UK Games May Begin Mandatory Epilepsy Testing

Rayman Raving Rabbids DS caused a 10-year-old boy’s first epileptic seizure. Since then his mother, Gaye Herford, has been campaigning for a UK ban upon epileptic seizure-inducing games. Today she has been successful in getting the House of Commons to sign a motion addressing manufacturers to screen games for content that could cause epileptic fits. But a law could follow requiring content testing before commercial sale, just as the UK already tests film and television. Meanwhile Ubisoft has since agreed to prescreen content more vigorously. From Ubisoft UK managing director Rob Cooper:

Our immediate response to Gaye Herford was to not just take note but to take up her case. Testing of the original Rayman Raving Rabbids Nintendo DS game showed that no images posed a high risk for photosensitivity epilepsy….However, we took the view that different people can react in different ways and made a decision to prescreen and pretest all Ubisoft in-house developed games regardless of platform, prior to publication.

Nobody wants trouble here, Ms. Herford. Please back away from the courts, slowly…

Mother strikes a blow against epilepsy risk of computer games [via pocketgamer]