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The Courts Government Entertainment Games News

Who is Responsible for Advice Labels on Games? 155

Posted by Cliff from the preventing-further-unfortunate-occurrences dept.
AccUser asks: "So, I spent the day in the local hospital with my son after he suffered a seizure while we played a computer game (that shall remain nameless). The game was labeled as one for younger children, but had no warnings about photosensitive seizures on either the packaging or associated documentation, and I assumed that it would be a safe game for him to play. Many games (Halo and others) come with these warnings, and rightly so - I expected that any game that was a potential risk would indicate this. To be honest, all was fine until the final level, when there were a significant number of special lighting effects, and I guess this triggered the subsequent events. So, is the labeling of games to indicate risk of photosensitive seizures and other dangers mandatory, both in Europe and the States, and who is responsible for placing this information? Is it down to the distributor? The publisher? The developer?"
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Who is Responsible for Advice Labels on Games? More

Who is Responsible for Advice Labels on Games?

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  • Get a lawyer. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Naikrovek ( 667 ) <jjohnson@ps g . com> on Thursday February 05, 2004 @04:43AM (#8187094)
    He/She will figure it out for you.

  • With the console (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Don't the major consoles have these disclaimers in their user manuals? Not to be rude, but if you knew your child was susceptible to seizures then you were negligent in allowing him to play them. You must be the reason my hair-dryer has a tag with an oversized representation of itself and a disproportionately small bath tub crossed out with the universal NO! symbol.
    • He did mention that it was infact, a Computer game, not a game for a console. I haven't seen any computers that come with photosensitive seizure warnings, as general computer usage probably would not be a risk.

  • How on earth does that happen? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by eggstasy ( 458692 ) on Thursday February 05, 2004 @04:49AM (#8187134) Journal
    Can anyone explain or point me to some URLs about why and how lighting effects induce seizures in certain people?
    I've known for years that it does happen, but it still boggles my mind that something as inocent as a little bit of flashing light could cause so much harm to a person.
    • Here's an extremely useful URL:

      http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=U TF -8&q=photosensitive+seizure

    • Re:How on earth does that happen? (Score:4, Informative)

      by HickNinja ( 551261 ) on Thursday February 05, 2004 @11:16AM (#8189391)
      The seizure is basically a large portion of the synapses in the brain firing all at once at a specific time interval. This causes the body to convulse and most thought to stop. In people prone to seizures, if a certain portion of synapses begin to fire at this critical rate, it can induce a seizure. Flashing lights of just the right frequency can cause synapses in the visual cortex to fire at this rate, inducing the seizure.
      • I wonder if people who are prone to seisures have neurons which are interconnected at a more regular distance than people who are not prone to seisures.

        If most of their neurons are interconnected at nearly the same length, it would seem this could create electrical feedback at a certian frequency (sort of like the natural resonating frequency of most objects).

        Perhaps people who are not prone to seisures have much more random neural interconnection distances, which dampens the feedback loop?
    • IANAD (I am not a doctor) but i would guess that it is sort of like "crosstalk" with Electromagnetic signals, if parts of the brain aren't sufficiently insulated from each other then seizures could result... Since intelligence has been connected to high interconnectivity of the brain i wonder if there is a correlation to be found between high intellegence and seizures
  • As far as I know, seizure warnings aren't mandatory on video games anywhere in the world - though many publishers include them just to cover their own asses in situations like these.
    • I was under the impression that, yeah, it's just a blanket "video games have been known to cause seizures"

      I'm wondering how one would go about determining which games are more or less prone to inducing seizures, short of testing on epileptics.

