Colorblindness: a response to T-Ray's Massively interview - Page 3

Surge72 · 2011-10-02, 12:58 PM

Originally Posted by GTGD

1. Math is not opinionated, it is objective.

2. Your math and logic is plain wrong.

There is nothing wrong with his math. I'm afraid to say that it is T-Ray who is looking at it the wrong way.

Plus T-Ray also said that only 5% of people who play games play FPSes. This is clearly not true, as the FPS genre is blatantly the most played.

FIREk · 2011-10-02, 01:07 PM

Just out of curiosity, what would be needed in a game like PS2 in order for it to be colorblindness-proof? Would it be stuff that can be abused by people with regular eyesight to get an advantage, like a texture pack with all enemy models having some extra-visible and ultra-contrasting color?

Friendlies will likely have nametags above their heads. Your crosshair will likely change color when you aim it at a friendly. Up close you will see the difference in shapes because the design philosophy of all the factions is that different. Finally, after the first friendly hit you will likely get a grief warning, along with a bleep.
I'm not colorblind as far as I know, but wouldn't this be enough?
Even if some of this stuff isn't in the game at first, it can be added for cheap during beta. Hopefully not after release, to avoid reviewers abusing the colorblindness bandwagon.

GTGD · 2011-10-02, 01:20 PM

Originally Posted by Surge72

There is nothing wrong with his math. I'm afraid to say that it is T-Ray who is looking at it the wrong way.

Plus T-Ray also said that only 5% of people who play games play FPSes. This is clearly not true, as the FPS genre is blatantly the most played.

He was using an example, learn some reading comprehension.

If 90% of PS2 players are male, and 10% of males are colorblind, that doesn't mean that 9% of PS2 players are colorblind. Just because 10% of all males are colorblind doesn't mean that 10% of males who do _____ are colorblind. In fact, because colorblindness makes it more difficult, they may be less likely to play video games. And the ones who do may be less likely to play FPS. And the ones who play FPS are probably less likely to play a MMOFPS.

In short, you need to look at it this way:

The percentage of people who are male AND colorblind AND FPS players AND PS2 players

IS LESS THAN

the percentage of people who are male AND colorblind

It's simple probability.

**T-Ray** · 2011-10-02, 01:26 PM

Originally Posted by GTGD

He was using an example, learn some reading comprehension.

If 90% of PS2 players are male, and 10% of males are colorblind, that doesn't mean that 9% of PS2 players are colorblind. Just because 10% of all males are colorblind doesn't mean that 10% of males who do _____ are colorblind. In fact, because colorblindness makes it more difficult, they may be less likely to play video games. And the ones who do may be less likely to play FPS. And the ones who play FPS are probably less likely to play a MMOFPS.

In short, you need to look at it this way:

The percentage of people who are male AND colorblind AND FPS players AND PS2 players

IS LESS THAN

the percentage of people who are male AND colorblind

It's simple probability.

AAANND he gets it

What i am referring to is a subset of a subset of an even smaller subset. The assumptions are very generous in my opinion

**T-Ray** · 2011-10-02, 01:36 PM

"Some 10 million American men—fully 7 percent of the male population—either cannot distinguish red from green, or see red and green differently from most people. This is the commonest form of color blindness, but it affects only .4 percent of women. The fact that color blindness is so much more prevalent among men implies that, like hemophilia, it is carried on the X chromosome, of which men have only one copy. (As in hemophilia, women are protected because they have two X chromosomes; a normal gene on one chromosome can often make up for a defective gene on the other.)"

http://www.hhmi.org/senses/b130.html

Bags · 2011-10-02, 01:56 PM

But in all seriousness I think even if it's an issue for some the shapes will be enough differentiation. In PS1 I wouldn't have needed colors to tell enemies from friends.

Traak · 2011-10-02, 01:59 PM

Part of the problem is not being able to instantaneously differentiate the composition of a cluster of vehicles or troops by their name tag colors of red and green.

With my solution of having a graphic element in the name tag space of enemies available, it would mitigate that.

GTGD · 2011-10-02, 02:06 PM

Additionally, I'm pretty sure the amount of revenue that would be gained by attracting more colorblind people to the game and enticing them to buy things is insignificant compared to opportunity cost of implementing said features. Think about it:

Creating the logos, inserting them into the UI, bug testing, balancing issues. All of these would take both time and money.

Consider that it that time and money could also be used on other things like boarding/exiting animations for vehicles, creating new continents or weapons, or new decals and textures to customize your characters. Any of that would certainly have a greater impact on profitability.

T-Ray isn't being the bad guy here. The people who are financing the game's development (read: paying his salary) and who are accomplished businessmen need to decide what is the most optimal use of their resources for both SOE and the fanbase. They aren't the bad guys either, they're just doing their jobs (and doing them well).

