In the early days of console gaming, about 25% or so of all games made me nauseous, dizzy or gave me headaches to the point where I couldn’t play them. A prime example was Deus Ex: Invisible War. I enjoyed the game and wanted to continue playing it. But I couldn’t play for more than 15 minutes without becoming dizzy and nauseous. Ultimately, I had to abandon the game.
[Updated May 25, 2009. Added first person bobbing-while-walking factor.]
In the current (Xbox 360/PS3) console generation, the percentage of games that are unplayable due to nausea, headaches or dizziness has dropped dramatically to, perhaps, 5 to 10%.
For example, I couldn’t play the otherwise enjoyable Laura Croft: Tomb Raider Legend for more than 15 minutes without feeling ill.
Below, I identify three four factors that cause me dizziness, headaches and nausea when playing video games. I also list specific games that have made me sick.
I’d be interested in your thoughts – especially with respect to what might be behind the X-Factor discussed below.
Nausea Caused by Aggressive Camera Centering / Fighting
When a game gives me only partial control of the camera, especially when I need to fight the game for camera control, this makes me nauseous every time. Ironically, when a game takes total control of the camera from me, such as in God of War 2, I do not get nauseous.
The poster-child for this type of camera-control-fighting-induced nausea is the entire Resident Evil series. Not only does the game st0p you from moving your character wherever you wish (they are all ‘on rails’ games), the game aggressively fights the player for control of the camera by constantly pulling the camera back to the center every time the player looks hither or thither. Rumor has it that the forthcoming Resident Evil 5 might finally hand camera control to the player where it belongs. Surprisingly, this is controversial. I won’t be playing RE5 unless this problem is finally fixed. [Spring 2009 Update: The reviews for RE5 were so bad, I’m not even going to bother trying it.]
Each of the recent Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, Battlefield: Bad Company, Resistance Fall of Man, Grand Theft Auto IV (but only when driving) and Star Wars, Force Unleashed (but only while moving) games fought me over the camera somewhat. This resulted in mild dizziness. Happily the implementation of camera centering in each of these games wasn’t aggressive enough to cause me to abandon the games over the issue.
Nausea Caused by No Y-Axis Inversion Option
The first console-based video game I ever played was Pilot Wings, on the N-64. As a flying game, it naturally featured inverted Y-axis controls. A dozen years and a hundred or so games later, I have inverted the Y-axis on every console game I’ve played since.
If I can’t invert the y-axis I can’t play. Non-inverted game play makes me instantly nauseous. My brain is wired in such a way that when I pull the right stick back, my brain expects the camera to move up. When the camera goes the opposite way it is very disorienting.
There are very few games now-a-days that do not provide the inverted control option. Indeed, inverting the Y-axis is so common that the Xbox 360 can be set to automatically configure every game I play with the Y-axis inverted.
I was astonished to discover that Silent Hill: Homecoming does not allow players to invert the Y-axis for normal viewing (it does have a limited Y-inversion option for shooting when the gun is wielded). As I wrote here, the game was unplayable. I had to abandon it.
Dizziness Caused by First Person Bobbing While Walking
I first wrote this post in October 2008. In late May 2009 I played F.E.A.R. 2 and remembered another cause of dizziness – the screen bobbing while a character walks. In F.E.A.R. 2 and several other first-person video games, the screen bobs up and down as the character moves. The bobbing, I gather, corresponds with the cadence of the character’s walk. This doesn’t make me dizzy or nauseous as quickly as the other factors discussed in this post, but I can usually only play a game that does this for an hour or so before becoming dizzy. The game is not unplayable, but it has to be taken in light doses.
Nausea Caused by the X-Factor – Possibly Frame Rate
Finally, there is a class of game that makes me seriously dizzy or nauseous even when I have full control over the camera and the Y-axis is properly inverted (see list below).
I’ve never fully understood, absent the camera/Y-axis issues, why some games make me dizzy and nauseous while others do not. I’ve always assumed it was a frame-rate issue. I’d be keen for any of you to suggest other possible causes.
Whatever the reason, such was recently the case with Mercenaries 2. The game gave me complete camera control and I had happily inverted the Y-axis but it still made me nauseous to play.
List of Games Causing Dizziness / Nausea
Below is a list of games that have made me seriously dizzy or nauseous. I also list the underlying game engine in parenthesis. Note how many games are built on versions of the Unreal and id Tech engines. I intend to expand the list over time as I remember them:
PC:
- Half Life 2 (Valve’s Source Engine): Enjoyed it so much I pushed through about 80% it. But, to this day, just the sounds of that game (the gravity gun in particular) make me woozy.
