What you aren’t arguing for anywhere in this comment is that every artist be required to do these things. Somehow game developers are exempt from this grace? Why are all games required to accommodate people, but other art isn’t? Why is that where your line is drawn?

Quite the opposite. I fully believe that if art can be accessible, it should be. That’s why I listed things like 3D scans for oils, descriptive services, or textiles and sculptures that people can feel.

And things like ASL interpreters are legally required by law, and we as the venue can be sued if we refuse to make reasonable efforts to accommodate them. We can’t even charge those patrons extra for tickets, despite the fact that the ASL interpreter is more expensive than the entire price of their ticket. If they request it within a reasonable timeframe, we are legally obligated to hire an interpreter for the show that the patron will be at, even though we know we will lose money on it. We can’t even ask for proof that the person is deaf, because that would put an undue burden on the person with the disability; We just have to take them at their word, and hire the ASL interpreter on blind faith that they’re not forcing us to spend money extraneously.

We also have hearing assist devices integrated into our sound system, for the HoH patrons who just need a private audio feed. We can provide either wireless headphones, or a magnetic loop which hearing aids can tune into. So they have the option of controlling the volume directly with headphones, or using the hearing aids they already have and like. That cost is taken on entirely by the venue, because it allows those HoH patrons to get a similar experience as the rest of the audience. Because (again) the law requires that we make reasonable accommodations to ensure every patron (including those with disabilities) gets an equivalent experience.

As someone who regularly has to do extra work to accommodate people with disabilities: People with disabilities shouldn’t be excluded from art simply because it is extra effort to accommodate them. Accessibility isn’t something that should be optional, because it helps everyone eventually. Would you argue against accessibility ramps for building entrances, because it would ruin the architect’s artistic vision for a grand staircase? Would you argue against subtitles for a movie, because it would take up screen space that the director had intentionally used for action? Would you argue against Velcro or bungie-lace shoes, because the fashion designers had flat laces in mind when they designed it? Would you argue against audiobooks for blind people, because the author is dead and couldn’t collaborate to choose a narrator that fit their artistic vision? No? So why is other art required to take reasonable steps to provide accommodations, but video games aren’t? Why is that where your line is drawn?

That’s a pretty ignorant take. I work in a music venue and art gallery as an event planner and curator. I personally know three blind painters who consistently blow me away with what they are able to produce.

One has tunnel vision, and can see an area about the size of a quarter held at arms’ length. He tends to work with textiles and wood carvings, which he can feel.

The second can see shades of brightness, but very little color; she primarily works in shades of grey or sepia.

The third went fully blind in his 20’s due to a degenerative condition. He grew up with full vision, and started painting when he could see. Then he had to adapt later in life as his vision degenerated. He uses paint thinner to thin out the various colors to different consistencies, so he can feel which colors are where. I have one of his prints hanging on my office wall right now, and it is absolutely breathtaking even before you learn he’s fucking blind.

Art galleries have taken steps to make things like paintings accessible to blind patrons. 3D scans of paintings allow people to feel the paint layers on printed busts. Artists like Van Gogh used paint texture as an inherent part of their piece, and galleries have attempted to turn that into a tactile experience. You haven’t truly seen Starry Night until you have seen it in person, (or at least seen a 3D scan of it). Flat prints simply don’t do it justice.

And we get deaf/HoH patrons at concerts all the time. They enjoy the crowd experience, and they can feel the beat via vibration. Hell, I just organized a concert for next week, where we have an ASL interpreter. Deaf/HoH people regularly have music fucking blaring on kick ass sound systems. They may be able to hear certain parts of it if it’s loud enough, or maybe they just enjoy the beat. But regardless of the reason, they absolutely can enjoy music.

Video games are the only art medium where people find it acceptable to gate-keep the art from the unskilled or the disabled.

Imagine buying a movie ticket, then the theater goes “no you aren’t good enough at watching movies to watch this movie. You only get to see the first 10 minutes. It just isn’t for you.” Imagine paying to go to a museum, and they tell you “sorry, you are only allowed to look at the art in the foyer because you aren’t good enough to enter the rest of the museum.”

Difficulty settings are primarily accessibility options. Don’t want the game to be too easy? Don’t fucking turn down the difficulty.

Take it a step further, and require optional direction indicators. Not only do you get click on screen. You also get a little arrow pointing to which direction it came from. I have several friends with a bad ear. They can hear fine out of one ear, but not the other. That direction indicator allows them to track sound cues that would otherwise be useless to them.

The newer God of War games were pretty good about this, for instance. There were collectable crows, which were usually found via sound cues; they would loudly caw for you to be able to track them down before you saw them. But if you only have one good ear, you can’t tell which direction the sound is coming from. The direction indicator bridges that gap.

Allow me to turn off the stupid pre-launch splash titles.

I can guarantee that those splash titles are included because of contractual obligations. The same way a movie lists the publishing companies in the intro. Including a “skip after first launch” option would violate their contract. If it were up to a game’s director, they would almost universally prefer to drop you straight at the title screen. But they legally aren’t allowed to do so.

Oh, you want us to publish your game? We can require the game designer to show our logo for {x} seconds when the game launches. Oh, you want your game to be G-Sync compatible? Nvidia can require that you show their logo for at least {x} seconds when the game launches. Oh, you want to use our game engine to build your game? Unreal can require that you show their logo for {x} seconds when the game launches. Et cetera…

Yeah, you should be able to pick a specific version number for single player games. I’m fine with it defaulting to “latest”, but at least give me the option to stick to a specific version.

Also, fuck the “Would you like to share all data with the publisher, or only limited data” bullshit. It’s a single player game with no multiplayer whatsoever. I shouldn’t need to share any data with the publisher.

