WARNING: 1 in 4000 may experience photosensitive seizures while playing this game

S

Seraphinianus

Banned
Game companies, namely Nintendo, seem to emphasize this warning, but I've never heard or seen anyone randomly go into a seizure from a game.

Just curious if anyone has had an experience or heard of someone who has gone into a seizure from a game. Even in years of reading about games online, I don't think I've heard of this happening, aside from hyperbole (i.e. "God Hand sends me into seizures when I'm completely kicking ass, then the last enemy in the section tears my shit up when I make a few complacent mistakes")

Not saying it doesn't happen, I'm just wondering if it's as big of a problem as the warnings would have one believe...it seems like a fine print thing more than a "make this one of the splash screens as soon as you turn on a game" thing.)
 
A cousin of mine had a seizure when playing some NES game way-back-when... But I cannot recall which title at the moment.
 
Its not some myth. Girl in my computer class in high school had one. She shot up in her chair, spine locked up like bow, eyes rolled into the back of her head, fell to the ground and tremored for a few seconds. Scary for the class.
 
Nintendo will always ALWAYS put that warning up after the whole Pokemon cartoon fiasco.
 
I've never known anyone that got a seizure from a videogame. I had a friend that got nausea from playing first person shooters but that's about it.
 
Luigi87 said:
A cousin of mine had a seizure when playing some NES game way-back-when... But I cannot recall which title at the moment.
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I can see that more than a modern game. Some Atari and NES games just had rudimentary flashes of light and color that seem like seizure material, while modern games are closer to action movies, which don't have these kinds of warnings.

what made me want to start the topic was REmake for gamecube...which is a series of static, dark shots. Even the action is pretty stationary and calm, even by action movie standards.
 
I feel like the warnings are only directed at people who know they are vulnerable to seizures. And I also feel that those people would already know that video games could be a trigger. Which leads me to be believe the warnings nothing but a legal precaution.
 
TTP said:
They do, legally.
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That's what I thought, but on the other hand, the PS3, PSP and (suprisingly) the 3DS don't show any warning. Is it really a legal requirement? Or maybe they wanted to avoid a hot coffee incident.
 
whitehawk said:
I feel like the warnings are only directed at people who know they are vulnerable to seizures. And I also feel that those people would already know that video games could be a trigger. Which leads me to be believe the warnings nothing but a legal precaution.
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I figured as much. A statistic of 1:4000 made me think that if it was this prevalent, we'd have more threads and concern about which games are more likely to trigger this than not. Like threads saying "Beware: Vanquish's graphics triggered a seizure in my friend" or something like that.
 
My brother has epilepsy and had a grand mal seizure while playing the Rat boss in Super Mario Bros. 2 for the NES. Probably the flashing from the bombs.

EDIT: Or maybe it was the SNES version? Can't remember.
 
Well, to be fair the warnings are there not because a lot (or too few) people have the problem, but because if they don't have said warnings everywhere, people are going to sue for whatever excuse they want to.

And people sue anyway.

From just a few days ago:
During better times John Ryan McLaughlin was a F-18 pilot for the U.S. Navy, until he experienced a grand mal seizure while playing The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. According to claims in a recent lawsuit filed at a Superior Court in the state of California, the seizure caused the pilot to sustain a closed fracture of, in more simpler terms, a joint in his shoulder, and rib pain. More concerning to McLaughlin though was the reaction of the Navy, who took away his wings.
The suit seeks relief from Bethesda Software, Zenimax Media, Sony Computer Entertainment America, Sony Computer Entertainment, and Sony Disc Manufacturing for damages relating to:

  • Negligence
  • Breach of Express and Implied Warranties
  • Strict Product Liability - Design Defect
  • Strict Product Liability - Manufacturing Defect
  • Strict Product Liability - Failure to Warn
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While what happed was sad, it just shows that people can sometimes get a condition at any time and then blame videogames for it too. Which is why they put those warnings.
 
Hugh Buelow said:
That's what I thought, but on the other hand, the PS3, PSP and (suprisingly) the 3DS don't show any warning. Is it really a legal requirement? Or maybe they wanted to avoid a hot coffee incident.
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Check the rear side of the cover page on any game manual. It's mentioned.
Unless we're talking about the actual in-game warning. I usually only see those with demos. :P
 
I believe a fighter pilot is suing Sony and Bethesda over the fact that Oblivion gave him seizures and the Navy took him of the cleared flight list.
 
