| (Pages: 1, 2) | |
Sounds like this guy heard of the agoraphobic guy and thought "Hey, suing Sony isn't such a bad idea..." | |
Thank God this moron got his case dismissed. Maybe there is some intelligence in the USA. | |
Damn right, Sony make entertainment/luxury products, not compulsory items. Why should they spend hundreds of thousands or millions on games catered specifically for a minority in which they will probably not see a decent return on? It may sound cold, but Sony have no obligation to do so. While it would be nice to spread gaming to those who have impairments, nobody can claim they have the right to it. | |
Yay! Good for Sony :D | |
was anyone surprised by this result? just makes u wonder y it took so long XD | |
i do hate sui-ing crazie people | |
Cause that is the way the system works where, as long as you want to keep pouring money into a suit the lawyers can keep it going, for a while at least. The ADA has created a lot of money for lawyers willing to basically resort to blackmail. There was a set of letters sent to all the businesses in a town from a lawyer telling them he had passed through and noticed glaring violations, and that they would have to pay him $1000 or he was going to sue them for the violations. Many just payed the settlement. This was likely more of the same. | |
This is as dumb as complaining that games need to be easier because you aren't good enough to beat it. Wait... people do that, and it worked didn't it? | |
Damn, my argument was indeed Ninja'd | |
LAWSUITS When you're in need of some instant cash, sue someone for completely inane shit! | |
The guy was blind...video games arn't meant for blind people. >< Thats ike a blind person sueing volvo because they don't give him a narrator for his car. | |
Well, this probably rained on someone's parade. This court case was what some were standing on when arguing that Star Wars The Old Republic should be handicap accessible for the hearing impaired and the color-blind as well as those that cannot read (the illiterate) for quest text. | |
More like suing a library for not having books in both normal and Braille's edition. | |
Hehe, narrator. | |
No no, i mean an actual narrator that speaks to them and describes what they should be seeing. | |
Its good he brought it too light, but then hes not suing movie theaters because he cant see the movies. unfortunate as it is, if you cant see then some things you are just gonna have to give up. Sucks I know, but really if you want to help spend the money on research that is trying to improve blind peoples eyesight. Not randomly suing companies who cant really do anything for you in because its a visual medium. | |
Next thing you know, an epileptic is going to sue Sony because their games gave him seizures. | |
As much as this case was rightfully thrown out I can see it becoming more common for those with disabilities to become much more disenfranchised with game and console developers, as it seems these days that new interaction features (Motion control, 3D) are making it harder for disabled gamers to partake of the hobby. There are 3rd party manufacturers of one handed controllers such as Ben Heckendorn's access controller but I'd be interested in seeing how a wheelchair bound gamer will be able to play a game of whatever that breakout thing they keep showing to promote Natal is called. An interesting article on this can be found here | |
Nice (Unintentional?) pun OT: This was a pretty ridiculous suit. But to be quite honest, I wasn't sure how this would end up. Glad it ended this way though.
I don't think they can, Theres warnings in the system manual, warnings in the game manuals. I'm pretty sure they got that covered. | |
As soon as I read that, I imagined someone driving around in a Volvo station wagon and Morgan Freeman in the passenger seat describing the scenery in detail. I want a Morgan Freeman for my car... | |
So he is, for lack of a better term, blind? How is that Sony's problem? If it's one thing you NEED more than anything for video games, it's sight. A lawsuit won't change that. Ever. | |
Yeah, this goes into the file of unnecessary lawsuits. Visually impaired people aren't going to have that much fun with visually based games. It's a sad truth to life, but that doesn't mean that Sony should have to pay every blind person who comes out of the woodwork. I have an eye condition, and I couldn't play PS1 and many PS2 games because they gave me incredible headaches for some reason, but that didn't mean I filed a lawsuit, I just didn't buy Sony. | |
I saw this one coming... | |
Sure. When reasonable. But this lawsuit was no different that a visually impaired person suing a MOVIE COMPANY. This lawsuit had NOTHING to do with video games, per se. It's a frivolous disability lawsuit; the video game angle is purely tangential (natch). | |
I think that while accessibility to things is something that should be addressed, I don't think you can change the way you design a game to make it more accessible. There are a wide array of disabilities and only some of them could you reasonably accomodate without interfering with the integrity of the creation. A blind person complaining that they can't use a video game console should also complain that they are not allowed to drive. | |
