- Hey guys, welcome to another episode of Double Tap on YouTube. You keep subscribing, so we keep having to do this. Now, I've told you about this, if you keep subscribing, we will continue to have to do that, and if you keep viewing the videos and you keep liking them, we'll have to make more. That is what Mr. F told us, Shaun Preece. - Exactly right, yes. And my mum liking a video still counts, so keep liking and subscribing, thank you. - A like is a like. - Absolutely. - Doesn't matter where it's from. - We'll take it. - We'll take it. So far so good. I think we've checked our, you know, obviously I checked the numbers as we go along here, and I've checked up against Marques Brownlee, who's a well-known YouTuber of course, a tech journalist, iJustine as well, Obviously, you know, they're getting the millions, we've got three views I think per video so far, so we're doing really well, I think we're doing fine. - Not bad. Up and coming- - I think we're doing fine. I believe that is- - Exactly. - Not quite viral, just slightly sickly, but we're getting there. - That's right, a little bit pale, that's what we are at the moment, which is ironic, 'cause we are both very pale. Listen, I think it is time for us to talk about the thing we've kind of never really discussed. Not really, this is like one of those conversations between friends that you kind of, now's the time to have it, Sean, it's that time - Now I'm really nervous. Okay. - Gaming consoles. - Oh. - He's like, wow, thank goodness for that. Yeah, so gaming consoles, is it time for us to get into gaming, like proper gaming? I'm talking console gaming, right? Not that nonsense you do on that Amazon Echo. - There's nothing wrong with Night Manager. Sean of the Shed on Night Manager, by the way, if you wanna fight me. No, you know what- - Fight you? - Yes. Let's not get into it. It's fine. - I still don't know how that thing works. - I kind of get what you mean by that, because it does feel, 'cause we have audio games on your smartphone that we can play, there's, you know, on the smart speakers as well, you've got games, it does kind of feel like not proper gaming. I know people are gonna start shouting right now when I say that, but it does, let's be honest. - Typing loudly - Typing, yes. So when I think of gaming, I'm thinking of Doom, I'm thinking of Quake, I'm thinking of Grand Theft Daughter, Call of Duty, I'm even thinking of Chuckie Egg, Manic Miner and all the '80s ones as well, Way of the exploding fist, ah, I'm getting all nostalgic. But I mean, there has been so much talk about accessibility in mainstream gaming right now, well over the last few years, but particularly recently, there's been so much talk about it. Forza, for example. And I think it is, I'm starting to think, okay, is it now the time that actually owning a gaming console, if you're blind or visually impaired, is it an option? I still don't know, because it's still an investment. - Do you mind? It's just that I got some nerd on me there, just when you were talking about the House of the Exploding Egg, or wherever it was you were on there. - Oh, come on. International karate, ah, amazing stuff. You had an Atari ST, I had an Omega, so you know, back in the day, that's iPhone versus Android. - Well actually, to be perfectly clear on this, my dad had an Atari ST that I was allowed to use on the odd occasion. He was the computer guy, really, when I was growing up, I mean, he was into all the computer stuff and I wasn't into it that much. I was at school, I got into into it at school, and it was a Mac that I ended up getting into. - Of course. - And the first game I ever played was on a Mac. You know, it's funny, we were talking on the show recently about the 40th anniversary of the Mac, and I was getting all giddy about the Mac Classic of old, and my old power book I used to have and all that stuff. And it's funny, I was kind of thinking to myself, and I mentioned this to you, that I was on eBay, 'cause I'm getting a bit obsessed with eBay, I'm like, well, I can buy old things, I'm getting to that age where all I wanna do is buy old stuff. - That new service called eBay. Yeah, well done. - Yes, I'm totally up to date, I'm all in on the new stuff, you know? So eBay's a thing apparently. Now, if you don't know eBay, what you can do is you can buy stuff that other people don't want for a ridiculous price. - And it may turn up. - And pay heavy shipping fees and import taxes, as I've just done on one particular product. But anyway, so, you know, I was thinking about the Mac of old, and I thought, you know, wouldn't it be great to get my hands on one of those old Macs again? So I was doing a bit of digging around for the anniversary, for the 40th anniversary of the Mac, and I came across this website called Macintosh Repository, which is exactly that, it's an an old Mac repository of old software that people wouldn't necessarily use anymore, you can't buy licenses for anymore. I mean, I'm talking way back of the days of like, ClarisWorks, which was their, you know, productivity suite. I loved, I got through school thanks to ClarisWorks. You know, and all the kind of, I mean I think Cork Express and, you know, all those old applications that we used to use for different purposes, especially at school. And amongst all this, I found a link to a website, which was a Macintosh emulator. And I'm not kidding you, it actually allows you to open up, almost like the old square beige monitors you used to get with the Mac, that's what comes up on the screen, and then in there is the Mac. And you can use it, you can even upload files to it, you can download applications from Macintosh repository, you can open them up in this Mac and use it as if it's a real computer, it's essentially an emulated machine. And you can even save, you know, you save your session and go back to it if you wanted to. I mean, it is total geekdom. Brilliant, right? Which version of Mac is that? What operating system is that? - There's two versions