DCUO has a bug that caused someone's friend to have a seizure. He posted it on the Sony forum. I should add that I'm not sure it's true but he sounded genuine. I had the bug myself and I can see why. It was crazy, the game gets corrupted and flashes this black screen very fast. Even I feel weird when I see it. Still hasn't been fixed to my knowledge.
 
fernoca said:
Well, to be fair the warnings are there not because a lot (or too few) people have the problem, but because if they don't have said warnings everywhere, people are going to sue for whatever excuse they want to.

And people sue anyway.

From just a few days ago:

While what happed was sad, it just shows that people can sometimes get a condition at any time and then blame videogames for it too. Which is why they put those warnings.
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yeah, contract law is another thing altogether. These warning are barely worth the paper/screens they're printed/displayed on :p
 
Hugh Buelow said:
You know what caused it?
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I don't have the official reason, doctors weren't 100% positive but it happened while in high school. I hadn't eaten much in the day, in class we were discussing the Rwandan genocide. I just remember at one point seeing a bright white light, then coming to on the ground as my body was shaking. I was totally fine after, though.
 
JVIDICAN said:
Check the rear side of the cover page on any game manual. It's mentioned.
Unless we're talking about the actual in-game warning. I usually only see those with demos. :P
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Yes, the on-screen warnings. As far as I can remember, I never saw a booklet without this warning.
 
ezekial45 said:
Wasn't there that one arcade game that got banned for giving people seizures?
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I remember Pokemon giving everyone seizures back in the day. It displayed 2 to 3 seconds of screen going blue and red and thousands of kids were lined up for emergency treatment in hospitals. It made it to news here in US.
 
If I remember correctly, a kid had a seizure playing a Nintendo game a few years back, and his mom sued. After that, Nintendo started putting those seizure warnings on all of their stuff.
 
I wonder about this, too.

Back in the old days, games like (seizure warning) this with flashing red and blue in the intro came out, I guess without incident.

Of course, the Pokemon fiasco caused people to add seizure warnings, but I feel like they've been increasing in recent years. I think it's a good thing - a seizure's always something to be mindful of, as they can be quite horrible.

On a related note, the flashing in Mario 3 (after collecting magic wands) and Zelda 1 (after collecting Triforce pieces) were edited out in the Virtual Console versions of those games. I kind of miss the flashing that was in old games. :(
 
There must be some difference between films and video games then, because hollywood has yet to do any of that Warning shit. If it's such a big "problem" why aren't more visual mediums doing it? Nintendo started doing it post-Pokemon just to cover their ass, and since then this industry just got fucking paranoid.
 
disappeared said:
There must be some difference between films and video games then, because hollywood has yet to do any of that Warning shit. If it's such a big "problem" why aren't more visual mediums doing it? Nintendo started doing it post-Pokemon just to cover their ass, and since then this industry just got fucking paranoid.
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You're the only one acting paranoid, movies aren't nearly as light flickering intensive as video games. That might be a different story with 3D movies, but I haven't looked into that yet.

It's true that old Nintendo games had ridiculous flashes (seconding/thirding Mario 3), they might not be enough to give people seizures, but it will definitely trigger a flinching reaction from people who are sensitive to it. Nowadays, I'd say developers do a good job of keeping it seizure-free for people.

That Joystiq article + comment section was sickening, though. They make epileptics seem like selfish people just because some people had to sue when a game had excessive flashing. With that being said, epileptics won't/shouldn't go to nightclubs or tranceparties or whateveryouwanttocallit and make a scene about the constant flickering lights which is a part of the atmosphere.

In short, extreme flickering really isn't necessary in a video game and it is good that developers put a warning, even though it might not be needed.
 
I once felt really disoriented after playing Amplitude for PlayStation 2 in a dark room. As long as I play it in a well-lit room, however, I'm fine.
 
Its just to cover their asses on the off chance someone does have a seizure while playing the game. Same deal as some medicines etc listing a million possible side effects.
 
I knew someone who would have seizures in the middle of playing a videogame. Crazy thing was he still continued to do it after ending up in the ER a couple times.

I would think if videogames caused me to have these issues I would just move on and find another hobby. Kinda sad to think about though.
 
I thought this was sort of crazy, but in Lord of the Rings Online a while back they added a character class that is basically a Sith Lord - they can zap people with lightning.

And when they do this attack, it's like a lightning flash across the screen (for everyone in the area).

And when it happens a lot, it gives me a headache (and makes me nauseous). Okay, hardly a seizure, or that big a deal, but it's the first time I've been physically affected by a game like that.

(And alas, all attempts to get a toggle to turn just this effect off have proven fruitless, though you can disable all combat effects, which I have to do)
 
Also I am surprised you don't see more warnings about motion sickness in FPS games. Seems to be a ton of people who complain about it.
 
