Who is Responsible for Advice Labels on Games?

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?"

Comments

Re:Mandatory? Don't think so.

[MachDelta]

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. ;)

Unpredictable

[vaguelyamused]

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.

Re:How on earth does that happen?

[HickNinja]

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.

Re:Irresponsible

[AccUser]

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.