You know what's funny about this? There was a warning right when you turn on the Wii about the possibility of flashing lights and crap. Just another excuse to hide bad parenting if you ask me.

Firstly A)Don't all games offer atleast 1 bit of warning (every mannual I've read has it on it's front page) and B) What about TV shows? Arn't they more dangerous in inducing fits?

Taken from the wiki article above:
TV Section
"Television has traditionally been the most common source of seizures in PSE"

Games article
"While computer displays in general present very little risk of producing seizures in PSE patients (much less risk than that presented by television sets)......"

so wouldn't it be smart to help reduce cases from the most common source, then go for the rarer cases.

I just opened the manual to GTA for the PS1, and guess what I found? A warning that says a small percentage of people may experience epileptic seizures when exposed to certain light patterns or flashing lights. I guess that warning isn't enough for some people.

What will the criteria be for what causes an epileptic seizure. Will they randomly test people and see if anyone has a seizure while the game is going? If so, isn't that causing unnecessary harm? What percentage of people have to have a seizure to the game before its considered dangerous? Just one out of a million or a larger percentage? Questions like this need to be answered, because it can quickly go into the realm that every game is too dangerous because of epileptic seizures.

I will take MPs like this seriously when they are also willing to ban all the OTHER things that can hurt a small percentage of children.

Let's start with, say, peanuts. Since some children are deathly allergic to these evil little nuts, no one anywhere should be allowed to have them or use them in baking. I mean, someone might make a cookie of doom!

@ Scottland89

Very true, they should be going after the TV more, but the thing about that is that they have the POWER. They can put out any crap they want, as long as they bleep or blur a few choice items, and it dont matter what people think, since theyll just change the channel and find something else. The TV has much, much more power than video games, a media form that constantly stops or rewrites production the moment signs of AO appear. Also, people dont just "change the channel" with video games and ignore whats going on in that other game, like they can with TV, so they decide to take action in a case that doesnt happen often, since its harder to ignore something that's so weak to outside pressure. Worst part is that this is going to set precedent. Although im for checking to make sure games are safe for usage, isnt it kinda odd that a kid with PES was playing a game that is clearly gonna be doing stuff with flashing lights and strobes considering "Raving", a word referring to raves that generally are crazy s***, is in the freakin title? So, i guess its a lil' bit the parents and producers fault, but just because you make a gun, are you responsible for its usage in murder? (I like that metaphor)

Thinkofthechildren!

I don't know what to be more shocked at. The fact that no-one from the industry has stood up and said that we've had epilepsy warnings in game manuals already, or the fact that so many MP's are backing this!

omg. Check the first page of any game manual. I can remember seeing those type of warnings for years.

Someone needs to test the water at the parliment building.

Wow, another alarmist movement from the UK. What is happening over there, guys? First Gran Turismo was responsible for reckless driving in teenage male demographics, then Manhunt, now this?

You know, if I ever go to parlament and find a single flourescent light bulb in use there, I reserve the right to pulp it and feed it to this jackoff. Games be evil for epilepsy my ass. It's actually safer than your light bulbs. Unless it's Gungrave... then yeah, it's a hazard.

But I like my Super Seizure Robots.

"Isn't it kinda odd that a kid with PES was playing a game that is clearly gonna be doing stuff with flashing lights and strobes considering “Raving”, a word referring to raves that generally are crazy s***, is in the freakin title?"

That's the part that absolutely floors me. The kids playing one of the most dangerous (from a PES standpoint) games and him mom wants to pass the buck to the game makers rather than herself and now she's got politicians backing her.... color me not too terribly sympathetic.

MP John Pemrose's stance on this is nothing short of superstitious. It is based on minimal information and a total lack of understanding the statistics. Okay, here's the deal: if you are prone to photo-sensitive epilepsy, you adjust your life by removing the triggers as much as possible. If you are unaware of the condition, there is absolutely no reason to avoid any sort of possible triggers. You can only be diagnosed epileptic by inducing a seizure to prove it. In those rare cases on undiagnosed epilepsy, it only benefits you to find out, because it's very likely it will be an uncontrolled enivronment when it is first uncovered. Let me see, living room versus night driving? I'll take the living room, please.

Pemrose is trying to scare us for no good reason!

Whatever happened to personal responsibility? I'm not saying the mother or the child caused the seizure, but Ubisoft is not responsible in my book. For two reasons. One, just about anything can trigger an epileptic seizure. Two, there have been warnings printed in game manuals for years. If she wasn't aware of this, it’s her failing.

Has she even asked a doctor about video games and her child's condition? I know I'm asking for a lot there...