you can play with, there's Mac system 7.5, which was the one I grew up with, and then of course we moved on to Mac system 8, so that's also available as well. So you can have one or other. - Excuse me, lemme just wipe this nerd all over me. - Ah, stop it. - That's disgusting. - That's your exploding egg, that's your problem there. - Are you slowly getting to the point that you can run games on this and this is taking you back? - Well, no, what I was trying to do is get OutSpoken, which was the very first voiceover-style application to be made available for the Mac, to run. Absolutely no joy in that whatsoever. - Forget it. - I think the problem is, and this is of course, the thing that takes me back is, there were certain things you had to do with a Mac back in those days. Like, nowadays you just take the application file, you put it in the applications folder, then you had to copy the preferences to the preferences folder, and you had to move the extensions to the extensions folder, you had to move the application to this folder. - Nerd. Yes. - Yeah, oh, it was ridiculous. So I couldn't get out OutSpoken to work, however, I did manage to get into the applications folder and I was doing all this with magnification, which again, something you couldn't have done back in the day, you could never have done that on the old Macs, didn't have magnification. But, what I was able to do was get into the applications folder, and this is where it kind of all came flooding back. And one of the things in there was a games folder, and I looked in, and there it was, the first game I'd ever played on the Mac, Duke Nukem 3D. - No way. I forgot all about that. That was actually on the Mac? - It was on the Mac, one of the few. There was, I think Doom was on there. I mean, I certainly remember, not on this emulator, but on the, I remember having Doom. - On the Mac? Wow, okay. - On the Mac. Duke Nukem was on there. So these were all kinda games, I mean, there was one called Carmageddon, which, if you think Grand Theft Auto is , you wanted to try this thing. I mean, it was absolutely horrific. - I used to play that all the time. I remember my sister- - Sound effects were the worst thing. - It's a nostalgia trip, right? But that's kind of the thing, when you think of how many hours we used to put into these games back in the day. - Oh, hours, yeah, like whole nights would disappear. - Absolutely. And you know what, I miss that, I miss wasting my life. Because look, gaming is now a big- - Well, we do now, but we do it differently, right? We use social media. - Yeah, we do. - But it's a billion-dollar industry, gaming is is actually now a serious media type. It's no longer, oh, you know, gaming, like in the '80s, it was just a throwaway thing, it was nothing. But now gaming has, it's bigger than movies, bigger than anything else, it makes billions and billions, and it's more serious, and there's some amazing games out there. And we are excluded, or at least we were excluded. Now, the problem with going to a PlayStation or an Xbox, because a good few years ago now, they both got screen readers built in, right? They were accessible at a system level. So you could go through the settings, or you could use it as a media player, to certain levels, certain degrees. But when it came to the actual game, how many games were out there that we could play as blind or visually impaired people? It always seems to be a very, very small number, if any at all, back in the day. And it's quite an investment, a gaming console now, so it never seemed quite worthwhile. But I think you're right, I'm starting to reconsider that. - Well, you know, I've been watching the recent GACONF Awards, and they were focusing on 2023, so we're just kinda up to the tail end of 2023, looking at the achievements of last year, what came out in terms of accessibility in gaming. And you know, the successes that continue, because the GACONF Awards have been going on now for a couple of years, so we're now at the stage of, instead of saying, wow, we have an accessible game, it's talking about improvements to games, additional benefits to games. Forza Motorsport was one of the big winners on the night, as you might expect, because of all the work they've done to make the driving assist or the blind assist, or however they call it, you know, essentially allowing a blind person to drive the car in Forza Motorsport, which sounds so cool. We had Ross Miner, who's a blind gamer, he's totally blind, and he was on talking with us on Double Tap, talking about his experience, and how he plays the games. Well worth checking out on Double Tap on air.com, where you'll get all of our content. But if you search for Forza, F-O-R-Z-A, on the website, you'll get the interview with Ross, have a listen to it, because he goes into quite a bit of detail, quite a lengthy bit of detail, and it's really useful information about how the driving assist actually works. And what I learned from that conversation is, they didn't just add in a feature, they made it customizable, they considered our needs, they made lots of different options for us. It wasn't just some kind of, you know, add-on to the system, it felt like it actually was embedded into the system, it had been given some serious thought. Now, that's one game, but there are so many others. And the benefit of the Game Awards conference is, it kinda shows you what games are accessible. Now look, I dunno how many games there are for PlayStation and Xbox, I mean I could have researched it before I came on, but who's got the time, right? - Nobody. - But let's say there's a million, I don't know, maybe there's 10, I have no idea, but however many there are, I would say that there's probably a very small percentage of that, I'm going to pitch it at, say, and this is just absolute ballpark, I'm guessing here, but let's just say it's a couple of percent of all the games available. I would say, based on the number I've heard about that are accessible, which probably