If you’ve come here following the official press release over on DAGERSystem, then you’ll know what an exciting day this is. If you’ve missed that announcement, then basically Can I Play That (CIPT) and its assets have been acquired by DAGERSystem in a partnership to become one of the non-profit’s initiatives! While we’ve spent the last couple of months internally discussing how the partnership is going to work, CIPT will continue to operate as normal, however, there are a few changes taking place.
Sunsetting Workshops
Let’s rip the bandaid off here. CIPT started as a blog, it grew into a journalistic outlet, and as it grew in popularity we introduced new ideas such as workshops. These two workshops became very popular and we’ve worked with numerous high-profile studios and companies. These workshops, however, were always run on the side by Coty, Stacey, and Yi Shun and were largely detached from the journalistic side of the website.
With this new partnership, website efforts are being put into journalism and resources, so we’ll continue to run news, reviews, and features, as well as continue to provide resources for visitors to learn more about accessibility. As such, the workshops are moving away from CIPT, but they will continue to exist!
As detailed in our Learn With CIPT post, Yi Shun will be taking the Inclusivity for Creatives workshop on a new journey, teaching studios, non-profits, and even higher-education institutions that diversity, equity, inclusivity, and accessibility are more than checklist items. Stacey shall be leading the Accessible Community Management workshop to share how companies can make their social media accessible. Stacey’s workshops have been delivered previously to companies such as Ubisoft, Microsoft, Square Enix, and more.
Freelancers
One thing we had to do earlier this year when we were struggling was close down freelance pitches. We needed the time and money to really crack down on organizing CIPT. As a result, you’ve seen we’ve made a load of quality of life improvements to the website, we’ve been publishing that juicy content, and we’ve been doing a lot of internal restructuring. It’s with delight that we can announce that we’ll be starting to accept freelance pitches again in the very near future.
We’ll update our pitching page in the future to detail how you pitch, what we’re looking for, and our rates. One thing to note: While we have this partnership in place now, we are still limited to what we can provide, but more on that at a later date.
Resources
Our Accessibility Reference Guides resources have always been on CIPT and they will continue to be here. When we’re doing our consultancy work, more often than not, notable studios we work with will state that they use us for research.
We’ll be keeping our reference guides, but expect to see some updated ones. Additionally, users have been loving using our CIPT Games Codex which could be getting some improvements over the coming months.
Games, Tech, and Industry
CIPT originally only ran reviews and features on games because…well the accessibility conversation across the industry was dire. When Ben joined and introduced news to the website, it was just before The Last of Us Part 2 launched which really saw accessibility content online take off. Since then, we’ve seen old games receive modern accessibility improvements, we’ve seen technology adapting with new features, we’ve even seen studios create accessibility teams, grow existing teams, and more.
The landscape of accessibility news has changed, and we’ve already been on the ball with reporting on these topics. However, regular visitors to CIPT may have noticed that we’ve updated our top menu bar to now include specific topics. Users can now, for example, view game-specific news, tech news, or industry news. We also want to do more tech reviews, so keep your eyes peeled for when we expand into new verticals!
A Brighter Horizon
Real talk here. The last few years, as Coty has already explained in their heartfelt post, have been exhausting. We’ve been working as burnt-out volunteers. Ones who have a very strong belief in CIPT and what it’s capable of. It’s why we’ve kept going.
We’ve witnessed other sites support us through backlinks and writing stories on us, we’ve also seen websites try and do what we do, but without the knowledge and expertise behind them. We have our work belittled by volatile users online, but we also see so much praise from those who matter. Every time the discourse rears its head, we feel beaten down and bruised, but we also see that our work is not done.
Hopefully, we can continue to grow and retain our authority in this industry. Additionally, we want to thank everyone for their financial support through Patreon which continues to keep us funded. If you wish to support us financially, you can do so for a small fee a month where you’ll get updates like this, and also behind the scenes looks at what Active is tinkering with on the backend. You can also get in touch with any concerns or just keep updated with our new Support Twitter. We thank everyone for continuing to read CIPT and we hope you enjoy this new venture with us.