Original Xbox:
- Brothers in Arms: Earned Blood (Unreal Engine 2)
- Brute Force (?): Finished it anyways given how hyped it was – didn’t really enjoy it much
- Deus Ex: Invisible War (heavily modified Unreal Engine 2)
- Doom 3 (id Tech 4): Finished the game anyway – holding my cookies the whole way)
- Psi-Ops (Unreal Engine 2)
- Return to Castle Wolvenstein (id Tech 3): Finished it anyway but wasn’t that good.
- TimeSplitters: Future Perfect (??)
- Unreal Championship (Unreal Engine 2): Couldn’t play for more than 5 minutes at a time.
Xbox 360:
- F.E.A.R. 2 – (Valve’s Source Engine): First person bobbing while walking issue
- Half-Life 2 – Episodes 1 and 2 (Valve’s Source Engine)
- King Kong (Ubisoft’s Jade engine): Bad game – pushed through just for the easy achievements
- Laura Croft: Tomb Raider Legend (Crystal Dynamics Proprietary): I enjoyed it so much I pushed through about 40% of it before I had to stop because I couldn’t take it any more.
- Mercenaries 2 (EA proprietary)
- Perfect Dark Zero (Havok’s HyrdaCore): Thank goodness the game was horrible – I didn’t miss much
- Quake 4 (id Tech 4): Abysmal game.
- Prey (modified id Tech 4): Also pushed through about 75% despite extreme dizziness.
PS3:
(Note, the numbers are fewer here because, if given a choice, I play the 360 version of a game. Each platform is an equal opportunity nausea causer.)
- The Darkness (Starbreeze Engine)
- Resistance Fall of Man (Insomniac Engine): Caused only mild nausea. I was not nauseous when I played its sequel. I note that it’s sequel, Resistance 2, did not make me dizzy or nauseous.
- Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune (Naughty Dog Proprietary) – Best PS3 game yet!
Conclusion
Thankfully, better graphics, higher frame rates and the abandonment of nausea-inducing camera controller techniques is making gamer illness increasingly a thing of the past. Unfortunately, as the recent games Silent Hill: Homecoming and Mercenaries 2: World in Flames have shown, we still have a way to go.
If I get woozy, like you it can last for hours after putting the game down. I don't think my sickiness lasts beyond that day though. But the longer I play feeling woozy, the longer that feeling will stick around after I put it down.
Wow! I can't believe how many people suffer with this!
I've been having problems with Guitar Hero III and World Tour, both on PC and Nintendo Wii. Even if I play for only 5 minutes the head spin comes on. Sometimes straight away other times it may take up to half an hour from the time I finish. It seems that the longer I play, the longer it takes to come on but the harder it hits.
I'm deffo trying those ginger pills!
Hi,
I suffered from the same illness, basically any game where the background moves at a rapid past, if I control the camera movement by not moving it around too much that makes it better but usually takes all the fun out of the game.
I'm relegated to a short list of games which for years was fine with me, because all I played was Madden, DMC, MSG. Well the last MSG changed a lot and I can no loner play that series. It just stinks because some of the games which come out I'm in love with but I simply can't play and yes I break out into a cold sweat and I usually don't feel well for the rest of the day. I guess we're in a minority as the majority of games seem to continue to come out with rapid camera/background movement.
Lucky for me the true Beauty, you know the console savers Like DMC and God of War having slower background. You think there would be more, I expecially love the artwork on some of these games.
I've never played Halo as I've always chaked it up to a first person shooter which woudl make me sick but hearing this I really want to give it try.
With all of these reported problems, you think Video Game company would produce more games which didn't make folks so nausea.
If I'm reading between the lines, you are saying you don't get sick playing fighting games when the camera is pulled way up high and looking down on the characters Kwadi? DMC = Devil May Cry? I'm not sure what MSG is, other than an ingredient in chinese food. 😉
That's interesting. I've certainly never got sick from that kind of game either. But fast moving backgrounds don't usually get me sick either.
Dale,
Thanks for posting this. It is very helpful to know that other people experience the same symptoms. I do believe the x-factor is related to the refresh rate of the monitor/frame rate of the game. I used to play PC games on various monitors and the problem sometimes went away if the monitor refresh rate was 75 hz instead of 60hz.
I had a really nasty experience with Halo3 ODST on the XBOX 360 so I was wondering if anyone else had problems with that game?
Very interesting discussion you've got here. I've been playing videogames for several decades now and my only frustration comes with the FPS genre, as most of the games in that category trigger nausea, dizziness or vertigo for me, resulting in me abandoning those games.
Funny you should mention Resident Evil, since I love that series, but I never had problems with RE1 to RE3, mainly because I think those titles had 3D characters on pre-rendered, static backgrounds. I started having problems with RE4, since everything, including the backgrounds, were in full 3D. RE5 is worse, and I can only play it in 15-30 minute increments, which just sucks.
