Gamer Petitions Infinity Ward for Color Blind Option in Modern Warfare 2

[matrix3509]

I say, shut up and grow up you aren't special just because you're color blind.

So they should be screwed over because you're bitter?
Try justifying that posision without being a total prick.

Nope not bitter, as I didn't was my money on that game. Just tell me how this if for a good cause, and everything else wasn't for a good cause, only because now a handicapped person is involved. I mean you don't have to be some sort of smart person to see the hypocrisy here. I mean it really was IW's goal in the first place. If it has to be a shitty experience for one group of people, then it has to be a shitty experience for everyone, IN THE NAME OF EQUALITY HURRRR.

You won't see my heart breaking for anyone who bought that game, handicapped or not.

 

[Misnomer]

Thank you Evil Avatar for trolling the PC community. Not like us PC gamers didn't already feel constantly harassed and shouted down by the console crowd on the escapist, best to mock us for understand our platform as well. Really mature writing there.

While I support the colorblind option because it is so very simple to fix and would help certain people very much, I would like to remind everyone one of the chief reasons IW chose to ignore the petition from the PC community: the petitioners were a minority of a minority. Colorblind players who feel like there should be a change make up an even smaller segment of the player community than PC players. IW will likely not lose any sales if they don't put this in and there is really no strict sales benefit from implementing it since the majority of players won't notice or use the option.

The only reasons to put this in are 1.) Good PR from the story. 2.) Because it really isn't that hard and they can slap it into a patch easily. So the petition is really another one of those "raising awareness" things that is hoping to either guilt IW into doing something for those with very minor disabilities or make them see how quick and easy this good press could be.

All of you kind-hearted people out there should go read the feature from a while back about the gamer with cerebral palsy who modifies controllers for the sake of being able to play with his one good hand. He asks that all games be made with very configurable controls so that he can set them to be playable. While this also would be simple, the IW response for the PC community could work just as well for making the game accessible to the disabled: "The game isn't balanced for that....we would like players to play it as it was intended." Yet, for whatever reason, cheap changes to games are not entitlement....even if they really aren't intended for the disabled audience. It would not be outrageous to say that video games are not intended for the blind, but we all tend to feel that saying that MW2 was not intended for the color blind is a pretty dumb statement because it is easily possible to make it so they can play it.

Are only the highest profile games required to have this level of accessibility or should all indie developers be held to the entitlement demands? These aren't public buildings that handicapped people are required to play, so once again it comes down to our feeling that it is cheap and easy therefore it should be done. There is no real moral decision here.

IW and others make games for the masses and that means serving the majority as well as possible to get the absolute largest sales numbers as possible. It really doesn't matter when Escapist writers tell us which minorities happen to be the good ones because whatever minorities IW chooses to make the game accessible for is purely their own decision. Yet, I suppose if the Escapist is trying to speak for the mainstream they have to be willing to decide who the outcasts and freaks are and who needs to be included, just like any pop culture publication.

Good to know that PC gamers are a minority that don't matter here.

 

[Eldarion]

Color blind gamer here.

I appreciate the thought, even if I won't get this game.

 

[nonl33t m4st3r]

Oh yes, this "good cause" will certainly be taken seriously by our friends at IW. I'm also sure that a certain Mr. Bowling will personally make sure of that, just like the last petition:
"Definitely made a big wave, and the response will not be ignored. I'll ensure everyone at IW sees the petitions and responses to it."

I bet there's mod for this already or will be in the near future

Yeah, good thing IW included modding and custom content...OH WAIT!

Like that's stopped anyone before.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Gamer Petitions Infinity Ward for Color Blind Option in Modern Warfare 2

A petition has been started to get Infinity Ward to add support for color-blind gamers to Modern Warfare 2.

Color-blindness probably isn't something that you often think about in relation to videogames, but for the thousands of men and women it affects, it can be a significant hindrance when playing certain games, especially when playing online.

One such game is Infinity Ward's Modern Warfare 2, which uses red and green to differentiate between friend and foe. As red-green color-blindness is the most common form, this makes the game almost impossible to play effectively.

Helen Hodsey has started a petition [http://www.petitiononline.com/hodsey77/] on behalf of her color-blind husband, as well as a Facebook group and has already managed to reach the ears of Infinity Ward's community manager Robert Bowling on Twitter [http://twitter.com/fourzerotwo/status/6244421745].