doesn't even equal 10, does it? So, you know, when you think about it in that way, you know, it takes me back to the days, and it's funny, it doesn't seem that long ago, but I remember the days when we used to talk about audio books, and I always used to use this example when I worked at the RNIB, we used to talk about the fact that all of the audio books available to blind people could fit on one small shelf, any major bookstore. - You are absolutely Right. - You know, at one big bookstore, maybe three floors, you know, thousands and thousands of books, and we get one tiny shelf. and that was our version. To me, that is where we're at with game accessibility. But I wanna be very clear on this, I'm not doing it down, I think that that has happened, that shelf is growing, and it's all happened in a very short space of time, relative to, you know, developments in other areas. So I think that the gaming community has really caught on with some really, you know, some fast moving work. Getting these developers on board. Microsoft has been a big player in this as well, as have others, other studios, like Naughty Dog is one of the, they're behind the Last of Us series of games, and they've done a lot of work to make that game accessible, and that was what kind of kickstarted, I think a lot of this conversation. - That's what I think of when I think of accessibility, - The Last of Us. - The first one, isn't it? When you think of it. But, you know, these games, I dunno much about them, and again, this is the thing, and I always feel kinda strange talking about this subject, because I feel it's an area I just know nothing about, the games I know nothing about, I don't know the subjects, I don't know the stories, and all the things that people get into gaming for, but that's because we've been excluded from them. And I'm not gonna go out and spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars on some piece of kit that I can only play three games on. But, but, something's changed in me, because, initially I was thinking that, and I still think it to some degree, but then I also think, but what if I really like those three games? Right? It be like saying, well, you know, I suppose it's a bit like saying, I bought a CD player the other day, but there's only five albums I like. Well that's okay, I'll just like those five albums and listen to them. You know, maybe you could buy other albums, but I'll just buy these five. - I get it, I like the audiobook analogy a lot more, because it's almost like- - Yeah, I must admit I didn't like that one. - There's a thousand albums I like, but I'm only able to listen to five of them. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - Because, you know, we're excluded out of it, and it's not an inclusive area that we can take part in. - But it is growing, right? - But it is growing. - The accessibility is coming into these games eventually. Not all of them, obviously. - And there's different degrees to that. - And I think we have to realistic about some of them. - Yes, I mean, if you're totally blind, can you play a game? And if a game is, you know, has accessibility features which, excuse me, accessibility features which, you know, give you high contrast, or, you know, less colors, or outline certain objects, or whatever player assistance they have in there, does that make it, you know, okay, well, that's not really accessible because it excludes totally blind people. And even, and this may be a little bit controversial, if you are totally blind, is it a totally different experience playing one of these games? I still can't quite get my head around playing Forza totally blind. - Hmm. - Is it as enjoyable? Can it be as enjoyable? And again, as you just mentioned, I'm coming at this with no experience, so feel free to contact me and say, you dunno what you're talking about, 'cause I really don't, but these are the questions that come up when I'm thinking about this. Am I gonna spend, you know, $600, $700 on a console and a game, and not have the same sort of experience? Even though a game may be accessible, and I can actually play it, is it as enjoyable? Honestly, I don't know. - And the problem is, you have to spend hundreds of dollars to find out, that's the reality of it, right? Or listen to the experiences of people who are doing it, like Ross Miner, like Ian Hamilton, like Steve Sailor, right? - Steve Sailor, yeah. It's like this combat we hear from, you know, all these people who are actually out there doing this, I tend to watch them- - It's insulting. With the game companies themselves, they're making it difficult. - But I'm thinking about me, right? I'm thinking about me as a consumer. - Of course you are. - Obviously. Of course. Who else am I thinking about? Right, but I mean, it's like, you know, I think that as a consumer, okay, so what am I gonna get out of this? And that's where I listen to the people who are actually playing these games. And when Ross Minor says he is having the best time of his life driving a car in a game, he could never do this before, that makes me listen, that makes me interested. So I'm intrigued. Anyway, I just thought we'd bring it up as a subject. Feel free to comment, let us know your thoughts, email feedback@doubletaponair.com if you'd like to. You can also drop us a voicemail on our voicemail line. 1-8-7-7, is that what it is? Yes, I think that's right. - Yes. - 1-8-7-7-8-0, goodness me, 1-877-803-4567. And of course you can find all of our content at doubletaponair.com. There's way too much to remember these days, I don't like it. - I know. Are you not reading your auto-cue? - It's all in front of me, somewhere. It's in my head. My internal monologue and auto-cue is running at the moment. The internal monologue is also saying get off. - Yes. So is everyone else. - Yeah, exactly. We'll catch you next time. Thanks for watching. - Thank you. - Don't forget to like and subscribe. - Bye. - Oh, I did it, I became a YouTuber, and don't like what I've become.