I talked to my friend, Sam via AIM, and he asked me to share his words for the letter to video game industries and magazine & online publications. The letter is about some of the games does not have subtitles, the deaf gamers filed a compliant to require subtitles in all games.
As being a Deaf Gamer, Subtitles should be an Industry Standard for Videogames.While several of my deaf friends and I did have some fun with games such as Halo, Tony Hawk Underground, or The Simpsons: Hit and Run. The one of the biggest thing what really disappoints us, is the lack of subtitles. We hardly understand what the captain is saying in Halo or what the characters are saying in The Simpsons: Hit and Run or Tony Hawk Underground. We can assume that the captain is giving us orders in Halo and there are humorous lines spoken in The Simpsons: Hit and Run and Tony Hawk Underground, but we lose that experience whereas hearing people get to enjoy it. We should not have to feel left out at all like that. Now you may say The Simpsons: Hit and Run and Tony Hawk Underground lose profit from us deaf gamers.
While me and several of my friends have played games such as Grand Theft Auto 3 and True Crime: Streets of L.A.. We really appreciate the game containing subtitles. When playing GTA3, there are movie scenes between missions with subtitles in which makes it easier for us to comprehend what to do and make the game more fun and interesting. Same thing goes for True Crime, they do have quite a bit of humor and these games make us feel we are more equal to the society into the gaming world.
Games such as GTA3, True Crimes, and several others had gained popularity among me and other deaf people in community because of subtitles into those games. We do not have to feel the need to take it back to the store for a refund due to discrimination or lack of understanding it. If you wonder, there is about a total of 21 million deaf and hard of hearing people in the US alone. Of course it is population count from infant to old age, and profound deaf to minor hearing loss. If a game could reach out to at least 10,000 deaf gamers, then the companies should think this is still beneficial to them rather than losing 10,000 deaf customers.
Now, the subtitles are not only beneficial to deaf gamers, but it can be a great for hearing gamers who had to turn their sound off at night to be quiet and can still read and enjoy the game. Having subtitles may as well increase vocabulary and improve reading skills. These subtitles should have an option whether to it turn on or off at the game options’ selection screen.
Again, the subtitles should be an industry standard for all videogames. When we go out to rent or buy movies, we always look for the Closed Captioned (CC) or English Subtitled. I think videogames should have to add a certain label on game cases like on the back of those DVD movies. These are a way video game industries will give second thoughts about releasing games and realize this is important factor to increase more deaf gamers.
-Samuel C.
Will companies, industries, and publications listen?
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