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Mother launches attack on epilepsy inducing video games

Wants safety checks

Videogame developers may be forced to cut scenes from their offerings if tests show they could cause epileptic seizures, if a British mother's campaign for a change in the law is successful.

Somerset dentist Gaye Herford launched the campaign after her ten-year-old son suffered a seizure while playing Rayman Raving Rabbids on his Nintendo DS.

She's hoping to persuade parliament to introduce a law making it illegal for publishers to release a game without first testing them for sequences that could trigger epileptic attacks, such as strobe lighting.

While TV programmes and films must already be screened for such triggers, no such tests are mandated for video games.

Ubisoft, developer of Rayman Raving Rabbids, has now voluntarily chosen to test all its games.

Some 35 MPs are already thought to be backing the campaign, which was yesterday presented before the House of Commons as an Early Day Motion.

Latest Comments

Not Black & White

As a few posters have mentioned already, it's not as easy as turning off the epileptic seizure sections in the game. For one there are many types of ways that one can get a seizure, not to mention that some are more sensitive than others.

And it's not as simple as testing the game and removing the sections that probably will cause them still doesn't guarantee that it won't cause seizures anymore. There's always the possibility that the game will cause a seizure because of an abnormality in coding.

I rather see a rating system that judges the possibility of a seizure. There's some definite things that will cause a seizure, so the company can base their scale on that.

But in all reality, those who know they have it, or a family history of it, are smart enough to know that they are taking a risk every time they play a game. They can't blame the company because no one forces them to play the game in the first place.

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Im gonna murder every last one of you.

Manhunt and an illegally downloaded version of Manhunt 2 has made me into a mindless violent thug because i have no will or personality of my own. I am also under the legal purchasing age, but my mum bought me it, so she will no doubt have a lot to say about the evil developer that made me the monster i am. To top it all my hamster had a siezure and thats pretty much pushed me over the edge. Now. If you could all kindly post me your details, i'll get round to each of you in turn. It's societies fault and you lot are society.

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Anonymous Coward

Barrier to entry

It sounds all nice and fluffy, but this kind of thing will mean that only large developers with a substantial test team (Will they have to hire a range of epileptics?) will be able to afford it.

Expect a big "Yes" from EA et all and an "Oh Sh!t" from the likes of Bohemia Interactive who clearly don't have any test team at all..

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Are these people bloody stupid?

Like everyone has said all games have a disclaimer sheet with them as standard and Nintendo/Sega were the first dev's to actually produce them in the first place!

What kind of dumbass parent provides a games console to their kid if they know they have epilepsy anyway? what's she getting him for Christmas a Strobe and a free weekend pass to a rave?

Parents' here is a great idea!

Stop buying stuff for your kids if you are not going to investigate it first, it is your own darmn fault

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LOL

I'm epileptic. I know that if I play a video game, watch TV, go to the cinema, go to a club, go anywhere in fact - I may have seizure. Just how it is.

I had my first seizure in the back of a car when I was young. Passing a slat fence at high speed where a carpark was on the other side. Glare of the windscreens flashing into my eyes triggered it. Do I want to have a go at the people who put up the fence ? Parked their cars? Made the windows of the cars ? No. I'm not an utter twat.

If you have a condition, disability, injury, illness, whatever, you take it into mind EVERY time you do something. To not look out for yourself is stupid.

However - if she didn't know her son was epileptic and this was the first seizure;

a - Be greatful you found out this way rather than others have said.

b - Learn from it - Maybe don't let your kid sit playing computer games as much on shitty handheld bits of crap ? I had a DS and they are a bag of wank tbh.

The warnings are there. For those few things they aren't on, use common sense. I wouldn't sit in front of a strobe and set it off, have a fit and then start trying to ban/change strobes because it didn't have a warning on it. It's common sense - if it's a screen, TV, monitor, projector, source of light - it may induce a seizure.

We all have a "first fit", we learn from it and usually thank Jebus that it wasn't whilst doing something dangerous.

No-one or thing is to blame. 'cept maybe evolution.

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