While online petitions rarely make a great deal of difference, I'm hoping that this one gets plenty of coverage, because unlike certain other Modern Warfare 2 petitions [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.150774?page=1], it's for a very good cause.


Source: Evil Avatar [http://www.evilavatar.com/forums/showthread.php?t=101877]



Permalink

There was nothing wrong with that Modern Warfare 2 petition and sorry for the slightly inappropriate pun but it was because of IW short sighted on the matter of colour blindness and not adding in different options like nearly every other game that caused this.
While for as noble a reason that petition was certain valid and if you don't like the petition you exactly make yourself look any better by continuous pointing back to it.

Also I can't believe that with a lot of the shit we went through during that period(yes there a lot of elitist comments I'm no saying there weren't) that even the people such as yourself on the Escapist won't let it drop and move on with gaming news. As that last little paragraph at the end was very unnecessary.

OT: I think the idea behind the petition is good but there should of been no need for it in the first place as IW should of put in varied colour options from the get go.

 

[Playbahnosh]

[wall of text]

Interesting points.

First of, there are no "industry standards" in the video game world regarding accessibility as of now. As a matter of fact, there aren't any real standards whatsoever (I'm not talking about the ESRB and unwritten agreements). Each developer studio creates the control scheme and decides the level of accessibility to suit their needs, be it artistic or financial. Most of the time, developers strive to create the controls in a certain way, so most people could play the game easily. Emphasis on the "most", both of them. From a pure financial point of view, this is quite enough. Since color-blinds and other people with disabilities make up only a negligible percentage of the customer base, there is no reason (at least financially) to spend more time and resources creating special interfaces and control schemes for them, however minor these enhancements might be. It's the "why bother?" category.

While I totally despise people doing (or, in fact, not doing) something for purely financial purposes, one can understand where they are coming from, seeing the disgusting, profit-hungry mentality of the world nowadays. Don't be mistaken, even if IW does decide to implement the color-blind option in MW2, that might very well be just another publicity stunt to win over the public (and get more customers) with their "good hearted gesture". I'm not saying they are necessary "evil" that way, but I just take everything with a grain of salt these days.

However, there are certain developer studios out there, who seemingly do care about people with disabilities, implementing customizable controls, variable color-schemes, closed-captioning and other stuff that enables people with certain disabilities to play. There is Valve for instance. While I do not want to pass judgment or question the motives of these studios and publishers, there is a good reason to suspect shady business behind seemingly gallant acts of "charity". Like certain developers, who cherished their fans for decades, and then suddenly decided to blatantly ignore their wishes (desperate cries) to not remove a feature previously implemented and wanted by the great majority of the player base, citing only vague excuses and weak explanations, failing to brake their blatant display of profit hungry intentions. (Yes, I'm talking about Blizzard)

To summarize, not everything is what it seems. Take everything with a grain of salt, don't be fooled by the corporate agenda.

Just my 0.02$

 

[Xanadu84]

Come on, wanting Dedicated Servers in MW2 is completely legitimate. At this point in time, it is clear that they would have improved the multiplayer experience quite a bit, and IW should have been more concerned with removing standard features after they jacked up the price. The petition was for a good cause: Some of the people presenting there opinion on the issue were no where near as legitimate, but that is a criticism of them, not the desire to include a standard feature which would have sold a sizable number more copies of MW2, and made the experience for those who did buy the game on PC significantly better.

 

[thom_cat_]

Valve did this ages ago... I really can't believe IW didn't enable an option!

 

[w1n5t0n]

It really shouldn't be that bad for colorblind gamers. I have a friend who is almost completely colorblind and he hates Halo because he sometimes teamkills, but he likes Modern Warfare 2 because you can't teamkill and the player models look different enough for him to know who to shoot (141 is always sweatshirts/helmets of a light color, Brazilians are usually dark skinned w/soccer shirt of dark color. Seals always wear dark wetsuits/Spetznaz always wear arctic camo.) I have played a lot of games with my friend and he has never had any problems, no one uses the 4-white/green/red-dots anyways unless you're so close that you're probably getting knifed if you havent already opened fire. Not that I have anything against colorblind people, but if you have to put the aimer over someone in CoD to figure out which team they're on, you aren't the sharpest crayon in the box.

