每年出现的音频游戏的数量和质量都在不断提升着

对于游戏产业来说，加字幕和标识设定是相对较常见的情况，而色盲也是最常出现的有关易用性的问题（即不管是MOBA，纸牌游戏，策略游戏，还是像《生化奇兵2》中迷你游戏都深受红绿色盲问题的困扰），但值得注意的是，即使是像Naughty Dog这样具有前瞻性的开发者在2014年一位色盲开发者加入他们团队之前，或者在一个粉丝提出前都未能注意到这一问题。

让我们对《神秘海域4：盗贼末路》的开发者表示敬意。因为他们不仅创造了一大商业轰动（即他们创造了一款很棒的游戏），同时他们向我们证实了更多人能够玩Nathan Drake。更准确地来说就是，他们明确地突出了易用性功能。

从表面上看来Naughty Dog所采取的积极干预就像是一次巨大的飞跃，（游戏邦注：即从平等性和易用性来看），这也与消极对待这一问题的产业背景形成鲜明对比。

但这并不是说电子游戏中的所有易用性领域都遭遇了忽视。音频游戏市场正在不断壮大着（从表面上来看这是面向盲人的游戏，而似乎也是一种疯狂的想法），网通传奇私服，每年出现的音频游戏的数量和质量都在不断提升着。许多这类型游戏是通过叙述的方式去传达冒险游戏，即这更像是一本选择你自己的冒险的书籍或像《Zork》（游戏邦注：电子游戏历史上最早的一款文字冒险游戏）那样经典的文字冒险游戏，玩家可以为游戏进程做出选择。在最近几年里像Sean Bean和Benedict Cumberbatch等人便在音频游戏中发挥着自己的才能，这也帮助了他们提高自己的声誉并朝主流靠近。如今的音频游戏变得更加复杂，即包含了像谜题和战斗等元素—-而似乎如果没有视觉效果的帮助这些内容是不可能实现的，不过随着音频提示质量的提高以及对于整体产品价值的更多完善，更多不可能将变得可能。

In a rather sweet and honest video released by Sony last week, a number of the Naughty Dog development team recount the story of how they brought accessibility features – that were partially implemented for The Last Of Us – to Uncharted 4, following a fan’s revelation that he simply could not complete Uncharted 2 without the assistance of an able-bodied person, to help him get past a series of button-mashing door openings in the final chapters.

Since 1 October 2002 – Service providers have had to make ‘reasonable adjustments’ for disabled people, such as providing extra help or making changes to the way they provide their services.

There could be a tendency to err on the side of horror, given that a lack of sight makes for a terrifying prospect for those of us who have never experienced it, but it is important that audio games don’t swap one sort of exclusivity for another. It would be wrong to doubly punish visually-impaired gamers with horror-only titles, and similarly, it would reduce the potential accessibility of these games for sighted players – whether through sheer idle curiosity, or because they are worthy games in their own right – by boiling down the lack of vision to a petrifying and lonely experience.

自2004年10月1日起，服务提供者必须基于服务对象的身体原因做出其它“适当调整”以克服他们的准入障碍。

对于所有没有经历过失去视力的人来说总是会对这种情况充满莫名的恐惧，但我们必须明确的是，音频游戏并不是在以一物换一物。面向视力残疾玩家提供只有恐怖感的游戏是错误的，同时这也会降低游戏面向视力正常的玩家的易用性，因为它将缺少视觉效果变成是一种石化且孤独的游戏体验。

Since 1 October 2004 – Service providers may have to make other ‘reasonable adjustments’ in relation to the physical features of their premises to overcome physical barriers to access.

