Dead By Daylight Is Getting A Colourblind Mode Following Provocative Comments By One Of Its Designers

What a jerk. At least they are adding it now.

And this is why boilerplate responses from PR exist. To avoid people putting their feet in their mouth like this.

Disappointing comments from a bizarrely lazy-seeming development team, even when compared to a group like the Warframe devs.

The comment is a bit distasteful but the core argument makes sense. Any work that is required for a project; especially something that requires additional modes, text, and other changes requires a suitable amount of resources to produce.

It's not as easy as flicking a switch but accessibility features should be part of the mid-rim design nowadays anyway so it's less the devs fault and something the directors should have thought of instead.

@CEObrainz It's not easy to completely rework visuals but there's a lot wrong with the statement. The implication that people with something they can't help being unable to play the game is being treated the same way that a minor bug is with a "it'll be done when it's done, shut up" attitude certainly doesn't endear the devs.

Not to mention that it's usually best practice these days to keep color blindness in mind when designing the game in the first place.

@Guybrush20X6 that's what I'm getting at; it is wrong and under normal circumstances it's not something a dev should be doing but the lack of accessibility features in the design is a producer/director fault so ultimately this whole situation is on them.

@CEObrainz it's worth pointing out that the game is over 4 years old and people have been requesting this feature for a long time.

It's not easy to work in colourblind modes later I would agree - but it can't be much extra work if from the outset you ensure that most colourblind people with red/green overlap can play your game. He is right that it is not a small number.

I am colourblind and I straight up can't play certain games (I had to get my girlfriend to play the puyo puyo boss fight in Sonic Mania for me). In general though I find sports kit clashes more annoying as it is just so easy to avoid - I can't watch certain games where a red team plays a green team (e.g. Wales v Ireland in the rugby).

Well at least there adding it even if he comment was almost like would yall shut the F up already? but I hope people can injoy this game now there is a color blined mode.

shouldve thought more before saying what he said but i understand his point. worded awfully tho

@Tulio517 I'll admit that I didn't know (I know nothing of the game). Though my comments were more for the practice in general rather than this specific instance.

For this scenario, it's kind of weird that after all this time, with a high enough userbase that nobody sat down to get this done sooner.

It's always nice to have such accessibility options, but this is yet another perverse instance of "controversy" mislabeling. Nothing in the quoted tirade speaks negatively of colour blindness, as opposed to the justly slammed broken record nature and entitled tone of the audience feedback in question. Which eyesight-related conditions don't eliminate and excuse either of. Take it from someone with a lifelong disability degree AND no lack of lifelong jerkassery himself.

I'm sure I'll get some flak for this but I actually understand his POV. Accessibility is important and it's good to develop things to be open to as many people as possible. That said, even if it's an altruistic cause constant pressuring can irritate people. The simple fact is that this is not something "owed" to people. It's good that this is officially announced, but not every game is going to be accessible to every single person. This mode is no more mandatory than an easy mode in Dark Souls.

And he did not even really belittle or put down anyone. He basically said "please stop bugging us. We'll make it if we feel like making it." Could he have worded it better? Definitely. But the message in context is something I get.

He didn't even say anything bad? As matter of fact he is right about at least one thing. I'm sure plenty of devs get badgered constantly for multiple things to be added, and after a certain point I'm sure it becomes annoying.

I take more issue with Able Gamers. They tend to take the smallest of comments or issues and makes them something bigger. Another one of those organizations with noble intentions, but obnoxious people behind it.

@tkdboy1889 Ok so here's the flak...I find it pretty problematic to say something like this isn't "owed" to people based with disabilities. In the US, the ADA mandates accessibility features such as ramps and rails in places of public accommodation. That's a mutual agreement that we owe it to people with disabilities to do what we can to provide access.

There's no law as clear that pertains specifically to gaming (though web accessibility is generally thought to fall under the ADA), but I really hope we can collectively get into the mindset that accessibility features are important. Saying "we'll do it if we feel like it" is very belittling IMO, because he's acting like it's unreasonable for people to expect basic accommodations. Public pressure like this can be the tool to make things better.

In don't see why that comment is provocative. Seems like a logical statement from a dev.

Just because someone labels something as "X" does not mean we have to accept it as "X." :-/

I have to agree with the "bad guys" here in saying that I also don't think his comments are provocative. Sure he comes across annoyed, but nobody would care about that if it would be regarding something else. Like changing the Homescreen icon or adding a new language.

@BongoBongo Holy cow, thank god Robotnik is such a bad puyo puyo player...I basically guess my way through that entire thing, haha

@Vsaxo27 You definitely don't just have to just accept it, but it still might be worth trying to understand why it's widely seen as provocative by others. Which is basically because he told people with a disability to shut up and stop asking for a feature that A) they need in order to play the game effectively, and B) could be implemented by the studio if they cared enough not to exclude them.