      • Re:Mandatory? Don't think so. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by MachDelta ( 704883 ) on Thursday February 05, 2004 @05:27AM (#8187357)
        From what I know of photosensitive epilepsy, the trigger is caused by patterns of light, like strobes and bars, etc. That means that any CRT display can cause a seizure by displaying a pattern at a certain frequency. Like a cartoon explosion or something (remember that pokemon event in Japan a few years back? Yeah, like that).
        Now the problem specific to video games is refresh rates. I'm sure I don't have to explain refresh rates to a crowd of geeks, but technically it is a repeating pattern, and therefore capable of causing seizures. Luckilly, most modern CRTs refresh fast enough (60-100hz+) to avoid this problem. But a video game that pushes your hardware might not be able to render frames that fast. If your game slows down to about 25hz or so, you can cause a seizure. Especially if vsync is on, since vsync limits the frequency to the refresh rate of the monitor (to avoid rendering parts of two seperate frames in a single pass - aka "tearing"). If the refresh rate isn't met, then typically a multiple is used, at least temporarily. This can lock your refresh rate below the usual frequency for extended periods of time, which is a recipie for disaster as far as photosensitivity is concerned.
        So while, yes, you probably could 'test' videogames for the likelyhood of causing seizures, the reality is that any CRT can be a hazard, regardless of media content. It just means that photosensitive epileptics have to be very careful about what they watch. And how they watch too - taking precautions like staying back from a screen (so it doesn't dominate your field of view), taking frequent breaks, etc. Basically looking out for themselves.

        Not that any of this matters in a court of law, mind you.

        • Re:Mandatory? Don't think so. (Score:2, Interesting)

          by Anonymous Coward
          So would it be reasonable to say that a modern PC coupled with an LCD monitor would virtually remove any risk of siezures? (Except maybe over the shock of the prices).

          • Re:Mandatory? Don't think so. (Score:4, Informative)

            by MachDelta ( 704883 ) on Thursday February 05, 2004 @06:14AM (#8187588)
            I don't know about "virtually removing", but an LCD fed with a digital signal would certainly be much safer. It has to be digital though, because analouge will (apparently) produce a similar refreshing effect. So not only do you have to scrape up the cash for an LCD display, you'll need to find a video card with digital output on it too. I think its safe to say most people would be wriggling on the floor after pricing out that kind of gear, epileptic or not. ;)
            • uhm... LCDs fed with analog signals do NOT have a flickering refresh effect like CRTs do. Between frames the LCD pixels just stay right where they are; they don't fade to black until refreshed. The picture from a digital signal is not very different -- just a bit sharper, a bit better color etc.

              But regardless, the vertical refresh of CRTs isn't what causes photo-sensitive seizures of this kind. Flashing lights on the order of 5 to 20 Hz are the culprit.

              A "lightning" effect is usually done by painting pure
              • As far as I understood it, an analouge signal on an LCD would still cause the screen to redraw (or change) itself top to bottom, left to right, similar to a CRT. I thought only digital signals would change pixels independant of one another. Im not an LCD expert though :p.
                • I think that any active matrix LCD updates individual pixels to refresh regardless of the type of signal it's receiving. Isn't that what makes it an active matrix in the first place? :) What a digital signal will correct is that "jitter" effect you get sometimes on an analog LCD. Theoretically, the image quality is supposed to be better as well.
            • Erm... We did play the game on a PC with an LCD monitor fed by a digital signal. Damn glad I bought that new system now. Imagine what would have happened if we'd played it on that dodgy old monitor that is now in the loft... :-)
        • You are 100% wrong about pretty much all of your technical information.

          The cathode ray scans up and down 60-100 times a second (depending on settings). This rate is 100% independant of what the software is doing.

          The software can render crap and tell the video card to draw it as often or infrequent as it wants. If it does that in the middle of a scan, you will see part of one frame and part of the next; an artifact which is called tearing.

          If you turn on vsync, the software will wait for the next re
          • The monitor can't induce a seizure by itself. The video game designer has to purposefully draw images that flash from light to dark at 5-20Hz.

            Now, it could be that in a _game engine_ they never intended it to do that, but the uses puts himself in a situation where that occurs. Imagine barrel rolling in a fligh simulator while out of control over a dark landscape and bright blue sky. Imagine the sky and ground roll in and out of view about 5 times a second. That could induce a seizure, even if the designer
        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • It makes me wonder: if a child is raised exposed only to LCDs, does that increase the possibility of said child having a photosensitive epileptic seizure when exposed to a CRT at the age of, let's say, 10?

          I know, I know: this would never pass Human Subjects Review. But it almost makes me wonder if LCDs are a better way to go with children.

          God, don't let the LCD manufacturers catch wind of that theory...