The Grand Theft Auto series for the PS2 also induce motion sickness after playing for about 10 minutes or so. However, I'm happy to say that I have no problems whatsoever playing the GTA games on a PSP, which makes me wonder–is it the size of the screen or the distance of the screen to your eyes?
Other PS2 games that made me really dizzy include the first Kingdom Hearts game, and Katamari Damacy. I have astigmatism, wear glasses, and get dizzy when I try to read inside a moving vehicle, except in an airplane.
Funny, our shooter/RE experiences are inverted. I got motion sickness when reading on a moving vehicle when I was a child but don't any more as an adult.
You raise an interesting point about vision. I have monocular vision, meaning my eyes don't work together – one is dominant, the other just follows the other around. I wonder if that has anything to do with the types of games that make me sick?
…Dale
I too suffer nausea from playing video games and I know of one other person who became nauseated after playing video games on one of my consoles. GTA IV has recently begun to affect me in this way. Also of particular interest, I bought a small HD Flourescent light suitable for reading and looking at it gave me a headache and nausea.
Hi,
I just wanted to reconfirm what has been said concerning Half Life 2 supposedly causing motion sickness. I just bought it last week for my Ps3 and I can't play it longer than an hour or so without feeling utterly sick.
In fact, there is no other game I can think of right now that triggers similiar symptoms as fast and drastically as Half Life 2 does to the point where it makes me want to vomit!
Having said that , it's undoubtedly a great game nonetheless but these symptoms still ruin much of the expirience for me I'm afraid. It's just such a turn off!
And btw I've been playing games for almost 20 years on a constant basis without feeling bad.
I'm no expert but my best guess would be that it might be due to the framerate and/or the camera movement!?!
Oh and I never got nausea from other fps like Black, Bioshock , Halo or the Prime series for example!?!
puzzling indeed!
I can play Halo 3 for hours as well
but I can only play Call of Duty for small amounts of time without getting sick.
I don't understand why though.
Hi, I've had this problem all my life as well. I've found that putting a film (two layers or so of seran wrap or the like) to dull the pixels have done wonders for me. Also, those wrap around glasses that you see old people wearing when they drive also works well, but I always feel foolish wearing them.
I've done some research on visual acquity and game indused sickness and I was wondering if you'd be so kind to leave a response. For everyone who has this problem with gamer's sickness, do you have unusally keen observational skills. I think it might have something to do with a strange genetic trait of seeing every pixel which causes the brain to become ill with overload.
So basically, if you get sick like this, do you have very good observational skills. I personally wear glasses, but can find Waldo quicker than anyone I've ever met.
A friend of mine recommended that I wear sunglasses while I play. He said it helps him. I'm going to give it a shot.
I'm pretty good at finding Waldo but I wouldn't know how to measure my observational skills.
At work I'm a Quality Control guy. I have to look over text and video and make sure there are no weird problems. My coworkers all say I have a very good eye for catching stuff. And I do get simulation sickness from a few games. So perhaps you're onto something.
Is that all Call of Duty versions Tony. The earlier Call of Duty versions (ie: CoD 2) would make me mildly queasy, but the latest one's both Modern Warfares, I can play all the way through without any sickness. Again, I chaulk this up to the evolution of the graphics/gaming engines.
Interesting theory Cos. I wouldn't say my ability to find Waldo is any faster or slower than most. But I do know I'm much better at finding patterns than others. For example, I'm often commenting to friends that this person on the TV looks like someone else we know. They usually smile and agree, having not recognized it themselves. I also have a pretty high IQ. I'm also a very visual person. I learn much more by diagrams, visual aids, drawing pictures than from hearing or reading text for example.
Why not just turn down the brightness of the TV if putting a film or two helps. Also most modern games allow you to turn down the brightness in the game itself. Not sure what Seran Wrap would do to change how things look.
I'm curious to see what others think of this theory. But this would be hard to test scientifically. Most people would think they are smarter, keener than most – especially gamers where being keen and having superior attention to detail leads to success in games.
Thanks for the page. I get similar problems… just nearly got ill playing Lego Batman on XBox 360.
World at War was too much for me.
Modern Warfare 2 is much better for some reason but I can't play too long.
I still get dizzy after about an hour and a half which is a good amount of game time anyway.
Here's my list of sickies: Half-Life2 and Bioshock (both almost instant nausea), Tomb Raider Underworld (creeping nausea), and only recently Fallout 3 (creeping nausea). I play PS3 with 47″ LCD.
Fallout 3 is a favorite, and until just recently i could play it for hours and hours with no ill-effects, but the past few times i've tried playing it made me mildly nauseous. I've played all of the GTA titles since GTA3 with no problems. I play COD4 and CODMW2 to the extreme, and they don't bother me at all. Oblivion, MGS4, Little Big Planet, all fine.
