E3: company experiences
As part of my Fellowship, I had the opportunity to attend E3 2017, as well as FanFest, both of which are described in more detail below. As much as these events did not involve me going to studios directly, they gave me the chance to see just how individuals might react when faced with a GWS asking about accessibility in person.
What is E3?
E3 is a trade show, previously limited to the press and games journalists who are privileged enough to be able to attend by virtue of their proffession. However, for the 2017 event, 15000 consumer tickets were released at $150 apiece, allowing 68400 people to attend the event spread over 3 days, according to Gamespot.
The event included press conferences from not only Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft, but also publishers including Ubisoft and Bethesda. These events do, however, take place outside of the aforementioned 3 day period.
What is FanFest?
FanFest is a separate event sometimes, though not always, hosted as part of events like Gamescom or, more relevant to this report, E3.
The event is for those fans who want that extra dose of Microsoft appreciation, with 500 tickets being released for the E3 2017 event. The tickets were free, though you needed a credit card to hold the ticket according to information on the website.
The event mostly concerned previews of the Xbox One X, announced at the Microsoft press conference (a little more on that later) and opportunities to socialise with fellow Xbox fans (whether through chatting in cues before the E3 Microsoft press conference or through discussing how different being a GWS is to the normal perception of gaming as a visual medium).
On to the experiences
If you are a company at a convention like E3, you will certainly want to make a good impression. This impression will not just transfer to sighted gamers, but to GWS as well. Demonstrating that as a developer, you are willing to engage with GWS is a great part of starting a dialogue to improve product accessibility. This accessibility surrounds games, hardware and everything in-between. Even just having members of the development team on hand at the demo booths can make a huge difference, more on that in a later section.
Microsoft
Microsoft were, by far and away, the most co-operative company at E3. They were willing to assist with any issues I had, pleased to receive feedback and generous with their accommodations, going out of their way to make my E3 experience memorable, which all started before the main show even commenced.
The Microsoft Press Conference
As part of FanFest, an event that Microsoft runs in various regions around the world (though unfortunately not in the UK) for various conventions, I was able to gain entry, along with over 400 others, to the Microsoft Press Conference.
For me, one of the big surprises of the event, other than all the announcements of course, was that various individuals at Microsoft worked together to get me what they termed as a “reserved seat”. Now this, I thought, would just mean a normal seat, but I was very surprised when I saw the final product.
This took the form of a haptic gaming chair that had been tweaked and adapted for additional comfort and rumble. The real clincher though, was that it had also been modified to be in synchronisation with the various trailers and pieces of gameplay shown off at the event, thus adding a whole other dimension to the experience for me as a GWS.
The individuals responsible for making this happen were under no obligation to do so. However, the fact that they did shows, at least to me, an unrivalled dedication to accommodating their fans in as many diverse and interesting ways as possible.
Merchandise and Gifts
Microsoft, also as part of FanFest, provided attendees with two very unexpected items. These were a free headset and hard drive, the latter of which was labelled with Project Scorpio, the codename for the Xbox One X console (thus making it very collectable).
Such souvenirs are actually very accessible for GWS and allow for the creation of great memories in the sense that you are unlikely to forget that kind of generosity any time soon. If the souvenirs are figures of characters for example, it allows you as a GWS to get a sense of the character’s physicality and sometimes even the aesthetic of the game itself (as discussed in later sections of this report).
Developers need to get fans involved in what they do, souvenirs can help drive the point across that they care.
Crackdown
Originally, I did not intend to name names during this report in terms of praising specific individuals or games. However, I believe for the purposes of demonstrating just how much effort was put in by Microsoft on the show floor and afterwards with Crackdown, I think it’s only fair, given their already clear commitment to accessibility, that I name individuals and praise products as required.
Crackdown 3, more commonly just shortened to Crackdown, is a game that was, at the time I attended E3, expected to launch on the same day as the Xbox One X console. However, it has subsequently been delayed into 2018. I met Kris Mellroth (one of the audio designers for the game) at one of the FanFest party-style events and we had a fair amount of discussion about the game’s potential for accessibility to GWS.