  • A better idea. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Elwood P Dowd ( 16933 ) <judgmentalist@gmail.com> on Thursday February 05, 2004 @05:04AM (#8187236) Journal
    Without discussing who's job it is, I'm sure we can all agree that determining whether a video game can be made to create the particular type of pattern that may trigger any person's epileptic seizure might be quite difficult. There are two potential solutions. Labeling, if done conservatively and cheaply would pretty much require every video game developer to put "Danger, this videogame has flashing lights that will give you seizures" on the packaging, and the result would be the same: you wouldn't know which ones were actually dangerous for your son.

    The other option would be for some developers to either design the game with photosensitives in mind (unlikely) to put "disable all lighting effects" in the options menu. "Disable all lighting effects" doesn't sound like a bad idea... and probably not as expensive to code or QA as a photosensitive-conscious game. It might decrease the quality of the game for y'all epileptics... but you wouldn't be foaming and twitching on the floor. Personally, I'd take that trade.
    • "Disable all lighting effects" would not be a viable solution for many reasons. Two major ones are: Puzzles and in-game "hints" that use lighting would be either too simple or impossible to solve and it would effectively ruin on-line play for most FPS games (I remember the outcry over the fact that just the ability to adjust the gamma wasn't locked out in Action Quake 2). Honestly, I think the best bet, unfortunately, is to not play videogames. I love videogames, but it's better to be safe than sorry. And i
      • "Disable all lighting effects" would not be a viable solution for many reasons...

        No, it would not be a viable solution for specific games. It would be very viable for... all games except on-line competitive games. It's ok if you "effectively ruin" games for yourself.

        It would allow the kid to play specific video games and know that they were safe. This would make those video games have a marketting point that might get them some extra sales. It might be worth it for some publishers. (It might also expose

  • It Doesn't Matter, AccUser (Score:3, Insightful)

    by illuminata ( 668963 ) on Thursday February 05, 2004 @05:09AM (#8187261) Journal
    Just because this game didn't have a warning doesn't mean that it should have been necessary. Your knowledge that some games had these warnings initially should have been enough to tip you off that this game might not have been safe for your child. The fact that it omitted a warning doesn't shouldn't imply anything. Does a fork set imply that it's safe to stick one of its forks into a light socket if it does not include a warning? No, even if there are others that warn you that it's not a bright idea.

    I have a feeling that you're wanting to sue somebody in this situation. Instead, you should accept the fact that you made an error in your parental judgement. You shouldn't have let him play the game without consulting his doctor, whether or not the game had a warning, because you knew that video games could potentially cause a problem before you let your son play the game. Besides, you can't go around trying to protect everybody from everything. Don't try to pass blame onto anybody else, just apologize to your son and move on.
    • Does a fork set imply that it's safe to stick one of its forks into a light socket if it does not include a warning?

      No, but it's a nice thing to mention if it contains nickle in the alloy... so nickle sensitive individuals can avoid it. In the same vein, it would be nice if videogames mentioned if there was significant strobe lighting.

      I have a feeling that you're wanting to sue somebody in this situation.

      Many people here seem to think he's looking to sue. Maybe, maybe not. In the group I hang o

      • No, but it's a nice thing to mention if it contains nickle in the alloy... so nickle sensitive individuals can avoid it. In the same vein, it would be nice if videogames mentioned if there was significant strobe lighting.

        Nice, yes. But legally necessary? Probably not, nor should it be. We could do a lot of things that are nice, but taking into account each and every special case would be overwhelming.

        Many people here seem to think he's looking to sue. Maybe, maybe not. In the group I hang out with, ther
        • WHOA! When did I imply that there should be government regulations? I have a nice list on my PDA and a camera full of the stupid "The State of California has determined that..." signs all over the place. I'm *highly* against mandating labeling of this nature or seeking damages against a company due to not labeling. If you don't know that coffee is hot and knives are sharp, you should not be venturing out into public.

          There is an ethical issue, and despite the common Dilbertesque view of corporations, ma

          • I never meant to imply that you did support government regulations, I just needed to let it be known that I wasn't for it. I was afraid that I might be giving off "the wrong vibes."

            I thought along the lines of "given this situation, what *is* the right thing?" I would imagine that the latter is a more productive question to ask in a public forum.

