Video Games
Closed captioning of video games is becoming more common. One of the first video games to feature true closed captioning was Zork Grand Inquisitor in 1997. Many games since then have at least offered subtitles for spoken dialog during cut scenes, and many include significant in-game dialog and sound effects in the captions as well; for example, with subtitles turned on in the Metal Gear Solid series of stealth games, not only are subtitles available during cut scenes, but any dialog spoken during real-time gameplay will be captioned as well, allowing players who can't hear the dialog to know what enemy guards are saying and when the main character has been detected. Also, in many of developer Valve's video games (such as Half-Life 2 or Left 4 Dead), when closed captions are activated, dialog and nearly all sound effects either made by the player or from other sources (e.g. gunfire, explosions) will be captioned.
Video games don't offer Line 21 captioning, decoded and displayed by the television itself but rather a built-in subtitle display, more akin to that of a DVD. The game systems themselves have no role in the captioning either: each game must have its subtitle display programmed individually.
Reid Kimball, a game designer who is hearing impaired, is attempting to educate game developers about closed captioning for games. Reid started the Games group to closed caption games and serve as a research and development team to aid the industry. Kimball designed the Dynamic Closed Captioning system, writes articles, and speaks at developer conferences. Games's first closed captioning project called Doom3 was nominated for an award as Best Doom3 Mod of the Year for IGDA's Choice Awards 2006 show.
Read more about this topic: Closed Captioning
Famous quotes related to video games:
“I recently learned something quite interesting about video games. Many young people have developed incredible hand, eye, and brain coordination in playing these games. The air force believes these kids will be our outstanding pilots should they fly our jets.”
—Ronald Reagan (b. 1911)
“It is among the ranks of school-age children, those six- to twelve-year-olds who once avidly filled their free moments with childhood play, that the greatest change is evident. In the place of traditional, sometimes ancient childhood games that were still popular a generation ago, in the place of fantasy and make- believe play . . . today’s children have substituted television viewing and, most recently, video games.”
—Marie Winn (20th century)