Atomski said:
Also I am surprised you don't see more warnings about motion sickness in FPS games. Seems to be a ton of people who complain about it.
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Motion sickness is not life threatening and you have no chance of hurting yourself.

Is it?
 
Hugh Buelow said:
Motion sickness is not life threatening and you have no chance of hurting yourself.

Is it?
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If it makes you vomit you will have a chance of choking and if it makes you super dizzy you may fall and injure yourself. :P
 
whitehawk said:
I feel like the warnings are only directed at people who know they are vulnerable to seizures. And I also feel that those people would already know that video games could be a trigger. Which leads me to be believe the warnings nothing but a legal precaution.
Click to expand...

.
 
I've had seizures from games twice. Both instances were a couple of months apart about 14 years ago, and both were in similar situations to what the warnings describe: playing for a long time without a break, high excitement, inadequate sleep, little to eat - because they were on my birthday and Christmas :(

The hospital did a load of tests and confirmed that I wasn't epileptic, so it was a photosensitive reaction to the games. I was careful with games for a couple of years afterwards and still avoid playing if I'm really tired, but nothing has happened since.
 
EchoOneSix said:
If I remember correctly, a kid had a seizure playing a Nintendo game a few years back, and his mom sued. After that, Nintendo started putting those seizure warnings on all of their stuff.
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It was in the "outragous fortunes: nintendo" documentary which the BBC aired eons ago. But basically the game in question was Mega Man X and it was the background element of one the stages. I can not remember which one but I'd expect it to be toned down for the VC release...more on that in a bit. Anyway I think Nintendo were to blame thanks to Seal of Quality and they made the hardware capable outputting such things.

The documentary then looked at some recent Gamecube likes like MKDD and Zelda (they recorded footage and sent it somewhere which analysed it), I think they also did Mega Man X. They found MKDD could causes seisures due to some pattern on the ground (I wonder if this is caused by the game being made faster than it originally was after the E3 showing of "MKDD: you're too slow") but Zelda: The Wind Maker was perfeclty fine.
"Link played the song of flatulence" "Ganon smelt Link coming a mile off"

I can not remember the outcome of the court case but in any case since late 2004 (I want to save October/November) all Nintendo published Gamecube and GBA games had the warnning on boot while all systems after (DS and Wii) put it on boot up. Which surprises me people in this thread saying that the 3DS does not.

(off-topic mumbling)Especilly given the tabloid/public complaints surrounding the system of: "it give me teh headaches." "Have you tried using the slider?" "The sli-what now, nah thats too complicated. What do you mean its like wearing the wrong strength glasses, you saying I'm blind. Its a scam MONEY BACK NOW!". Which of course leads to a "that things too dangerous for my son, I can not get it. The Parental contr-what now, nah too complicated, thats your job".(end of off-topic mumbling)

Slavik81 said:
They do actually make a legal difference?
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Yes, they wouldn't go to the effort otherwise. While an EULA longer than the US consititution might be legally a moot point I think a few words on boot up is pretty simple. It tells you the basics and where to find more info. This makes me wonder what the takes 15 minutes break after 1 hour they used to print was based off. Its the equivilent of read the usage instruction before taking any medicine.

Why would you do that? said:
On a related note, the flashing in Mario 3 (after collecting magic wands) and Zelda 1 (after collecting Triforce pieces) were edited out in the Virtual Console versions of those games. I kind of miss the flashing that was in old games. :(
Click to expand...
This is a forgotten part of the VC. It isn't just stick a ROM into the emulator and presto. You've got to do a bit of ROM hacking to find the palettes and edit them to tone down the flashing effects. Plus change things concerning trademarks/copyrights (Yo-Yo in Star Tropics and Kawaski ads in Wave Race 64).
 
I was dating a girl that experienced a seizure while playing Star Ocean 2, and on her way home from the hospital, she had another one and fell down the stairs and died.
 
Hugh Buelow said:
That's what I thought, but on the other hand, the PS3, PSP and (suprisingly) the 3DS don't show any warning. Is it really a legal requirement? Or maybe they wanted to avoid a hot coffee incident.
Click to expand...

The warning on the 3DS has it's own app. It's not a legal requirement but it is seen as a preemptive measure to inform customers. Thing is, even with the warning a lot of epileptics don't know that they are affected until it happens.

Atomski said:
Also I am surprised you don't see more warnings about motion sickness in FPS games. Seems to be a ton of people who complain about it.
Click to expand...

But then they wouldn't be hardcore anymore, cause lets face it, only burly manly men can play fps games.



DarknessTear said:
I was dating a girl that experienced a seizure while playing Star Ocean 2, and on her way home from the hospital, she had another one and fell down the stairs and died.
Click to expand...

That's horrible. Sorry to hear that.
 
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