            True, but I would hope that the guy wasn't looking for a good, specific answer in this case.

      • As I stated elsewhere, but will adapt to this post, you'd need to put on a nickel (peanut) warning because there's no ready way to determine that a fork contains nickel.

        A video game contains flashing lights. That's a given. It's the nature of something displayed on a television. Therefore, warnings are superfluous.

        • A video game contains flashing lights. That's a given. It's the nature of something displayed on a television. Therefore, warnings are superfluous.

          I will fully admit that I am not the biggest video gamer, but almost all the video games I've played have not had any flashing whatsoever. Age of Empires, Command and Conquer, Tetris. In fact, the fact that I can recall the ones that did have flashing (FF VII, Batman for the NES, the powerup cutscenes from MegaMan III) would indicate that there are fewer that

          • The very nature of CRTs means that it's a flashing picture. Some games just have more flashing than others.

            Televison means flashing lights. A television is nothing but a big square flashing a picture 30/60 times per second. This is what a television is. Therefore, by it's very nature, television is dangerous to somebody who is subject to photosensitive seizures. Yes, some is going to be more dangerous than others, but who can qualify this?

            One doesn't put a warning on every knife that it's sharp, an

            • Televison means flashing lights. A television is nothing but a big square flashing a picture 30/60 times per second. This is what a television is.

              Yes, but we're talking about flashes on the order of 5 times a second with distinct changes in brightness. Your argument is specious, as you are saying "it's inherently dangerous because of foo" where foo is not dangerous, even if it can be defined using the same words as the thing that is dangerous.

              Flashing is not dangerous, it's a specific type of flashing.

              • Your argument is specious, as you are saying "it's inherently dangerous because of foo" where foo is not dangerous, even if it can be defined using the same words as the thing that is dangerous.

                But it is dangerous to a certain group of people. The problem being, you can't define 'this pattern/freq of flashes will trigger an attack.'

                It's a bit like saying that a cat and a blowtorch can both burn you because a blowtorch generates heat and a cat generates heat. One of the levels is fine, and as for the o

                • The problem being, you can't define 'this pattern/freq of flashes will trigger an attack.'

                  There's quite a large body of medical literature that says you are wrong. There's a pretty predictable and narrow range of strobe that will trigger seizures in sensitive individuals.

                  I'm not trying to play word games, I'm simply stating that when you're sensitive to a certain subset of flashing lights, and you're dealing with a medium that is nothing but various patterns of flashing lights,

                  ...which, in the case o

                  • ...and if the game *is* one of the few that falls within the criteria of slow, high contrast flashing, yeah, it would be a nice thing to label it as such. Not mandatory... just nice.

                    And the manuals for the system, and for most games, do include a warning.

                    • And the manuals for the system, and for most games, do include a warning.

                      So what's the problem, then?

                      --
                      Evan

                    • So what's the problem, then?

                      Why, the original posting.

                      The game was labeled as one for younger children, but had no warnings about photosensitive seizures on either the packaging or associated documentation, and I assumed that it would be a safe game for him to play.

                      What the targeted age has to do with anything, I don't know. I'd also be curious to know what game it was, so I could hunt down the info myself.

                    • Ah... I think this is the thread where I mentioned that I had ceased thinking about the problem in specific (the post) because there was just not enough information, and was thinking about the issue in general.

                      Too much labeling is a problem too - if everything is labeled as harmful to a group, that group can't make informed decisions. The "may contain traces of peanuts" always makes me wonder if there's a legitimate reason. Plus the warnings that you will die within 30 seconds if you ever look in the gen

                    • Aye, it all boils down to 'you can't please everybody all the time.'

    • .... that some games have these consequences.

      Games should be properly labeled, period.
      • Right, but it doesn't need to be common knowledge. As previously discussed in this thread, you have to have an initial attack to discover that you have a photosensitivity problem. As soon as you are diagnosed, your doctor explains to you your problem and what you should avoid. If a doctor does not, then they are negligent.

