LadyLuck34
12-30-2009, 09:21 PM
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This is one thing that annoys me not just as a gamer, but also as an individual. I'm not sure how well known this is, but I wear glasses. No, I'm not blind but I obviously have some difficulties with my vision. Add onto this that many a game developer seems to believe that extremely small text is the way to go and I have issues.
Why add text into loading screens and various parts of the game if you make it TOO SMALL TO READ?
Example. At my apartment, I sit a moderate distance from my TV. I'd say about 6-7 feet. For a recent game that many will be familiar with, I'll use Dragon Age: Origins. I love the game and enjoy playing it. A feature that I consider very helpful is that when you load from the Main Menu, the first loading screen gives a short summary of the last "major" event in your saved game. Therefore, you have a vague idea of what 'just' happened in your story (or with your character) and what you should do next. However, that doesn't do me any good if I can't read it from where I'm sitting.
Now admittedly, this isn't all games. Some developers seem to take into account the fact that their audience would like to read what they put there (being wherever in the game), since that's kind of what it's for, and make the text a reasonable size for reading. That said, the majority of games I play don't seem to do that.
It's especially annoying for me in what qualifies as a story or campaign mode. Normally those moments of text relate useful information about parts of the game if not the story itself. I'll return to Dragon Age and say that some loading screens include a short paragraph about various spells and skills your characters can learn. So why put that in if the gamer can't read it?! (By the way, I'm using Dragon Age as an example of the use of text, not necessarily as an example of too small text.)
As more developers and games include bodies of text as a useful feature in storytelling and story position reminders, it should be taken into account that not all people play on 50" TVs that are HD or LCD/plasma (whatever!). I used to play on a 19" TV and even the games with 'big' text I could not read. Make it small and it wasn't even worth it, I was just hurting my eyes.
Granted, I have upgraded now (though still no HD or anything fancy). However, since a good portion of the buying base falls into the below 21 category, you can't expect many of them to have large and lovely TVs to be playing on. Great theory of production and marketing: design your product to meet the lowest standards of your buying base. So if you feel the need to include necessary and/or helpful game information in blocks of text, make sure it's large enough to be readable on a freakin' small TV. That way it definitely will on a larger one.
Especially if your game (and therefore text provided info) is very story driven. Helps us less than 20x20 vision people a lot.
This is one thing that annoys me not just as a gamer, but also as an individual. I'm not sure how well known this is, but I wear glasses. No, I'm not blind but I obviously have some difficulties with my vision. Add onto this that many a game developer seems to believe that extremely small text is the way to go and I have issues.
Why add text into loading screens and various parts of the game if you make it TOO SMALL TO READ?
Example. At my apartment, I sit a moderate distance from my TV. I'd say about 6-7 feet. For a recent game that many will be familiar with, I'll use Dragon Age: Origins. I love the game and enjoy playing it. A feature that I consider very helpful is that when you load from the Main Menu, the first loading screen gives a short summary of the last "major" event in your saved game. Therefore, you have a vague idea of what 'just' happened in your story (or with your character) and what you should do next. However, that doesn't do me any good if I can't read it from where I'm sitting.
Now admittedly, this isn't all games. Some developers seem to take into account the fact that their audience would like to read what they put there (being wherever in the game), since that's kind of what it's for, and make the text a reasonable size for reading. That said, the majority of games I play don't seem to do that.
It's especially annoying for me in what qualifies as a story or campaign mode. Normally those moments of text relate useful information about parts of the game if not the story itself. I'll return to Dragon Age and say that some loading screens include a short paragraph about various spells and skills your characters can learn. So why put that in if the gamer can't read it?! (By the way, I'm using Dragon Age as an example of the use of text, not necessarily as an example of too small text.)
As more developers and games include bodies of text as a useful feature in storytelling and story position reminders, it should be taken into account that not all people play on 50" TVs that are HD or LCD/plasma (whatever!). I used to play on a 19" TV and even the games with 'big' text I could not read. Make it small and it wasn't even worth it, I was just hurting my eyes.
Granted, I have upgraded now (though still no HD or anything fancy). However, since a good portion of the buying base falls into the below 21 category, you can't expect many of them to have large and lovely TVs to be playing on. Great theory of production and marketing: design your product to meet the lowest standards of your buying base. So if you feel the need to include necessary and/or helpful game information in blocks of text, make sure it's large enough to be readable on a freakin' small TV. That way it definitely will on a larger one.
Especially if your game (and therefore text provided info) is very story driven. Helps us less than 20x20 vision people a lot.