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Seizure-Inducing DS Game May Change Testing Laws in UK
Posted by Brian Crecente at 1:00 AM on June 13, 2008
The British Parliament plan to debate whether video games should be safety-tested for causing photo sensitive epileptic seizures, the Bristol Evening Post reports.
The debate comes after Dentist Gaye Herford spent a year trying to bring the plight of her son to the attention of Parliament after he suffered a seizure while playing Rayman: Raving Rabbids on this DS.
The paper reports that Ubisoft has already agreed to voluntarily test its games through a screening process.
Herford discovered her 10-year-old son with his eyes glazed over and twitching uncontrollably in an epileptic fit in May 2007.
If the campaign leads to new legislation, the UK will be the first country in the world to set such high safety standards for video games, the paper reports. Television and film programs are already tested.
MUM'S NINTENDO EPILEPSY BATTLE [The Evening Post]
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:
