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[Briarios]

The defense force is strong with this one ... Geez, first off, it was clearly an insensitive statement; that's not really debatable, as people with disabilities were offended by it. Heck, having a PR background, I cringed when reading it, before knowing that was part of the complaint.

Also, wanting to remap buttons is not done insanely out there request. It's quite benign, actually. He wasn't asking for a total game redesign, but there is nothing wrong with wanting companies to think about broader issues during design.

We had a developer mention on GAF before that it's not really that simple to add in remapping after the game has already been completed, so a developer needs to think about this sort of issue from the design stage.

 

[Lemmy Caution]

Yeah, this was a very tone deaf response from Nintendo. The "unfortunate condition" isn't responsible for his inability to enjoy the game, it's Nintendo's lack of accessibility features.

There is a lot more Nintendo can do with their system settings, but they're far from alone when it comes to a lack of effort accommodating gamers with various disabilities.

The article fails to mention their recent successes. There's the recent Rhythm Heaven story that's been circulating. Also, The Wii U gamepad allowed a girl with low vision to play Mario with her family. Normally she sits so close to the TV she'd block their view, but having her own devoted screen allowed her to game with family.

Smart steering and auto-accelerate is helping children and adults with limited mobility or vision loss play Mario Kart with their friends and I was so excited about the, albeit 'accidental accessibility, of 1-2 Switch that I encouraged the team I work with to produce a story on it.

Nintendo needs to catch up with Sony and Microsoft on their system-wide accessibility features (voice control, button remapping, contrast/UI options, colourblind mode, large fonts, better volume controls, etc), and more consistently apply features like those mentioned above on a game-by-game basis.

Also, they had a game accessible to blind and low vision audiences years ago with Soundvoyager, it's a shame they never released it in North America. Should be a Switch freebie with talking menus added.

 

[DeanBDean]

Remapping keys is not a technical problem, it's a UX problem. How do you make it clear to the user that they are not using the standard keymappings? This problem is less on the Xbox and PS4, which are not focused as much on local multiplayer games. If I hand a joy conn to someone, do I default it to the standard keymap or does it go to modified keymap?

This is an issue that should be solved, but I am guessing that Nintendo is concerned about the UX and confusion, especially making it easy for those that aren't as technically minded or children. Nintendo's SwitchOS is very barebones now, hopefully they offer system wide keymapping in an easy to understand way in the future.

 

[SinCityAssassin]

while Zelda is very unlikely to get a button remapping feature anytime soon and I don't know if Splatoon will get it or not, I do hope that Nintendo puts button mapping as more of a standard in more of their games. They're able to put it in the Virtual Consoles, so might as well design them into first-party.

 

[stupei]

It's just as rude, in my opinion, to get angry and offended because of it. They could have explained to them it's not the best thing to say. There's no reason to react this way since they had good intentions.

It's not a person with any minority status' responsibility to expend their time and emotional energy educating everyone else in the world about things that should be obvious, like it's not acceptable, particularly in a customer service setting, to patronize and single someone else out for their difference while referring to the body they live in as an "unfortunate condition."

It really isn't his job to train customer service personnel. That falls on Nintendo.

Saying something like Nintendo strives to make their games more accessible to all people capable of varying degrees of mobility and his comments will be taken into consideration would be a lot less condescending while placing more of the onus on the corporation being contacted about accessibility issues -- which they invite criticism of, remember -- instead of on the body and abilities of the individual making contact.

But isn't that what Ryan did too by saying it would inherently be patronizing and demeaning to every disabled person? I understand being upset about it, and I understand seeing it as not upsetting too.

Being repulsed by the wording seems a little excessive to me, but I suffer from different disabilities, and know that every reacts differently or prefers different ways for their disabilities to be talked about or referenced.

That said, Nintendo should toss in some button remapping into their games.

He specifically qualifies his response with "almost everyone I know was repulsed by the statement." He does not take it upon himself to speak for everyone with a disability.