Kris works alongside Zachary Quarles, most noted for his work on Killer Instinct. Killer Instinct (discussed later in this report) is a game that whilst it is not fully accessible, is a stand-out example of how even with limited technology as described in this Gamasutra article, audio can be well crafted and helpful to GWS and the player base at large). Having both of these talented individuals working on the same team assured me that Crackdown would likely be a very enjoyable experience and have hidden subtleties that GWS would, with time, be able to pick out from the rest of the cues.
After the promising discussions at the aforementioned FanFest event, I hoped to be able to play Crackdown whilst I was on the show floor at E3 to better understand whether these improvements would actually work in practice.
Fortunately, though I expected I would be playing through the demo with someone not directly on the development team, as was the case with some of the other games I got to look at during the event, I had yet another surprise. When I went to play the game, I was not met by someone from a marketing division. It was, in fact, Kris who showed me the ropes and, having never played an entry in the Crackdown series before, I was glad of the assistance. Before I could even begin to figure my way around the controls, he began to rapidly reel off lists of audio cues, providing me with the reassurance that I was working with someone who really knew what had to be done to make an Xbox exclusive accessible to GWS, at least in part.
Kris showed a complete awareness of what was missing from the pre-release build, what was in the planning stages at the time and what could be on the cards in the near future. He was more than willing to receive feedback from a perspective that, arguably, remains unexplored by the vast majority of developers, from indie to big budget corporations.
This goes to show that if you have people who know the game inside out and the needs of GWS, for example, as part of your demo teams, it can greatly improve the experience for someone who wants to provide feedback.
In subsequent weeks, I was able to play even more of the game, finding a bug in the audio for throwing a power punch from the air, with Kris having a whole wall of notes behind me from previous discussions we had whilst I played. This is a further demonstration that if you allow for gamers to test pre-release builds, the bugs you might be able to fix, or suggestions that might become a part of the final game, might not have necessarily been considered without the help of a GWS.
Sea Of Thieves
Now, you might be forgiven for thinking that an open world game like Sea of Thieves, with puzzles to solve and large areas to traverse, would not be the most accessible title without adaptation.
However, given its team focus, as well as considerations that Rare (the developers) have already made regarding accessibility, I can safely say that the game has a massive amount of potential for GWS.
Ironically, steering the ship, I was told by one of the development team, was the most accessible role. Audio cues and haptic feedback proved this theory was correct and I had an entertaining time observing the rest of my crew and engaging in contributions during the course of the demo.
I think the fact that I was the only pirate who had not been killed by the end of the demo with a crew of 4 says something about steering the ship, namely that even if it’s currently got some additional kinks to work out, it’s probably the least likely to get you killed in game, at least for now.
Nintendo
I will inform you at this point that I was not under the banner of “media” which might have potentially let me speak to all the necessary individuals at the various stands. However, Microsoft were fine with me talking to them, so I thought it would not hurt to ask.
Nintendo were not forthcoming with any kind of information regarding contacts for accessibility, they basically gave me a flat response saying that because I was not media, they did not want to talk to me. They also said you can talk if you have an appointment, but all our appointments are booked.
If you are going to attempt to talk with companies like Nintendo as a GWS, be prepared to be turned away. They may have sent a letter to a blind fan of the Rhythm Heaven series with an alternative version in Braille, but that does not mean they are willing to engage in any kind of dialogue that might be useful to the wider community, or so it seems.
Sony
Access to Sony’s exhibition space was limited via the use of a smartphone app, an unexpected barrier to entry in a large-scale convension such as E3. The signage around Sony’s area, when you were in close proximity, could be seen to explain that you should use a code provided by the Experience Playstation app to get into the booths. All well and good when you have Wi-Fi to obtain the app in the first place. As I was visiting internationally and did not want to incur roaming charges, the lack of free Wi-Fi essentially shut me out of the vast majority of contact with the PlayStation manufacturers at the event.
If you are an exhibitor at E3, make sure that everyone who might want to see your games or talk with you can do so, whether they are a GWS or not. If the information is publicised clearly outside the event in locations where, say, free Wi-Fi is available for those who need it to get an app, then this should be far less of an issue.
As a side note, when I later examined the app, I discovered that it was semi-accessible, even including a box asking if the user has a disability. How far this accessibility extends at a live event is unclear though.