        This isn't a matter of common knowledge. Epileptics know the score after they are diagnosed. Unless somebody is extremely paranoid, they usually don't try to steer clear of problems that

    • Re:It Doesn't Matter, AccUser (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Derkec ( 463377 ) on Thursday February 05, 2004 @10:53AM (#8189131)
      Here is a guy who tries to take the right steps. He knows many video games label themselves as dangerous. He's scanned them and filters out the ones which he believed were dangerous to his son. This is good parenting. Sadly, the system he depended on failed him. Now he needs to know why it failed, much like the US needs to know how the CIA could be as misinformed about Iraq as it was.
      When he asks who is responsible for labelling, he's trying to understand the system better. Don't attack him for that. What does this get him other than fodder for legal recourse? If he finds out publishers are responsible, then he knows to that the publisher of the game he bought can't be trusted and should be avoided. Likewise up and down the chain. This improves safety for him. If labelling is mandatory, he can be relatively comfortable getting games from large companies who would have the adaquate fear of litigation to check. If it's optional, he may need to reasses his strategy alltogether - perhaps try and play all these games through himself before sharing them with his son. Will he be able to detect the danger signs? Maybe.
      Don't attack a guy in a rough situation who is watching over his kid at the hospital for trying to figure out what went wrong and how to prevent it in the future. I suspect he knows that all games carry some risk. Instead of depriving his kid of all games, he is doing his best to filter the games that pose the highest risk. Likewise, instead of not driving cars, I try to purchase cars with good reliability, anti-lock brakes and airbags. Again, attacking someone who is struggling to limit risks for his son is insensitive, and childish.
      • Who ever said that I was attacking him? I was simply stating what I thought he should do, not trying to kick him while he was down. He posed a question, and I gave him an honest answer. Don't try to make it sound like I was wanting to attack. I simply did not want him to make an irrational decision.

        Until he responded to my initial post, there was plenty of room for speculation. He did a good enough job clearing that up by responding on his own.
    • To sue somebody over this is not my reason for asking this. To clarify the situation and understand if the labelling of games is mandatory is my main aim. If it is not mandatory, should it be, and can I put pressure on the industry (well, not me as an individual) to effect a change?

  • Check the documentation... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Senjutsu ( 614542 ) on Thursday February 05, 2004 @05:09AM (#8187262)
    that came with the game system. It may will indicate that the system should not be used, period, by anyone who suffers from photosensitive seizures. For instance, the Playstation 2 manual (available here [playstation.com]) clearly states on page 2:

    WARNING: READ BEFORE USING YOUR PLAYSTATION(R)2 COMPUTER ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM. A very small percentage of individuals may experience epileptic seizures when exposed to certain light patterns or flashing lights. Exposure to certain patterns or backgrounds on a television screen or while playing video games, including games played on the PlayStation 2 console, may induce an epileptic seizure in these individuals. Certain conditions may induce previously undetected epileptic symptoms even in persons who have no history of prior seizures or epilepsy. If you, or anyone in your family, has an epileptic condition, consult your physician prior to playing. If you experience any of the following symptoms while playing a video game - dizziness, altered vision, eye or muscle twitches, loss of awareness, disorientation, any involuntary movement, or convulsions - IMMEDIATELY discontinue use and consult your physician before resuming play

    Moral of the story: Don't assume that merely because the game manual does not repeat this warning that the game is safe for your child; any game (indeed, anything that flashes light, including your TV when it is not being used by the game system) can trigger a seizure.

    • Same for Xbox.. (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Xbox Instruction manual, page 4, directly after the "electricity is dangerous, do not chew on the powercord" section (no link, I am quoting from the physical paper manual in front of me that was included with my Xbox):

      "Important Health Warnings

      About Photosensitive Seizures

      A very small percentage of people may experience a seizure when exposed to certain visual images, including flashing lights or patterns that may appear in video games. Even people who have no history of seizures or epilepsy may have a
    • It is not just the consoles desk, everygame I have purchased in past 6 months that I can remember have had the same generic statement. I recently got some development tools that had a warning about it.

      The epileptic seizures warning is about as common as the "warning may contain peanuts" that is on almost every prepackaged food product.
    • It was a PC version of the game, to run on my PC, which does not come with a warning. Even if my PC had come with a warning, I am interested in the requirement for labelling games clearly, not to sue somebody over this.

