If you're anything like me, you'll spend a few hours of each day rounding children with epilepsy up and sitting them in front of a strobe light until they start to resemble screaming, crying vibrators. The British government, however, doesn't seem to find epileptic fits quite so amusing and has put pressure on game developers to screen their games for images and effects that could cause them.
Conservative MP John Penrose submitted the motion in Parliament and has been backed by dozens of his fellow slimeballs ... um ... politicians. The motion followed the case a 10-year-old boy who suffered from seizures thanks to playing Rayman: Raving Rabbids. It wasn't just the Rabbids who were raving that day.
Penrose wants "to take action, now, to change the law so no more young lives are affected by seizures triggered by electronic video games." Thing is, while that's noble and all, these products have very clear warning labels on them. Once again, who is the person who was meant to be looking after this kid and didn't bother paying heed to such warnings? Of course, it's never anything to do with the parents, apparently.
Ubisoft has agreed to screen all its games in the future, but I honestly feel that games are being singled out yet again. It's not that game companies shouldn't be avoiding these kinds of problematic images if they can, but trying to put political pressure on them is ridiculous, and it should be a developer's right to put in gigantic strobe lighting effects if it so wishes, provided there are suitable warnings. A GamePolitics commenter pointed out that that single biggest cause of epileptic seizures isn't even videogames -- but television. Now, let's see the government try and ban that in the name of savin' the chilluns.
Contest:
10:44 AM on 12.06.2007
| 
uh seriously...what's the bitch about? If you don't have time to make sure whatever room your child is in lights up brightly, isn't swinging their WIIMOTE so close to the tv, and actually give a damn to read the box and manual, such things shouldn't happen....or at least be blamed all on games.
Seriously, about 98% of the time someone blames games first, it's usually the parent's fault rather than the game.
Dear fellow D-Toiders,
I have devised a plan to deal with this "Parliament", but I'm going to require your help. We should meet next year in London, I know a perfect place underground where nobody will ever look. We will gather sometime in say....early November, maybe the 4th if that's cool with everyone. With our help, all of England shall overcome these tyrant anti-epileptics and bring back our Cathol....er, Other People.
Sincerely,
Mann Wolfe
This is stupid. Worry about actual issues
I knew someone who had a seizure while working in MS Word. Is that next on the table to be targeted?
I think the 5th would be a better date, Guy Fawkes and all.
*facepalm*
That was the entire joke of my post. Did you not get that with the signature "Mann Wolfe", an obvious poke at Guy Fawkes.
- Guy = Man
- Wolf...is close to Fox (or the exact opposite if you're talking Starfox)
And the joke was that we would meet on the fourth and bomb on the fifth. And the "Cathol..." was a reference to the motivation behind the Gunpowder plot.
You know, my jokes are a lot funnier when I don't explain them....or maybe not. Whatever
I was in a gamestore a few weeks back and I saw this woman with an 8/9 yo kid, he wanted to buy Doom³ but the store clerk was like "You sure about this miss? I mean its not really a kidfriendly game..." and she starts almost yelling about him not having the right to comment on her way of educating her kid an all that and that those 'Ratings' are not even real... the "18+" just means that its really good according to her reasoning... wanna bet she will be complaining about the violence in games soon too???
How could they think that!? Nonsense!
Also, I have yet to play a game that doesn't have an epilepsy warning in the inside of the manual. Lern2read, brits.
poems about love