 

[Knight Templar]

I say, shut up and grow up you aren't special just because you're color blind.

So they should be screwed over because you're bitter?
Try justifying that posision without being a total prick.

Nope not bitter, as I didn't was my money on that game. Just tell me how this if for a good cause, and everything else wasn't for a good cause, only because now a handicapped person is involved. I mean you don't have to be some sort of smart person to see the hypocrisy here. I mean it really was IW's goal in the first place. If it has to be a shitty experience for one group of people, then it has to be a shitty experience for everyone, IN THE NAME OF EQUALITY HURRRR.

You won't see my heart breaking for anyone who bought that game, handicapped or not.

So because some people didn't get what they want nobody should?
Don't be a dick.

 

[Tdc2182]

"While online petitions rarely make a great deal of difference, I'm hoping that this one gets plenty of coverage, because unlike certain other Modern Warfare 2 petitions, it's for a very good cause." I emphasize this point strongly.

 

[Tdc2182]

I drove my preschool and kindergarten teachers crazy because I learned to read before entering preschool (thanks to my mom's hard work), but colored water purple on coloring assignments, and cried when they told me that's not the color of water. 10-11 years later, I got confirmation that I had a high R-G deficiency. 4-5 years later, I'm still pretty certain that blue and purple are the exact same color and that everyone in the world is fucking with me.

Think of it as a gay blue.

 

[iNsaneMilesy]

Another red/greener here. Most games I can't complain. But games like MW where they diliberatly reduce the colour hue saturation is a pain in the ass.

 

[Azmael Silverlance]

I shall sign this.

It sounds reasonable and I can't imagine it impossible to change.

Ye its very simple and will actually make more people to play the game. I rly dont see why they shouldnt review the issue and fix it asap.

 

[GamingAwesome1]

Seems reasonable, don't see why they shouldn't help accomadate.

 

[NicolasMarinus]

I already had problems with some maps in Modern Warfare 1, because they used a monotonous green pallet, which turned into a bland gray mush for me. It made it hard for me to distinguish between a wall, a plant and a foe. Seriously.

It's clear no one on the development team thought about this, since red-green color blindness is the most common form.

Being able to choose the colors yourself is the perfect solution.

 

[dannymc18]

Been reading the Escapist for a long time, and had to sign up just to say to all you bitter little kiddies: shut the hell up for once. Do you not realise how pig-ignorant and just downright moronic you all look, or do you just revel in being seen that way? You didn't get a specific type of server you wanted, boo-bloody-hoo. Is the game still playable? Of course it is. Are there still servers? Of course there are, just a different type than what you elitist whiners wanted. If they had taken away the multiplayer aspect completely, then yes, you may have grounds to whine, but in the end it's their game and they can make you play it in whatever way they want you to. If you don't like it, fine, you're within your rights not to buy it, but once you choose not to buy it you lose all rights to comment on the game.

So yes, it's still playable, and it's still a great game. What makes it unplayable is not someone else hosting a server, but not being able to see enemies in the grass, not being able to distinguish friend from foe, not being able to use the radar as IW intended. Of course I believe games should be accessible to as many people as possible, but bitter little pricks such as this [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.161151?page=4#4114649] tool [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.161151?page=4#4115491] really do need to grow the hell up and find out just where exactly their priorities are in life. Of course IW should cater to as many people as possible, but only in-so-far as it is feasible to do so. A simple 5 minute fix to help out up to 10% of the player base is certainly not a hard thing to do, but specialist controllers and the like for a tiny proportion is just, unfortunately, not feasible.

I hope IW take a couple of minutes to do this simple fix, although to be honest I don't hold out much hope, as if I were them I'd certainly be ignoring gamers by now. Thanks have to be given to the people who took the initiative to get a campaign going, and to the gaming press for helping publicise it, as it would definitely help a lot of people I know, but at the same time it has highlighted the sorry, sorry state the gaming community is in right now.

 

[Amnestic]

Is the game still playable?

Debatable - between the rampant aimbots, infinite rapid-fire 'noob-tubes', jumphacks and whatnot, it's really questionable whether it is 'still playable'.

but specialist controllers

Specialist controllers like 'Mouse Interface'?