  • My mother suffers from epilepsy ... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Kleedrac2 ( 257408 ) <kleedrac.hotmail@com> on Thursday February 05, 2004 @05:10AM (#8187269) Homepage
    ... and the unfortunate truth is that I have yet to find a game that's 100% safe for her. She's been affected by pretty much everything, with the exceptions being Mahjong and Solitaire. Even Tetris Worlds wasn't completely safe as some levels use different lighting effects than others. One trick she's found is that if the room lights are alot brighter than the computer screen it doesn't affect her nearly as much! Hope this helps and I wish your son a speedy recovery!

    Kleedrac
  • What percent people actually are suceptible to such flashes?

  • PC or console? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 05, 2004 @05:54AM (#8187478)
    Was this a PC game or a console game? And if a console game, which console?

    I work for Sony and AFAIK every single game has these warnings on - and rightly so. Every parent should be aware that any video game (and many TV programs) can potentially cause seizures in photosensitive individuals. The only safe route is abstinance.

    In any case, you should inform the game's publisher of this event, to ensure they tighten their act up.
  • like the flasher on superbowl? might answer the one question about what percentage of the population is affected by said flashes...

    oh wait, the search engine stories reported that as the most popular search of all time.

    just turn down the refresh rate on your vid settings until it goes away, then turn it back up until they start. get empirical. and perhaps keep the wean away from computer games!

  • Irresponsible (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jester42 ( 623276 ) * on Thursday February 05, 2004 @06:10AM (#8187570)
    I think it is irresponsible to let your son play any video game when you know that he suffers from epilepsy. Warnings on the packaging can only indicate that there might be a higher risk because the game makes extensive use of lighting effects but in general seizure can be triggered by almost anything and it will depend on the individual.
    • here here!

    • Re:Irresponsible (Score:4, Informative)

      by AccUser ( 191555 ) <mhg.taose@co@uk> on Thursday February 05, 2004 @12:06PM (#8190042) Homepage
      Before playing the game in question, my son had NEVER had a siezure of any kind, epileptic or otherwise. I thought I was being reponsible by checking the games I purchased.

      • Re:Irresponsible (Score:3, Insightful)

        by xenocide2 ( 231786 )
        Well basically, video games are not for epileptics. Most (if not all) publishers place a blanket warning that it could cause seizures. I highly doubt that anyone without one has gone through any sort of testing to claim that seizures won't happen while playing -- its a dangerous scenario period.

        While you should have known better, only your barrister or lawyer can tell you who will pay your medical bills. Duh.

        • Re:Irresponsible (Score:3, Informative)

          by AccUser ( 191555 )
          Why should I have known better? My son had NEVER had a seizure before playing this game. EVER. It is not like I was taking a chance - I thought that I was reducing risk by not allowing him to play games that came with warnings - not because he was epileptic (which he wasn't) - but because they can be harmful. I trusted - wrongly - the fact that some games had warnings and others not, that the latter were safe.
          • Don't let the bastards grind you down. It's in the nature of forums that if anyone has a misfortune, at least half the people in the forum will blame the person affected. Just shrug them off. It's the other people who generally have something valuable to say.
          • If a hair drier didn't have a warning label on it warning you not to toss it in a bathtub full of water would you then assume that it was safe?
            • What a fucking ridiculous thing to say. I pay no attention to warning labels about epilepsy because I don't have it. That doesn't mean I'm a moron who's going to microwave their cat or something just because it doesn't say I shouldn't on the door. The warnings are *specific* to people with certain problems, which his son apparently did not suffer from (though I do wonder if there was a family history that made him look for warnings ... most people wouldn't after all).

              But for 99.9999% of people playing game
              • The point was (which you completely missed) that ALL video games and all computer content has the possibility of causing this problem. Whether they have a warning label on them or not. So why make the assumption (and risk) that some particular game won't cause problems just because there isn't a warning label? I guess some people just need to explicitly be told every single bad thing that might happen to them?

                Forget thinking for yourself, or oh my god, asking the doctor? Nah, lets just assume its ok ev
                • But the point is (which YOU completely missed) that he didn't know in advance that his son was susceptible. And furthermore there's a RISK with all games, but some are worse than others.
          • All I gotta say is, why were you looking for games without a "may cause seizures" warning if you had no expectation that they would cause harm to your son?