I would even argue that most people with colorblindness would agree that it is impractical for others to go so out of their way for an issue of relative insignificance, and that has already been partially catered to in regards to shapes and other visual or auditory cues that will help them reference who is in their iron sights.

Raymac · 2011-10-02, 03:53 PM

I don't mean to sound insensative, because I genuinely believe that PS2 should be as inclusive as possible, but there are limits. For example, 14% of Americans are illiterate, but that doesn't mean they should take all text out of the game. While there is much that can be done, I just think it's probably impossible to design a game that is universally accessable for every condition.

On the other hand, I love the idea of each design, for vehicles and soldiers, being empire specific. So if the already expanded "shape language" is expanded a little more then that would probably go a long way in helping this minority of players. (and at the same time give the design even more depth)

Redshift · 2011-10-02, 04:17 PM

Originally Posted by GTGD

In fact, because colorblindness makes it more difficult, they may be less likely to play video games. And the ones who do may be less likely to play FPS. And the ones who play FPS are probably less likely to play a MMOFPS.

Thats all assumption, for all you know colourblindness may make you want to play more video games, who knows :P you can't include any assumptions like that without something to back it up.

Whatever percentage of males are colourblind should be represented in the percentage of males playing PS, unless there is a something that skews those number for example if the presence of colourblindness was related to age, now i don't pretend to know much about epidemiology of colourblindness but clearly neither do you.

Regardless, the actual number of people playing with it may make it uneconomical to cater for which is fair enough

NapalmEnima · 2011-10-02, 05:11 PM

Originally Posted by T-Ray

AAANND he gets it

What i am referring to is a subset of a subset of an even smaller subset. The assumptions are very generous in my opinion

Math Critique:

Ah, but the male population of PS2 will also be a subset of a subset etc.

So you need to consider the final ratio of color-blind players (of both genders) of your player base. I doubt it'll be 10%, true, but it might be higher than 5%.

Even so, given that you don't have a "green" empire, and the care taken with silhouettes, I don't foresee colorblindness being that much of an issue.

I certainly didn't hear an objections on that front to the color palate of PS1. I suspect that right there is going to be the biggest indicator.

You might want to have a tech support minion search your PS1 support requests for anything relevant, but other than that, I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

PS: Thanks for answering all my questions.

Traak · 2011-10-03, 12:13 AM

Originally Posted by T-Ray

AAANND he gets it

What i am referring to is a subset of a subset of an even smaller subset. The assumptions are very generous in my opinion

No, wrong. It is not necessarily the case that the percentage goes down with each subset. The percentage stays exactly the same.

You arrive at smaller and smaller numbers of people, but you do not necessarily arrive at a smaller percentage. You may by chance, but not mathematically necessarily.

If 100 percent of men have penises, and five percent of those are gamers, and only 5 percent of those play Planetside, it doesn't mean only .025 percent of men who play Planetside have penises. Your perception of the math is wrong. Five percent of any male population anywhere is colorblind. That's five percent of gamers, five percent of Planetside gamers, five percent of any population, EXCEPT any population that excludes the colorblind.

Take a cross-section of men, say five percent are colorblind. That's, say, 100,000 guys from some population, 5000 are colorblind.

Of that 100,000 guys, seven percent are gamers. Five percent of those gamers will also be colorblind.

Of that 100,000, 1/10th of a percent play Planetside. Of those 100 guys, five percent will STILL, on average, be colorblind, which is five guys. Which is still five percent of that part of the population.

Say 50 percent of all cars are red. It doesn't matter if you slice subset after subset. If 50 percent of all cars are red, and 50 percent of all cars are Japanese, that doesn't mean only 25 percent of all Japanese cars are red. It means 25 percent of ALL cars are red AND Japanese.

So, saying the PERCENTAGE of people who are colorblind who play PS is less than the PERCENTAGE who are colorblind in the population as a whole is not a mathematical necessity. All that is a mathematical likelihood is that there are FEWER in number people who are colorblind AND play PS than there are just people who are colorblind only, in the general population.

If you have 1,000,000 users who play PS, then 50,000 will be colorblind, according to the statistics, if five percent are colorblind. And that is a significant number.

If it is seven percent, that's 70,000 people.

If seven percent of men are colorblind, then seven percent of ANY selection of men are colorblind. If they are blonde, 6' tall German-speaking PS players, there will still be seven percent of that subset that is colorblind. Seven percent of any male population doesn't somehow shrink to a smaller PERCENTAGE no matter what subset you take. It shrinks to a smaller NUMBER. But it still stands, if you have 1,000,000 users who are male, then, statistically, since they are MALE, 70,000 of them will, statistically, be colorblind. If the game is 50 bucks, do you want to throw away 3.5 million dollars by doing erroneous assumptions based on misinterpretation of set theory?

I think it would be more cost-effective to throw in a few things to cater to those who have trouble with colors, as options, than it would be to just ignore that many potential users. It's a good PR coup, too. And the small amount of graphics you would have to add to name tags as an option is not something that would take much money or brains to implement.

Aractain · 2011-10-03, 12:19 AM

While its funny to think T-Ray wants 100million players the actual numbers were of the 10(!) perecent of all people (males) who are colourblind, 3% of 5% of 7% are PS2 players.

Thus his actual numbers would be about 40,000 colour blind people in PS2. But my numbers go like this: 1 MILLION!!!! players (I Wish) and about 75% male (because females are pretty useful too) of which lets say 7% are evil, sorry, colourblind - that means 52,500 people!

Asumtions: 3.5billion males, 1 million players, 25% female (unlikely), 7% coulorblind.

Based on this SOE's projected numbers for PS2 are around 1 MILLION! :O

(Math is probably wrong, I think I failed it in school lol)

GTGD · 2011-10-03, 12:57 AM

Originally Posted by Traak

No, wrong. It is not necessarily the case that the percentage goes down with each subset. The percentage stays exactly the same.

You arrive at smaller and smaller numbers of people, but you do not necessarily arrive at a smaller percentage. You may by chance, but not mathematically necessarily.

If 100 percent of men have penises, and five percent of those are gamers, and only 5 percent of those play Planetside, it doesn't mean only .025 percent of men who play Planetside have penises. Your perception of the math is wrong. Five percent of any male population anywhere is colorblind. That's five percent of gamers, five percent of Planetside gamers, <b>five percent of any population</b>, EXCEPT any population that excludes the colorblind.

Take a cross-section of men, say five percent are colorblind. That's, say, 100,000 guys from some population, 5000 are colorblind.

Of that 100,000 guys, seven percent are gamers. Five percent of those gamers will also be colorblind.

Of that 100,000, 1/10th of a percent play Planetside. Of those 100 guys, five percent will STILL, on average, be colorblind, which is five guys. Which is still five percent of that part of the population.

Say 50 percent of all cars are red. It doesn't matter if you slice subset after subset. If 50 percent of all cars are red, and 50 percent of all cars are Japanese, that doesn't mean only 25 percent of all Japanese cars are red. It means 25 percent of ALL cars are red AND Japanese.

So, saying the PERCENTAGE of people who are colorblind who play PS is less than the PERCENTAGE who are colorblind in the population as a whole is not a mathematical necessity. All that is a mathematical likelihood is that there are FEWER in number people who are colorblind AND play PS than there are just people who are colorblind only, in the general population.

If you have 1,000,000 users who play PS, then 50,000 will be colorblind, according to the statistics, if five percent are colorblind. And that is a significant number.

If it is seven percent, that's 70,000 people.

If seven percent of men are colorblind, then seven percent of ANY selection of men are colorblind. If they are blonde, 6' tall German-speaking PS players, there will still be seven percent of that subset that is colorblind. Seven percent of any male population doesn't somehow shrink to a smaller PERCENTAGE no matter what subset you take. It shrinks to a smaller NUMBER. But it still stands, if you have 1,000,000 users who are male, then, statistically, since they are MALE, 70,000 of them will, statistically, be colorblind. If the game is 50 bucks, do you want to throw away 3.5 million dollars by doing erroneous assumptions based on misinterpretation of set theory?

I think it would be more cost-effective to throw in a few things to cater to those who have trouble with colors, as options, than it would be to just ignore that many potential users. It's a good PR coup, too. And the small amount of graphics you would have to add to name tags as an option is not something that would take much money or brains to implement.

Too bad Planetside players are not a representative population, so you can't make those inferences.

And please stop trying to act like a business manager, it's embarrassing...

Straws · 2011-10-03, 01:12 AM

Originally Posted by GTGD

It's simple probability.

This is the part that people are failing to understand, and to be on the harsh side, even T-Ray and any other SOE reps which feel that this is a minor issue.

Probability is a funny thing, it works both ways. Sure, the chances are that less than the national average of colourblind people will play PS2, but you have to accept that there's a chance that MORE than the national average of colour blind people will want to play, but choose not to because of the lack of supporting features.

Saying that only x% of gamers will be colourblind is ignorant and baseless, whether you're implying that it is the same, above or below the national average...mostly because of how probability works, but also due to how products are marketed to people with various conditions (they have to be more cynical about what they purchase) and the fact that everyone here is harping on about the US national average...last I checked, this was going to be an MMO and sold to more than one country.

However, let's be sensible here. The game isn't in beta yet. Any attempts to add colour blind support features now would be a complete waste of time as changes may be made that will completely break whatever work is done.