A Worthy Petition

Grandma and I both have a lot of respect for the gaming industry's progress on accessibility issues; they are certainly getting better. One of our readers, Nadine from the lovely city of Calgary, sent me a link to a petition calling for greater attention towards captioning in games for the deaf. My own experiences not withstanding gaming with Grandma, I would have still signed the petition. Grandma does require captioning on many of her games, because her hearing aid doesn't work well with the XBox Live headset (feedback).

I believe the industry is paying attention to those with hearing impairments, so this petition is a good way of further addressing the issue.

Here's the link for you guys if you wish to sign.

It may be more work for designers and programmers and QC folks to implement captioning in games, but it works when done well, as Grandma and I can attest.

Captioning carries other benefits as well as aiding those who truly need it. It also assists those who might not care for particular voice acting within a game, and yet may still be able to enjoy it. It helps when it's 3:30am and important dialogue in FFX needs to be understood, and yet you've already received three noise citations this year called in by the people in the apartment upstairs who watch Pocahontas as loud as they please but call the cops on me for some reason, and it's not like the bastards work anyway (I assure you, not taken from personal experience. Really.)

Captions as a choice within the game's options really helps everyone, so its nice to see such a petition online.

We at OGHC encourage you guys to sign.

Thanks!