 

[Linkstrikesback]

What did you expect from yours? It's not a competition, everyone should strive to be as inclusive as possible with their controls. Adding in a remap feature is not a difficult thing to implement.

Which is why I include that in my first post, albeit with a quick edit, yes.

Uhhh to say it's quite possible without a lot of work but take it how you like

Really appreciate your help. Not only was he not trying hard enough, it's not even a lot of work. Much appreciated. I hadn't realised that not only was he not even trying hard enough, he's just downright lazy, because it's not even much work.

Really struggling to not just have typed fuck off to this. Clearly I need to leave thread.

 

[RRockman]

I did, and the skins do help, but there should still be a colorblind option available.

Good, I just wanted make things easier incase you didn't know. It would be cool if they made a puyo game where you could customize the colors yourself. That would neatly solve the problem and allow us to come up with really cool looking combinations. We should call it Puyo Pyuo RAVE.

Spoiler

*cough*freemoneyrightheresega*cough*

 

[Jezbollah]

I suspect it takes more than a button remapping option to cater for the millions of disabled gamers out there, if indeed Nintendo are "failing" them.

Perhaps Patrick and AJ would like to start some kind of organisation to identify any features that would cater for those who will find a remapping option not enough to enjoy games? The last thing I'd like to see is for this subject to disappear after a few pages here, or such an emotively titled article to be forgotten.

 

[HStallion]

Which is why I include that in my first post, albeit with a quick edit, yes.



Really appreciate your help. Not only was he not trying hard enough, it's not even a lot of work. Much appreciated. I hadn't realised that not only was he not even trying hard enough, he's just downright lazy, because it's not even much work.

Really struggling to not just have typed fuck off to this. Clearly I need to leave thread.

Well I hope for the best for your father in his gaming endeavors and you can have a nice day.

 

[Schnozberry]

I did, and the skins do help, but there should still be a colorblind option available.

My brother is pretty colorblind, most severely with shades of red and green. He got a pair of glasses made specifically to resolve color blindness and they have really improved his quality of life.

I know it's tangential to your point, but I thought you'd like to know they exist if you weren't aware.

http://enchroma.com/

 

[SmokedMeat]

There's no reason not to offer button mapping on every game. It would be standard by now.

 

[Mr-Joker]

Not surprised, at the lack of button customization option.

Remember it took a patch for Nintendo to change the language for Breath of the Wild all the while Nintendo was touting how accessible Breath of the Wild is because you can change the language via the system setting.

Legit question, because I honestly don't know, but what is bad about 'unfortunate condition'?

Mostly asking because I think I might have used the same phrasing in a similar situation while just trying to be polite and emphatic.

It's demeaning and just single out the person.

Disable folk have a hard time trying to fit in and most of the time have to fight to be treated the same as non-disable person.

 

[fester]

When you're more preoccupied about an accurately negative phrase that points out a company's shortcomings rather than the actual issue prohibiting people from potentially playing games.

That's what a Defense Force gives us, every time, regardless of the topic.

 

[ShyMel]

A very poor response from Nintendo and it sucks to hear that you cannot do custom button mapping on the Switch.

 

[weekev]

It's odd because almost all of Nintendos other games have been very accessible. MK8D, 1-2-Switch etc have been fantastic. Have heard so many stories about MK8D being a lot of disabled people's first game because Smart Steer makes it so easy to play.

 

[wartama]

I believe that developers need to consider accessibility from the onset. I'm really glad how motion controls and touch gaming allowed for more accessible games. What's holding Nintendo back from adding button-mapping?

And sheesh at that response... NoA needs to train their staff better.

 

[NateDrake]

My brother is pretty colorblind, most severely with shades of red and green. He got a pair of glasses made specifically to resolve color blindness and they have really improved his quality of life.

I know it's tangential to your point, but I thought you'd like to know they exist if you weren't aware.

http://enchroma.com/

Yeah, I'm colorblind to red/green. I've heard of these glasses but never really looked into them. Must have been cool for your brother to see the world in an entirely different way when using them. We don't know what we are missing.

