

Why didnt people crucify the legal staffs and house reps and senators that endorse this ruling when it's out... "Think of the disabled people" is nowhere enough just cause to allow this shit~