  • A Gameboy maybe? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I wonder, is it more the light that really triggers it? Could he play a Gameboy Advance (not SP) or maybe even an old school Gameboy?

  • General thoughts... (Score:2, Informative)

    by j450n ( 678096 )
    After taking a random sampling of game manuals I have lying around, *every* single console game had this warning printed in both the manual for the game and the manual that came with the system. I know this has been a common practice going back at least as far as the NES.

    No PC game manuals I looked at had any such warning, however the EULAs (for whatever they're worth) all contain passages disclaiming responsability for damages, including personal injury.

    After some brief googling, it would seem that 15-2
  • Every video game system you buy has just that warning included. So now because this one game doesn't warn you it MUST be safe? Come on.
    • You say video game system. I never seen any warning come with my pc. Granted the last time I bought a complete pc we considered diseases like this a curse of god and burned witches but still. Some PC games I think I remember the warning from although the only game manual I got to hand for vietcong makes no warning.

      I know epilepsy can be triggered by the flashing effect that results from driving along a row of trees with the sunlight behind them. SO if it is the same in video games then not all games have t

  • Assumption (Score:2, Offtopic)

    by black mariah ( 654971 )
    What's missing here is an ASSUMPTION OF INJURY. When you have a condition that could be aggravated by certain things, ASSUME YOU WILL GET HURT BY DOING THEM. Warnings or not, ASSUME THE WORST. You should know by now what might trigger your sons seizures, so you should ALWAYS play the games before he does. This isn't a foolproof method, but it's better than nothing.

    • Re:Assumption (Score:3, Informative)

      by AccUser ( 191555 )
      I now know what might trigger my sons seizures, but before playing this game, my son had never had a seizure. And I had played the game (extensively!) before he had. To be honest, the game was pretty tame throughout, but the problem was with the final level. In hindsight, I think it had been developed almost independently of the rest of the game (ok, it used the same engine, etc.) as the monitor changed resolution when the level started. The graphics were fairly blurred and the lighting quite intense. I thi

      • Question (Score:3, Interesting)

        by drivers ( 45076 )
        Here's the question you're not answering: If he had never had a seizure, why were you so careful to check for it? Previous diagnosis? Family history? Paranoia? Hindsight? What?

  • WARNING: This game may contain images of peanuts. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 05, 2004 @08:09AM (#8188018)

    I did some googling for peanut allergy and photosensitive epilepsy. It seems peanut allergy occurs at about 25x more often; however, I was not aware that either of these are as common as the statistics show. This is quite an eye opener for me.

    Peanut allergy affects about 1:125 people [about.com]

    The study, which measured the number of people reporting peanut and/or tree nut (almonds, cashews, walnuts and pecans, for example) allergies, found that prevalence rates in 1997 and 2002 were relatively the same for the population at-large. However, reported peanut allergy in children rose dramatically, increasing from 0.4 percent in 1997 to 0.8 percent in 2002. Based on 2000 U.S. Census data, FAAN estimates that nearly 600,000 children are now affected by peanut allergy -- about 1 in every 125 children.
    Photosensitive epilepsy affects about 1:3000 people [findarticles.com]
    Between 40 million and 50 million people worldwide have epilepsy, and between 3 and 5 percent of epileptics are photosensitive.

    NOTE: This post is actually meant to be informative; I went with a humorous title to get noticed.

  • Unpredictable (Score:4, Informative)

    by vaguelyamused ( 535377 ) <jsimons@rocketmail.com> on Thursday February 05, 2004 @09:33AM (#8188407)
    I don't imagine the game developers/distributors can predict precisely which games could cause this to happen and seperately label them. People's reactions are to unique and they can't possibly test them in every potential lighting/TV equipment scenario with any accuracy. Someone with photosensitive seizures may play the same game for months and then one day suffer a seizure even they've played that particular level/area many times before. There is also wide variability in how susceptible that person is to a seizure at the time they are playing a game. If the person is tired or under stress and things like blood sugar level and how long it's been since taking their anti-seizure medication can highly effect how certain epileptics react to a certain stimulus. This is why the labelling is on the hardware usually and not the game.

