Friday, December 7th 2007
Concerned Mother Begins Legal Battle on Epilepsy-Inducing Video Games
More and more often, lately, the phrase "it's all fun and games until someone gets hurt" is holding itself true. When one 10 year old boy suffered a seizure in the middle of a game of Rayman Raving Rabbids, his mother didn't let her child become just another statistic. Instead, she's started a legal campaign to prevent more seizures like this in the future. If she succeeds, no game released in the United Kingdom can be played until the game is screened for scenes that might cause an epileptic seizure. While this screening is already required for movies, it has not happened for video games as of yet. As consolation to the boy and his family, Ubisoft is currently testing Rayman Raving Rabbids for said seizure-causing instances. Game manufacturers may deem these methods unnecessary, considering that most games and consoles come with a seizure warning on the box or in the manual.
Source:
Reg Hardware
50 Comments on Concerned Mother Begins Legal Battle on Epilepsy-Inducing Video Games
I would commend her if she had read the box warnings before letting her child play the game, thats what a good parent would do:toast:
"WARNING. Read instruction manual for information about photosensitive seizures and other important safety and health information."
Simple as that, just from the back of a game sitting next to my desk.
Here at Disney in Orlando, 4 or 5 have died while riding Mission To Space since it opened. Autopsy usually revels heart defect, etc.
Is the ride any good? Does it feel real?
Were going to have to glue you back together in HELL" thats a clever way to hide an audio message
This reminds me of the pre-order boxes we have in our stores. We have people kick off because they can't get it then and there, when it quite clearly states "Pre-order today!"...
"oh yeah...I didn't read that"...morons.
Seriously, just be glad you discovered that your child has seizures while he was in the safety of your living room instead of while driving down a country road.
Secondly, is every parent going to ensure that every person/child who uses the game (i.e. your kids friends) are not epileptic? Would anyone enjoy watching visitor to their house have a fit? Are all your games kept locked away?
These problems are resolvable with not that much effort. These days, I think "effort" should be more than simply putting a warning notice on the box.
In support of what Bundy mentioned; if you have a visitor child, or your child goes to another person's home, and there's no proper supervision, and no care or concern is taken to your child's epilepsy, then bad things could happen.
With how saturated society is with virtual gaming, it wouldn't be difficult for a child to get in a situation, where they do not protect themselves against a seizure.
There's absolutley no good reason why game products cannot be screened/tested. Game companies are ridiculously rich, and with all the horrible products they release to us year after year, they owe it to us as a gaming community (some of which have children) and as a society, to do something worthy with their money; as it sure as hell isn't being spent on making decent products.
This is just another one of those situations where some dumb-ass has never taken the time to read the licensing agreement printed at the back of EVERY GAME OWNER'S MANUAL.
My response: Chalk it up to experience, lady.
If nothing else, she should be thanking the game company for finding a way to let her know that her child has a condition.
if erotic thoughts made me have seizures, i'd stop looking at porn - if flashing lights give me problems, i give up video games. its quite simple... stop suing people, take some meds, and play something in the RW
:roll: ;)