@Yanina Sure, but accessibility features and home screen icons are not in the same category. Imagine a person using a wheelchair asking their employer to install a ramp so they can get into their office. You could say "nobody would care if it was about changing the color the office is painted", but hopefully you wouldn't. Issues of access are more > aesthetic preferences

@turntSNACO Yeah you are right of course. I just think him being annoyed by constant requests (even though they probably made statements before that they got the feeback) is understandable and would be less of a big deal if it would be a different issue and not involving exactly this subject here.

@Yanina Yeah...it's tricky with this type of issue. It's certainly understandable the guy would get annoyed after being flooded with the same question or request. But being tenacious to the point of annoyance also seems to be one of the more successful avenues for social change.

The nice thing is that it worked out that way here. It would have been nice if he hadn't been dismissive, and I'm sure the studio would've preferred less bad press. But this is what it took for the story to get big enough for them to take action, so I guess the system kind of works?

@turntSNACO

I see your point and get where you're coming from. If someone takes it like that. But that may be reading a little too much into the person's statement.

If you can’t do the bare minimum to make your game accessible to people with disabilities or resent having to do the work then you really shouldn’t be making games.

I would love to see more developers do this. Graphics isn’t gameplay, and honestly most art directors should be fired for their inability to visualize scene composition, and organize ‘busy’ detail and color in a way that isn’t confusing to the limited attention budget of a typical player.

Add a disability like color blindness to the equation, and I just feel bad for these gamers. Good for this developer! (never played this game, just sayin)

Also, his attitude and comment were *****.

So yeah, that wasn't very provocative at all. Plus, it's a transcript of someone SAYING it, which is waaaaay different to how he would've written it anyways.

@JustMe and it has to work on every system, on every screen, live online, with every piece of DLC (of which DBD has many) - I agree his comments are a little insensitive and he should have been more aware of people’s needs, but working for a software company I’ve always sympathized with DBD’s programming attitude

It is always going to be more work to make things more accessible. But we need to make accessibility a standard in gaming. We shouldn't have to have awards for most accessible games, because deep accessibility should be worked on from the start. I'm lucky to have full vision and (mostly) full use of my hands. But not everyone does, and having extra ways to just allow people to feel included, to me, is more worth it than slightly extra polish or DLC.

If we can't all enjoy something due to lack of accessibility then we have failed each others as humans.

And another non-story news story.

@CEObrainz the dude literally acknowledges that a significant number of people have requested it for YEARS.

Meaning it should be a high priority. But why do that when you can make some more skins, right?

I get their irritation but people can't just stop being colorblind, or magically make it stop being a problem for them. And if you build a thing without thinking of accessibility, it's your own fault if the people you shut out complain about it.

If this was, say, a building in the real world that didn't have wheelchair ramps, nobody would be defending the builders right now.

@durr actually it was the article that did that (not the quote) and even then I already addressed that point in another comment plus it doesn't negate anything I've said so far.

Neat! I have a friend with color blindness who absolutely loves this game, glad to see the dev team loving him and other colorblind players back (despite the tasteless comment ruining it all a bit).

@JustMe it surprises me how difficult it seems to be to add sliders to ajust colours or give options to change a few icons/text is for some developers. I mean it's not like we're asking for the accessibility that TLOU gave to blind players (as it's 100% possible to play that vision impaired) but just the ability to make things like the UI and other Important information visible when colours are indistinguishable or just impossible to differentiate.

@durr reminds me of the sims community. For years they've been asking for more diversity in skin tones and finally six years later we got them. Unsure why it took so long but they finally pulled through without making it into a huge farce. (the community did that themselves before the update by not reading information properly...the devs thankfully didn't make it worse)

@Tulio517 Yeah the game is 4 years old, but it's very clear their time and resources have gone into creating content to keep the game and community alive. It's not as though they've spent 4 years sitting around doing nothing since the game launched.

I understand that the comments were in bad taste, but he is clearly someone who is frustrated based on his comments;

"Continuing to, to badger us about it isn't going to change anything. If it gets done it'll get done when we'll, when we have time to do it"

If there is one thing I've seen out there is a lot of vocal gaming groups, some can be really rude and nasty to developers. Even if what they are asking is something that would be beneficial to minority groups that have difficulties with certain aspects of the game. Badgering people, harassing them to change thing, it can make people resistant to doing something about it.

@TheMaverickk don't get me wrong. I play dbd daily and appreciate the constant updates. The devs are very active and talk to the community often. The game, much like every other games, has had issues and they work to fix'em, and talk to us. As you've said, harassment online is not okay, but his answer was very mean as well. I'm not colorblind myself, but I can only imagine how it must feel to be unable to play MOST games because devs often don't care about accessibility. But I'm glad the industry is changing for the better and more and more people have this in mind.