Fountains and showers have been known to induce seizures too. Ban them

the warning is on the system and on the back of the game the problem here is with the parenting cause if you let your kids play for that long you are most deffinatly not paying attention to your kids

mummy please read the lables clearly stated on the Wii and on the game container and be a real parent apposed to ‘Mummy, stop these lights and flashes please’

Yes arowe87 i'm sure the shop would allow parents to open up the games and read the manual, and there is no warnings on the box in all the Wii games i own.

@neoelasticman

I have seizures. And ya know what? You don’t TALK when you’re seizing.

Might have been post seizure. My buddy has frequent and short seizures, most lasting just long enough for you to think he spaced out, and then he's back, with a headache, looking like he'd just seen a ghost. No spasms beyond a twitch, sometimes he'll just sit there for 30 seconds, not moving. Very rarely does he do the stereotypical "spasm and flop about"...

She might have been blurring the event, thinking he was talking during, instead of immediately after...

Freaked out parent who has never seen her child seizure before? I can see her getting confused.

But safety testing is pointless. Photosensitive epileptics can be set off by stuff like venetian blinds, rotating fans, or flashing xmas lights. As others said, better she found out now her kid was epileptic, rather than when he's riding his bike down a busy street or something.

While this IS a better issue than violence... it's one that's addressed numerous times before a game is even put in the disc slot.

Multiple times in the manuals, right when the systems turn on, sometimes on a screen before the intro sequence OF the game, etc... it's only an issue if you either don't give a crap or you're illiterate.

I wonder did the British government demand that the makers of the Pokemon show get rid of all seizure inducing effects out of their show. Or how about making this easier and say any TV or movie? Most likely this is just another case of video game bigotry again since someone needs to fill Jack Thompson shoes.


/rantoff

@Trevor McGee

But then again even if they weren’t common sense, I’m pretty sure these examples I’ve written out are in the manual and probably even more to add to that.

At a quick check of a couple manuals, yes they are, though the only thing they add is to take a 15 minute break per hour of play.

My wife has asked me to make a statement on her behalf.

'I suffer from epilepsy, that's an illness I have, I was not 'given' epilepsy by the movies I watched, it is simply my bodies reaction to stimuli. Please don't make out the epilepsy sufferers somehow bought it on themselves by consuming the media. We were not 'poisoned'.'

@asswhopper225.43659886546*

You have issues...

Don't all Nintendo games have a warning about that on the case?

@Bones

I'm sure if people got home and read about the seizure warnings the game publisher would gladly give them a refund.

Or people could realize all games have the warning and have for a while (hence my PS1 example), and be cautious to begin with. Ignorance of warnings is not an excuse to blame what caused the seizure.

@Sam,

I agree, if nothing else, there should be an option in the configuration menu to turn off flashing light effects or something of that ilk.

So I read the article there, I read the article here, and now I'm reading over the comments here. I'm confused. Let me see if I understand this right:

This takes place in Britain where a kid suffers a seizure while playing an Ubisoft game. Some politician jumps forward to show how awesome he is, proposing that video games be tested more stringently so as to be safer*. Other politicians get on board to show they're awesome, too. Ubisoft, deciding this bandwagon is totally cool (maybe even awesome), comes along for the ride.

I fail to see how this is a bad thing.

Now, I see the spin and I see what Penrose did there. I also see--read, rather, in the comments here--that apparently the stated goal* is impossible to reach. On the other hand, I don't see where this negatively effects gaming and gamers. I don't see the censorship and I don't see Ubisoft getting sued. Jack Thompson is nowhere to be found, and besides, we still have him on our side of the pond. I do see a little industry-blaming, sure--mostly from Our Penrose. I guess I see a potential increase in the time of production and cost of games, as I assume more testing will cost both time and money.

On the other hand, politicians aren't the only ones who get to posture here. Game companies have the chance to do some PR work here, get some positive publicity. Cuz, you know. We all care about the childruns.

Then there's the sliver of potential to actually, y'know, make games safer--I know, I know. It's totally impossible. You folks know better than I, and anyway I'm a frightful optimist. But people have been making the impossible possible for some time now and I don't expect them to stop.