Cutscenes especially. The pause button should pause cutscenes, with an option to skip the cutscene on the pause menu. The pause button should never just outright skip the cutscene. It should always pause the cutscene.

Yeah, I’ve said for a long time that lots of modern Christianity is just retellings of older mythology. For example, the story of Lucifer is the story of Prometheus told through an Abrahamic lens. When Christianity was trying to get off the ground, the Christians needed ways to relate to modern audiences. And modern audiences at the time were largely comprised of Greco-Roman working class, who were already intimately familiar with that existing mythology.

Yup. You can have ADHD and be an introvert. You can enjoy socializing and be an introvert. You can be loud and be an introvert. Being an introvert simply means that socializing takes energy. It says nothing about how you socialize, or what you do when you socialize. After too much socializing, you’ll feel burnt out and need some alone time to recharge.

Steam allows P2P transfers if the machines are on the same LAN. Like if your desktop has a game installed, and you start to install it on your Steam Deck, it will ask if you want to download it directly from your PC.

Yeah, my thoughts on this are “well they still overwhelmingly voted for him. And they’ll overwhelmingly vote for whoever the next republican is once Trump croaks.”

I mean, they also blatantly want to use the n-word so I wouldn’t put too much faith in their reasoning skills.

They’ll get a golden parachute job as a highly paid lobbyist, and be right back in the rotunda, schmoozing with all their old buddies by the end of the month.

I have ADHD and work in theatre. It really is a perfect workplace for me, because (as you stated) it has me working on one project for a while, then pivoting to something new as soon as the show is done. I started in the tech and stagehand side of things, but now I’m in event planning.

Every single event has different needs, which means it’s consistently engaging even when it’s simple paperwork. Going from a dance show, to an orchestra, to a musical, to a rock concert, etc… Each has their own specific needs. Even for shows of the same type. Different musicals have vastly different needs. Different rock concerts have vastly different needs. Etc… They may be working off of the same starting point with common similarities, but the end result will be very different.

It also has hard deadlines. Imagine needing to do a presentation for a corporate job, but instead of PowerPoint in a meeting room, it is an audience of 1600. Those deadlines don’t wait, which means I’m consistently pressured to have my shit done on time. There is no “just turn your homework in a day late for 10% off” or “sorry boss I’m feeling sick, (I procrastinated too long and need an extra day to finish the project), can we do the meeting tomorrow instead?” People paid to see the show on a specific day and time.

Does it get monotonous sometimes? Yes. When I’m in my fourth production meeting that could have been an email, because the director wanted to ensure we were all on the same page with her vision for the show, I just want to crawl out the window. But the end result is always worth it. I’m fond of saying “we make important days”, because my regular boring Wednesday at the office will translate into someone’s most important day of the year. It will be the day that parents get to see their little girl on stage in a tutu for the first time. It will be the day that a musician gets to play in front of their family and friends. It will be the day that someone has been planning for a year or more. And that moment of anxiety when the audience lights go down and the main curtain raises is always a great dopamine hit when the show kicks off.

Yeah, the primary reason people end up exposing things to the internet is because of friends and family. I can call my mother-in-law and walk her through setting up Plex, but that only works because Plex is exposed to the internet. If I had to walk her through setting up Tailscale on her living room TV before she could connect, it would be a non-starter.

That’s just DDNS. There are different ways to do it, and some routers come with a DDNS service ready to go. Hell, there are even images like Cloudflare-DDNS, which allow you to run it in a container.

Yup, good notes are really the difference between beginner and expert self-hosters. Write the notes as if they’re documentation to be read by someone who has never seen them before. Don’t tell yourself that you’ll remember things; that is the devil talking. You will forget in 6 months when you’re looking at it again.

Far Cry 5 was the fucking worst with this. Every single thing you did added to a sort of “story progress” bar. And when it filled, you were forcibly dragged away to do a story mission. They literally sleep-darted you from off screen, and had you wake up at the start of the story mission. Like you couldn’t make a more comically overdone “get forced to do story mission” scenario if you tried.

The devs said it was because they wanted to avoid that he Skyrim Syndrome, where players quickly forget about the main story in favor of all of the side content. But the implementation resulted in player agency taking a cudgel to the teeth every few hours.

Especially when there is some kind of “open every treasure chest” type of achievement, with one or two things locked out. So if you miss them in your initial playthrough, you’re completely locked out of that achievement until you replay it from the beginning.

Yeah, I particularly hate when crafting mechanics get shoehorned into a game, simply because market studies told the publisher that games with crafting sell better. Especially when the crafting system is clearly an afterthought, and the game is entirely unbalanced as a result of it.

For example, the game had crafting added after the inventory system was designed. And crafting doesn’t really become viable until near the end of the game, because it requires a wide variety of materials and you only have access to half of them for the first half of the game. So now you’re drowning in crafting materials that are taking up inventory space/weight for the entire first half of the game.

Another example, devs had an end game build in mind, but decided to lock it behind 35 hours of crafting material grinding. Crafting isn’t really used for anything else in the game, but the end game builds all require a ton of extra grind, with obscure materials hidden behind rare or secret enemy drops. The only purpose is to artificially inflate the playtime, so the publisher can claim the game has “over 100 hours of gameplay” in the ads.

Another example, devs were told to add crafting after the game’s equipment was balanced. In order to encourage players to actually use the crafting system, it is full of super overpowered gear that completely wipes the floor with anything else in the game. Or inversely, the devs didn’t want you to be able to grind materials for gear before you were “supposed” to have it, so all of the crafting gear is subpar at best.

That shit has ruined so many single player games that were otherwise fine.