 

[Schnozberry]

Yeah, I'm colorblind to red/green. I've heard of these glasses but never really looked into them. Must have been cool for your brother to see the world in an entirely different way when using them. We don't know what we are missing.

He wanted to go everywhere he'd ever been just to see it again. He usually sleeps in on vacation, but when we were at our family cabin earlier this month we made a point to go fishing every morning really early so he could see the sunrise. He literally couldn't believe it. He cried a few times.

 

[BGBW]

Reminded of a previous thread complaining about how bad subtitles are in most games. No one wants to put black rectangles with brightly coloured letters all over their nice graphics.

In fact, I was just thinking about it during MS' conference since we saw quite a few games with characters talking but no text to go along with it.

I suppose silver lining is the Switch's OS is really barebones at the moment so it's clear there will be work done to it in the future. Complaining about missing features now is the best time to do it.

 

[Secret Owl]

Legit question, because I honestly don't know, but what is bad about 'unfortunate condition'?

Mostly asking because I think I might have used the same phrasing in a similar situation while just trying to be polite and emphatic.

I feel like Nintendo's letter was clearly written with the best intentions, so I don't really understand the problem with that part of it. Happy to learn and have it explained to me though.

Unfortunately, intentions aren't always important in a cultural-landscape where "calling someone out" is considered a greater agent for change than "friendly pleas for empathy" or hopeful petitioning. (Although that's a larger conversation concerning internet culture and the current approach many outlets prefer taking when covering these kinds of stories.)

I feel for this guy. He has good reasons to be dissapointed, but I also think the silver-lining is greater than Klepick (who I am a fan of) indicates. Nintendo did say that they would consider this man's comments in the future and forward his letter to all departments. To me, that seems like an act of compassion coming from a PR representative who is likely nowhere near the actual delevopment or decision-making of games.

I am not disabled and will never go through this man's experience, but I can imagine how frustrated he must feel. I've had some issues in the past that made it too painful for me to play certain games I love. It sucked. I hope Nintendo provides more options for the disabled community going forward. You would think that the company behind the most popular foot-input controller ever, the Wii Balance Board, would be at the forefront of potential solutions.

I feel like there's an opputinty for someone to make a line of Balance Board-esqe controllers that include actual buttons and are entirely designed around foot ergonomics. It should be designed for both stand-up and sit-down play. If the hand-disabled market is too small to make it an affordable mass product, design it with the option to be sinultanioisly used with controllers for other games - specifically VR stuff. It would likely be a cheaper alternative to those omni-directional treadmills in development.

Market it to the VR crowd, let the hand-disabled community benefit from it's multi-purpose design.

 

[gafneo]

Nintendo's games are always awkwardly mapped. What is their problem thinking billions of people should all get used to one controls scheme?

 

[fernoca]

The wording of the response was a bit off, guess the rep tried to sound a bit too empathetic, and didn't chose the correct wording.

Then again, the wording in the title of the article is also a bit hyperbolic. I know the intention is to get more clicks, but the same Nintendo that is failing in this article, was praised a few weeks ago by the letter to the blind player along 1-2 Switch been accessible to blind gamers.

So more than failing, they just need to be more proactive. A more adequate title, with a more in depth look at what they have and haven't done, then get Nintendo to respond to that, rather than to just their failures.

And as great as the option to remap controls on Xbox and PS4 is, it is a quite limiting option since is system wide. So you need to change it for every game, every time. Why not allow it on a per game basis? Or as profiles: one for shooters, one for sports, etc. And is a feature basically forgotten by them, as no improvents has been made.

 

[boiled goose]

All consoles should allow os level button remapping

Nintendo loves shoving horrible schemes down people for no reason. They are simply wrong on this point.

 

[correojon]

I can't understand how 2 of my fav developers, Nintendo and Platinum, can't implement proper buttton remapping in all their games. It's something really easy to do so I don't know what kind of reasons they may have to not do it.