Yeah frankly I don't see this as a big problem. It'd be perfectly acceptable for the government to step in and even test some of the games themselves if they so desire, for potential to cause seizures, I would have a problem if the government started banning games based on that, but they could require an extra little warning say "If you have certain forms of epilepsy be cautious of this game," or "If you have certain forms of epilepsy do not play this game" depending on whether the game has a higher potential of causing seizures. This issue is very different from the game violence issue as there is no evidence for a causal relationship between media and real-world violence, the government therefore has no right to step in, in the case of a relationship between certain types light and epileptic seizures, there's conclusive evidence for a causal relationship that can be proved experimentally and explained physiologically. As for the fact that there's a double standard being created between TV and games, well yeah what'd you expect? Of course there is a double standard and it's disgusting. That being said, some degree of government action in this area is by no means trampling anyone's civil liberties, fits well within set precedent for government regulation, and could even be beneficial for general public, so frankly even if they don't hold television to the same standard (or a higher standard if the posts about TV having an inherently higher potential to trigger seizures is true) that doesn't mean that doesn't mean it shouldn't step in in this area at all. I will say more than likely this issue will be dealt with probably by the developers themselves, as they already have with the multitude of warnings, and government action will probably be unnecessary, however if the government does regulate video games I'd rather it be for this reason and in this manner than the bogus reasons of protecting the public good from media violence.

@ Father Time

It's ironic that you quoted Mark Twain. Some of his works have fallen under the censorship hammer- such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which uses the N-word more than 200 times.

Best point ever...

/quote

Let’s start with, say, peanuts. Since some children are deathly allergic to these evil little nuts, no one anywhere should be allowed to have them or use them in baking. I mean, someone might make a cookie of doom!

/end

Living is a risk. We should stop all children from living because otherwise they might die...

Besides, the only way they test for this is to expose a person to the game to try and create seizures and not every seizure inducer will work for every person who does experience seizures... Doesn't that, by definition, contradict workplace health and safety, willfully exposing a person to known unsafe conditions?

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills here... They are just video games. The core component which is fundamentally flawed is the human being playing them, that is where 99.99% of the problems stem.

@ Nightwing

Yeah, I'm not. California is nowhere near the US, didn't you know? -.-
But yeah, what's living without a little risk? I'd rather be entertained than bored.

Ofcom (the Office of Communications) have guidelines in place for television and movies which must be adhered to before something can be shown on a public screen.

Their guidelines are easily accessible online.
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/Broadcasting_code/broadcasting_c...

I suspect this "little" bit of information is "conveniently" left out of Game Politics reporting to inflame you on two fronts:

A) To make you think games are being unfairly treated
B) To make the UK look inferior to the "glorious" USA

I suggest that in future you take it upon yourselves to go beyond GPs hatchet job it passes off as news stories, and actually seek the deeper truth behind these stories, or risk appearing like a "Bunch Of Morons", a term which has been frequently ascribed to readers of GP.

@Funky J

With or without that bit of information, the response is the same. The game industry has had warning about seizures out with its games for 20 years now. To suddenly to pressuring them over the issue is just plain stupid.

Further more, kindly take your conspiracy theory crap elsewhere. I highly doubt that Dennis has any interest in making the UK look "inferior", or in trying to make us think that games are being treated unfairly. Assuming that he actually knew about the code for broadcasting, he likely just decided it wasn't relevant as the MPs are comparing this to the laws for toy safety, not the laws for TV and movies. Which probably has something to do with games not being public broadcasts, but private entertainment.

@ben

I am well aware that people tried to censor his books. Although they tried to get rid of them for ethics concerns not for health concerns.

Alright while there shouldn't be images that induce seizures in children. The way the guy delivers this proposition makes it sound like a pandemic, to alarmist I say.

"I suspect this “little” bit of information is “conveniently” left out of Game Politics reporting to inflame you on two fronts:

A) To make you think games are being unfairly treated
B) To make the UK look inferior to the “glorious” USA

I suggest that in future you take it upon yourselves to go beyond GPs hatchet job it passes off as news stories, and actually seek the deeper truth behind these stories, or risk appearing like a “Bunch Of Morons”, a term which has been frequently ascribed to readers of GP. "

There's no reason to believe there's actually a grander cause for allowing such things happen. In other words, stop with the conspiracy theories. They make people think too hard.

@FunkyJ

I doubt that GP is trying to inflame us or make the UK look bad. If you read the article they don't give any opinion on whether they think this legislation is good or bad. As for the Ofcom regulations do you honestly think they left out this information on purpose or is it possible that maybe an American run website isn't that well informed on the intricacies of the UK's broadcast laws.

Just wanted to add, if her son fell over and complained of flashing lights in front of his eyes, I wouldn't be thinking epilepsy, I'd be thinking 'Stop leaping around the room with the damn Wii controller then'. Chances are he just made himself dizzy.

end so ends the age of visually stimulating video games! people should stop blaming other people for stupid actions that they do. take responsibility for your own actions there is a warning every time you start the game. pay attention people.

Wait a minute it says that in the manual oh and theres such thing as common sense

I think a general warning and some limited screening is a reasonable amount of safety. I mean its common knowledge that games can induce seizures and I think parents should be aware that if their children are going to play games, seizures are a possibility.