doesn't the name "Video Game" imply you need sight to use them? | |
I so want that too. Lets sue morgan freeman for not narrating our car journeys! | |
That's odd, I thought of the exact same thing when I read that. Of course, if Morgan Freeman narrated our surroundings, it still wouldn't be much of an improvement of driving blindly because you would get lost in his soothing voice and possibly drift off to sleep. It'd still be cool, though. OT: I'm glad to see that not all ridiculous lawsuits against major corporations end up winning. Maybe there's some sense in the American justice system yet! | |
Not quite, as movies and TV shows can have audio descriptions to help the visually impaired to enjoy it. I'm not entirely sure how you could implement something like that in a videogame though, as the fast pace of most games, as well as the interactive element makes it quite challenging. | |
Whilst I feel sorry for the guy, I think suing is a bit to far. | |
Bwah hah hah! Suck it crippie! We're not going to make concessions for you! Deal with it! | |
Although it sounded just a bit harsh, I lol'd OT: I will say what I always say when I hear of these ridiculous lawsuits, only in America. | |
Wait so he tried to sue because they weren't acomodating partialy blind people and he lost? This almost restores my faith in humanity. | |
Well, to be honest I have mixed opinions about this entire thing. My immediate thoughts on the subject was that Sony and perhaps a number of interests found a way to pay for that ruling, because on a lot of levels he's right. I can see the potential negative effects, but you look back decades ago to similar complaints about handicapped access to buildings, rulings got passed that pretty much As it does more things, I'm beginning to see access to The Internet as rapidly becoming tantamount to a requirement to function. I say this because in a lot of places nowadays you can't even fill out paper job applications anymore, they make you use a computer. In some places they have computers on-site for people to use, in other places not so much. With game consoles going online, and providing a number of services rather than just playing gams, including social networkig, movies, music, and even to some extent web browsing, I can see the issue. Now granted, you'd be looking at billions of dollars worth of adjustments and concessions with the doors that could be opened here, but similar things have happened before. Then again understand also that I'm retired on disabillity and I don't know how bad my own problems will get, so of course I have a vested interest in such things even if this specific issue is unlikely to ever effect me. | |
| (Pages: 1, 2) | |
Extra Punctuation
MovieBob: Intermission
Experienced Points
First Person
Exploding Barrels
Miracle of Sound: Encore
Loading Time
Special Attack
Backchat
Drinking Games
Escape to the Movies
Escapecraft
Escapist News Wrap - Premium
Escapist Podcast
Feed Dump
GinxTV
Jimquisition
LoadingReadyRun
Mahalo
Meatbag and Co
Media Sandwich
Miracle of Sound
No Right Answer
Pro-Gamer Gauntlet
Reviews
Space Janitors
Tales from the Table
The Big Picture
The Escapist Presents
The Retro Show
Trailers
Unskippable
Zero Punctuation
Max Payne 3 Review
Company of Heroes 2
XCOM Enemy Unknown
Black Ops 2
Diablo 3 Review
TERA Review
Firefall Beta Preview
Starhawk Review
Critical Miss
Name Game
Disabled Gamers Suit Against Sony Dismissed
A lawsuit filed by a disabled gamer against Sony has been dismissed by a Califonian Court.
Last October, visually-impaired gamer Alexander Stern filed a suit against Sony Online Entertainment, claiming that SOE was failing to live up to its responsibilities to the Americans with Disabilities Act or ADA.
Stern argued that "his visual processing impairments prevent him from fully enjoying the video games manufactured by Sony, some of which are played on gaming systems with internet connections through which players in different locations can communicate and play with or against one another."
Stern was unable to convince the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California however, that Sony represented a 'place of public accommodation', which is a necessary part of an ADA discrimination suit. In its ruling, which can be read in full here, the court stated that "Sony is not a 'place of public accommodation' and is therefore not liable for violating Title III of the ADA."
"... To hold otherwise would create potential liability under the ADA for manufacturers of all manner of products if those manufacturers failed to make available auxiliary aids allowing the entire panoply of individuals with disabilities the full enjoyment of their products."
But while this is likely the only sensible way this case could have gone, the issue of increasing the accessibility of games to people with disabilities is one that needs to be discussed and addressed as gaming grows in popularity.
Source: Game Politics
Permalink