CVAA Legislation may finally get us some team chat improvements...

ThaRoadWarrior

Or I guess the other option is that it may be easier to cut that feature entirely

https://www.dualshockers.com/cvaa-2019-games-to-be-made-accessible-for-disabilities/

TL;DR:

Starting from January 1, 2019, games launched in the US must ensure they are accessible to people with disabilities. Here is some more information taken from the IGDA website regarding how games are affected based on their development progress.

• 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.

Screen Monkey

So I expect they will remove chat citing that most alliances use line or fb anyway

Screen Monkey

Or claim that updates are not "significant" 

ThaRoadWarrior

This legislation sounds incredibly subjective and difficult to enforce based on the embedded video, but I guess we'll see what happens with it all. 

Bowgentle

Screen Monkey said:

Or claim that updates are not "significant" 

That.
I think if they tried to remove alliance chat from the game, the code that's been held together by tissues and bubblegum will fall apart.

DAZ0273

Defining "significant" will probably take years.

ThaRoadWarrior

I'm in industry myself, so i've been looking into this some. There appears to be an out that lets you claim it's not possible to achieve compliance, or not cost effective. I suspect the move here is going to be the latter choice.

DAZ0273

ThaRoadWarrior said:

I'm in industry myself, so i've been looking into this some. There appears to be an out that lets you claim it's not possible to achieve compliance, or not cost effective. I suspect the move here is going to be the latter choice.

Yup. The same thing happened in the UK when legislation was brought in requiring shops and offices open to the public having disabled access. Most small businesses simply used the get out that it was either unreasonably expensive to retroactively comply or not possible without significant alteration to the premises. That word again.

ThaRoadWarrior

I remember working in retail when the auto parts store I was in put in an ADA (americans with disabilities act) compliant register that was about a foot lower to the ground than the standard height ones. We all ended up having to hunch down to interact with it all day, and it was giving us back issues. Super well-meaning legislation, but most of the solutions were implemented in such a heavy handed way...

Rhipf

Games released before this date that receive substantial updates after it must also be compliant.

What exactly qualifies as "substantial updates"? I would assume that the majority of updates to date wouldn't qualify as "substantial updates". I guess if there is a future UI update that may qualify.

broll

Screen Monkey said:

So I expect they will remove chat citing that most alliances use line or fb anyway

Screen Monkey said:

Or claim that updates are not "significant" 

Or do the bare minimum and add janky accessibility options to the broken chat.  It doesn't say the chat has to be well made...

TPF Alexis

Well, if it's equally unusable for all, that counts as equal accessibility, right?

Warbringa

I think it will be sort of like building codes for disability access.  New buildings (games) will need to adapt to make them accessible however existing buildings (games) will just get exemptions/waivers due to the cost and disruptions it would take to make their building (game) compliant with the law. Nothing new here.

Zalasta

Whatever they do, I sure hope they don't use it as an excuse to actually improve the chat functionality like we've been asking for since it was introduced. Anything but that..