Support NeoGAF

[NotMyUsername]

I had a seizure once when I was sixteen, ten years ago, that had absolutely nothing to do with gaming (natural low blood pressure mixed with an asthma medication cut oxygen to my brain, or so it was figured by the doctors I saw) but I have to admit having seen all those warnings about games and flashing lights causing seizures made me cautious for awhile following that. But aside from maybe feeling a little dizzy after some crazy sequences I've never felt anything remotely close to a seizure playing anything.

If anything I think the warnings just make people more worried and more likely to believe that a game is having an adverse reaction than it really is. Not that I'm saying they won't affect a small portion of the population (1:4000?) but it's like when you're told that your coworkers are sick and suddenly you feel like you've got a cold.

 

[frankie_baby]

Didn't some kid die after a seizure caused by Mario Kart on the snes, or is that just an urban myth?

 

[big_z]

Didn't some kid die after a seizure caused by Mario Kart on the snes, or is that just an urban myth?

it was mario kart 7.9 that the kid had a seizure with. the parents knew the kid was very prone to seizures and that games triggered them in the past but let him play anyway. later they tried to sue nintendo for millions saying they didnt know nintendo games would do that and that the warning in the manual wasnt visible enough. if i remember correctly the family lost but now to avoid more lawsuits from dumbasses we have the warning screen.


the only thing i get in games is vertigo when dropping from high up. although not all games give me the effect for some reason. i felt it in silent hill 2 when the dude was jumping down the holes and recently in portal 2.

EDIT: the kid didnt die.

 

[Grampa Simpson]

This thread is probably about as statistically likely to give you a seizure as a video game. Stupid 60hz display.

 

[DryvBy]

I wish they'd have these warnings with flashing colors in the background.

 

[Monocle]

Obviously what we need to do is get 4000 GAFers in a single room to watch a game that has one of those warnings. For science.

 

[Grampa Simpson]

Obviously what we need to do is get 4000 GAFers in a single room to watch a game that has one of those warnings. For science.

Would be like herding cats.

 

[Diortem7]

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.

The same thing happened in my computer class in junior high.

 

[Grinchy]

for a reason...

http://www.joystiq.com/2008/07/22/rumor-wipeout-hd-held-up-by-epilepsy-tests/

Brilliant...an article about a game causing seizures that's written IN BLINKING FUCKING TEXT. I'm sure it's a joke, it's just annoying.


Also, I had a seizure once when I was drunk, and my friend and I turned in this weird box ride way too fast at night (all the lights from the park where whizzing by for minutes). Never an issue from games.

 

[UnluckyKate]

Sometimes, when I play WipEout fors several hours, I'm glad I don't seize.

 

[HBroward]

I had a weird experience while watching my friend play Hook on the Sega CD when I was a child. I was at my friends house watching him play, and I blacked out. I woke up the next morning with partial amnesia (very temporary thankfully). Supposedly I didn't actually "black out" but I had started refering to him with the wrong name and his parents walked me home because they were worried. When I woke up the next day, The last memory I had was watching him play the second level of Hook. I didn't know where I was or what day it was or other common questions. After visiting several neurologists, no one could identify anything wrong, and thankfully, despite heavily gaming my entire life since then, the incident has never been repeated.

 

[Monocle]

Would be like herding cats.

Free pizza would be provided, of course.

 

[Jocchan]

Obviously what we need to do is get 4000 GAFers in a single room to watch a game that has one of those warnings. For science.

We could also release a deadly neurotoxin, and not check the results.

 

[Monocle]

We could also release a deadly neurotoxin, and not check the results.

Sounds sciencey enough to me. Let's do this thing.

 

[EvilMario]

It happened to Shepard, it could happen to you.

Spoiler

This shit is not made up, people definitely suffer from photogenic seizures more than people realise

 

[plagiarize]

i can't help but feel that the star ocean 2 story would have made the news, and that if that had happened to my girlfriend, that i wouldn't have written it so that the death sounded like a punchline.

 

[Grampa Simpson]

Free pizza would be provided, of course.

And cheetos? Please tell me that there will be cheetos!

 

[midonnay]

hehehe, the pokemon strobing effect makes me feel funny... @_@

 

[daegan]

A friend once had a seizure when I blew up a capital ship in Colony Wars

 

[Red]

I've never had a seizure from playing games, but have seized once before while working on very little sleep. Flashing lights in games do however give me terrible headaches, fatigue, and cause me to feel lightheaded. Does this happen to anyone else?

 

[Seraphinianus]

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.

maybe it's something about the display of movies vs. games. i dunno.


it sounds like this does happen, but the prominence of the warnings is more of a Nintendo paranoia thing. We should sue them for something weird and see if we can get a strange warning put into their games. like "WARNING: Phenylkotonurics: This game contains images of phenylaline"