在这方面易用性的作用是双向的，音频RPG游戏《Three Monkeys》便是通过积极配合失明的玩家而避免了这些问题。即在游戏世界中，生来就看不见的玩家角色被赋予了这样的身份，即他是唯一能够拯救这个世界并且毫不畏惧黑暗的人。《Three Monkeys》不仅是一款具有强大易用性的电子游戏，同时它也完全改变了残疾等于弱势群体的概念，并未这样一个长期遭遇忽视的潜在玩家社区提供了一种力量感。

“当我打开像《神秘海域》这样的游戏时，我不再被禁锢于轮椅上了。这段短暂的逃离时间让我感受到了易用性的重要性，因为如果有更多游戏能够提供这样的一样，那么就会有更多残疾人士能够逃离这种痛苦而获得更棒的生活。”

Since 2 December 1994 – It has been unlawful for service providers to treat disabled people less favourably for a reason related to their disability;

在索尼的易用性视频中，其中一个Naughty Dog开发者，即UI编剧Andres Ortiz提到了他们团队成员很多人都是红绿色盲而他自己也是个红绿色盲，所以他们在玩《神秘海域》系列的多人游戏模式时遇到了许多问题。他表示将绿色团队改成蓝色团队并不会对游戏玩法做出任何改变，但却能让更多人轻松地玩《神秘海域4》的多人游戏模式。的确有时候一些小小的改变便能够让一切都变得不同了。

其实火车之旅是一种非常“敷衍的”活动，即主要目的便是将人们从A点运送到B点。另一方面，游戏的目的也很纯粹，即是为了娱乐玩家，所以似乎去遵循运输的这种易用性也是合理的。而在其它娱乐产业中，如现代电影院便设有无障碍通道，硬盘播放通常也提供了字幕放映或者面向盲人的音频描述等选择；体育馆和音乐厅也都会为残疾人士准备特定席位和停放轮椅的空间，从而确保他们和其他人一样享有一个良好的视野。

The UK Disability Discrimination Act 1995, which has since been repealed and subsumed by the significantly more complex (and far less easy to parse, hence our referral to its predecessor) Equality Act 2010, states that duties on service providers are as follows:

One of the Naughty Dog developers in Sony’s accessibility video, UI scripter Andres Ortiz, speaks of how difficult he personally found the Uncharted series multiplayer to play, given that the teams have always been red and green and he suffers from classic red/green colour-blindness. He pitched the idea of changing the green team to blue, which is a small change that makes no difference to the gameplay itself, yet has allowed for Uncharted 4′s multiplayer to be far more accessible. Sometimes it’s a simple thing that makes all the difference.

What is on the face of it an overwhelmingly positive intervention by Naughty Dog perhaps only seems like such an astounding leap forward, in terms of equality and accessibility, when considered against the backdrop of an industry that has been passive to the point of non-consideration when it comes to these issues.

在不久前索尼发布的视频中，来自Naughty Dog的开发团队重述了他们如何将易用性功能（即来自《美国末日》的内容）带进《神秘海域4》的故事，即他们是遵从了一个表示如果没人帮助自己在最后章节完成一系列按键按压去开门他便无法完成《神秘海域2》的粉丝的看法。

By Tom Baines

《英国1995年残疾人歧视法案》（游戏邦注：已经被废除并被归入到更加复杂的《2010年平等法案》中）便明确规定了服务提供者应该遵守的条例：

而这个粉丝便是Josh Straub。Josh是DAGER System信息网站的总编辑，他们不仅会基于游戏的好坏去评价游戏，同时也会根据游戏是否会带给残疾人玩家特定挑战进行评价。

以下是Josh Straub所说的关于为什么《神秘海域》中的易用性功能如此重要的内容：

自2002年10月1日起，服务提供者必须为残疾人士做出“适当的调整”，如提供给他们额外帮助或为了他们改变提供服务的方式。

Naughty Dog一直在努力确保他们的游戏具有易用性（我也不想否定他们的成绩），但是还是存在一些恰恰相反的情况。我们似乎总是大肆地赞扬那些在游戏易用性方面付出许多努力的开发者，但其实在大多数其它产业中这是再平常不过的事。

Let’s take rail travel as an example. If you want to travel by train, you’ll find that every inch of that journey has been accounted for in terms of accessibility: there will be ramps or flat-level access to the station; you’ll find ramps or elevators to avoid the use of stairs; low-height ticket machines will be available for wheelchair users; signs will carry Braille and kiosks will have text-to-speech facilities; ramps can be unfurled to bridge the gap between platform and train, and priority seating (or wheelchair space) will be available in the carriage.

That fan, incidentally, is Josh Straub. Josh is the editor-in-chief of the incredibly informative website DAGER System, that not only reviews games on whether they’re any good, but also whether they present any specific challenges for players with disabilities.

“When I turn on a game like Uncharted, I’m not, you know, confined to a wheelchair… that brief period of escape is why accessibility is so crucial, because the more games that offer that, the more people with disabilities will be able to escape and have better lives.”(source:gamesindustry)

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转发，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

自1994年12月2日起，服务提供者如果因为残疾人的原因而提供给他们不平等待遇便是违法的；

让我们以火车之旅为例吧。如果你想要搭火车旅行，你便会发现这一旅途中的每个角落都会有易用性的元素：通向车站的道路有坡道或平地；你会发现坡道或电梯能够代替阶梯；较低的售票机能够方便轮椅使用者的使用；标识能够引导盲人前行，而查询机也设有文字语音切换功能；坡道能够连接站台与列车间的缝隙，车厢中还设有优先安排的座位（或停放轮椅的空间）。

guide(from gamesindustry)

Accessibility in gaming should be the rule, not the exception

Rail travel is a very perfunctory activity, though, whose primary concern is getting people from A to B. Gaming on the other hand is purely for entertainment purposes, so it could logically follow that accessibility to transit is deemed more essential or important than entertainment. In the recreation space modern movie theatres all have step-free access, and the movies displayed will often have the option of subtitled screenings or even audio descriptions for the blind; while sports stadia and concert halls have specific seating and wheelchair areas for disabled patrons, to ensure they have as good a view of the action as everyone else.

Accessibility works both ways in this respect and audio RPG Three Monkeys sets out to avoid these pitfalls by actively empowering the player’s blindness. In a world suddenly plunged into darkness the player character – blind from birth – is thrust into a position of power; the only person equipped with the skills to save the world, and the only person not afraid of the onset of darkness. Not only is Three Monkeys an exciting prospect as a videogame in its own right and a paragon of accessibility, it actively turns the notion of disability as weakness on its head, and offers a sense of both power and agency to a long-neglected community of potential gamers.

And in this context Naughty Dog and Sony Interactive Entertainment – like the rail companies and the movie theatres – are service providers. They produce a product or service and you hand over some of your hard-earned cash to make use of, and hopefully enjoy, said product. While they’re not obliged to make sure you like their product, they are required to make ‘reasonable adjustments’ to allow less physically able gamers to at least have the same access to their titles as everyone else. It’s even worse if you do love their game – like Straub did, with Uncharted 2 – and are unable to complete it because accessibility in gaming is sadly streets behind almost every other industry.

That’s not to say that all areas of accessibility in videogames are being neglected, however. There is a growing market for audio games – ostensibly games for the blind, which seems like a bonkers notion in a medium with the word ‘video’ in its name – that are growing in number and quality each year. Many take the format of an adventure game guided by narration, rather like a choose-your-own-adventure book or a classic text-based adventure like Zork, with the player making choices as to their character’s progress. The likes of Sean Bean and Benedict Cumberbatch have lent their vocal talents to audio games in recent years too, which only helps raise their profile and bring them towards the mainstream. Audio games are becoming increasingly sophisticated, including elements like puzzles and combat – something which seems untenable without the aid of a visual display – but it’s the quality of the audio cues and the improvements to the overall production values that make all the difference.

And if you’re left in any doubt as to why that’s important I’ll leave you with the words of Josh Straub, on why the accessibility features in Uncharted 4 are such a big deal.