    I believe it would be disingenuous of the game manufacturers to label certain games with seizure warnings and leave others without when they really have no way of knowing which ones will or will not stimulate a given epileptic.

    That said if I were you I would consider the following things. Maybe use PCs and not consoles for gaming so you have more control over the frame rate and refresh rate, hoping to avoid the certain frequencies that may cause this. Also something like a Gameboy Advance or one of those small LCD screens that attach to the console may prevent this, I would investigate this.

    Also if you have and HD TV or an available computer monitor you might try using progressive scan capable consoles as they should have higher refresh rates and less flicker. And I'm sure there a websites/blogs/forums for epileptic gamers. Check them out and see what works for them.

    I hope your son is feeling well and good luck.

  • Nor are Producers, Artists, or anyone else involved in the creation of a video game, except by complete coincidence.

    The reason they put the labels on the games is as a fail safe, not because of any knowledge about their game's potential for inducing seizures. Because this is a lawsuit-happy society we live in, they figure it's easiest to put labels on everything.

    I'm sure that in 20 years time there'll be big disclaimers before every television show saying that there may be a risk to viewers of seizures, j
  • I wonder if someone could build a device that sits between the computer/console and the monitor/TV that cleans the video signal so it's not a hazard.

    Let's say that the cause of the problems is a change in brightness of x% ocurring between a and b Hz. Maybe the device could sense that and reduce the brightness, or even drop the framerate to below a or something.

    Maybe people don't know the exact parameters that cause a seizure, or maybe it would be too expensive... but maybe it would work.

  • It seems odd that your game had no warning. I don't believe that I've ever purchased a game that did not have a list of warnings including the possibility that the game may trigger epileptic attacks, and that you should break from the game at least once an hour. Where did you find this game?
  • ...on photosensitive epilepsy:

    http://www.epilepsy.org.uk/info/photo.html

    In summary:

    * The high flicker rate of CRTs means they present a very small risk to people with photosensitive epilepsy.
    * LCD and TFT screens do not flicker at all.
    * Increased brightness and sharpness of LCD and TFT screens may increase the risk to people with photosensitive epilepsy. This risk can be minimised by reducing the brightness of the screen.
    * Any material being displayed that contains flicker or repetiti
  • If you add too many lawyers, you start to need a bigger box for all the labels and disclaimers.

    As for the epileptic stuff, even if the game doesn't have flashing lights if your computer has a good enough vidcard, you can often do the equivalent by just moving fast enough - e.g. wiggling/moving the mouse so that you rapidly switch between a dark frame and then a light frame.

    Anyway, there are drugs to control this epilepsy stuff. If you don't want the drugs or want to cut it down (the drugs have side effect

  • A lot of negative feedback around here... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Werelock ( 558572 ) on Thursday February 05, 2004 @05:15PM (#8194289)

    First, I hope your kid gets better. As a gamer/nerd, I also watch out for what my kids play and I have to respect any parent that says they read the labels and buy accordingly. Kudos to you.

    Second, from reading over the posts, it sounds like you've done nothing wrong. You have the right hardware (PC with LCD using a digital and not analog video card), your kid had no seizure history, and you've been responsible in the titles purchased. While there may be no legal reparations possible (IANAL) the publisher and developers both deserve to know about this incident. It allows them to possibly make personal reparations to you and your family. It allows them to possibly look into their development, publishing, labeling policies. And being a PC game, it might also push them into the development of a patch for the game to reduce the intensity of that final level.

    Finally, I'd go ahead and post the name of the game here since this crowd is not likely to start a news jihad against the companies for this incident. And other people may have similar problems with that title, or other titles from the same developer. Useful knowledge to have for any letters you choose to write.

    Again, good luck to you and your kid, and kudos to you for taking some responsibility for your kid in this day-n-age when most parents think it's everyones' responsibility but theirs.

  • First, of course I hope your son is feeling better.

    Now, I can't help the uneasy feeling that you use weasel-speak in your description. A lot of things are worded in that subtle way to make a casual reader assume things that you don't actually say. Specifically :

    - You hint (without actually saying so) that you always check warnings on video games

    - You hint (without actually saying so) that the presence or absence of warnings is a major factor in your decision to purchase a game.

    - You hint (without ac

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