One note: after suffering almost instantaneous nausea from HalfLife2, I did some browsing and found a Valve website that mentioned that HL2 used a constricted field-of-view, something like 15 degrees less than the standard 90 degree FOV in most games, in order to INTENTIONALLY create an unnerving sensation for the player. Seems they felt that the narrower FOV would add to the somewhat creepy ambience of the game and improve the overall game experience. Makes me wonder if tricks like these are common with other horror / creepy action type game titles, and if maybe some game developers have taken this idea too far.
Wow, that's a really cool new piece of the puzzle. I never thought of it. Half-Life 2 is certainly amongst the worst of the worst for me too. Though I had no problem with Bioshock. I'll certainly keep that in mind in the future.
I should also note that I've been playing Uncharted 2: Honor Among Thieves over the last month or so and am NOT getting nauseous like I did with Uncharted 1: Drake's Fortune
@Dale, same here! Uncharted 1 made me sick, but not Uncharted 2.
hey guys there is alot of reading to do but i dont have enough time to read them all
if u guys can help me out i'd be happy (:
when i play gun games i get huge headaches and my tummy feels weird too sometimes ;s do u guys know what i could do? or things to help me play longer? or whats wrong with me?
thanks in advance!
please email me cookiies_andre@hotmail.com
thanks alot!
Andre, the only suggestion that works for some is Dramamine. Unfortunately for most of us if a game makes us nauseous there is very little that can be done other than not playing it. Or taking lots of extended breaks.
i know not much we can do but i read from a site
“Your body can get used to it after repeated sessions (a pattern of playing and getting sick, stopping, and then restarting later when you feel better until you stop getting sick entirely) when your brain finally realizes that what you are seeing and doing isn’t actually harming you. That process of getting used to it can take a while and isn’t pleasant, however. “
http://xbox.about.com/od/buyersguide/a/vgmosick…
that is a link to it for more info
do u think that would work? playing and then stoping then playing?
Generally if a game makes me feel sick, it tends to increase the more i play, not get better. I find that the symptoms also tend to hit me faster after the game has made me ill once, so that it becomes increasingly more difficult to stomach a bad game. Just my experience, FWIW.
hey ofc every1 is intitled to there own opinion we are here trying to help each other so we can play all the games and enjoy them saddly there is some u and i and many others cannot enjoy ;3 tho yesterday i played call of duty mw 2 for a good 2 hours (i was really tired it was at night) and went well 🙂 so im gonna try again tonight i think i gotta get my mind tired so it's lazy to imagine im the guy and not feeling the pain lmfao!
keep posting people!!
I agree guest2 … the more I play a game that makes me feel sick the worse it gets. And the 2nd and 3rd times I try it gets worst faster. Just sounds alone from a game will get associated with nausea and just hearing the sound start to make me sick – even when not playing the game.
Hi Dale,
I just noticed yesterday that my son is actually developing a lazy eye, or a crossed eye after long episodes of gaming. Over the weekend he might game 8 to 10 hrs a day. I know that's too much but he excels at school and it's his most enjoyable down time. He does get in a bad mood from some games but hasn't really been getting sick.
I first noticed the crossed eye a few months ago but just thought he was over tired. He noticed it himself yesterday when he looked in the mirror. Very upset.
He's going to scale back to an hour a day after a few days of recovery first. He is a gamer though, but I think those days may be coming to an end. It is definetly causing an eye problem, strain, or something. But it isn't worth it. I'll be taking him to the doctor too.
He does get sick reading while traveling and I can only look at his games a few minutes before I get motion sick. I can't watch. Time to change. It is his favorite thing and the games are great rewards for great work at school. Thanks so much for this sight and your input.
What do you think?
concerned
I am not a parent but to me letting a child play more than an hour or two in a day seems excessive. Children can get addicted to games. Parents need to set limits. As someone with a life-long lazy eye, I'm not sure that a video game will cause it. It exists. When I'm tired my lazy eye gets worse. I've had my lazy eye for 45 years – long before video games were around. You should definitely get him to an eye doctor and cut down on that video game playing. There's more to life.
Wow. I've just come across this post when I did a bit of Googling about nausea and video games. And here's me thinking that I was a bit weird for feeling sick after playing certain games.
I've just dug out Spyro for the Playstation (felt like having a trip down memory lane) and after 20 minutes play I actually vomited. Not pleasant! I remember having episodes of nausea when playing this when I was a teenager but not after just 20 minutes. I've had to take my anti-nausea meds and feel pretty crappy.
Half Life on the PC is also a killer. I remember playing the majority of Half Life 2 in one day and being ill for about 2 days. It's put me off playing games of this genre, which sucks. I do suffer from bad travel sickness (cars, coaches, buses) so always thought it was connected to this. I've never had problems with the Tomb Raider or GTA series (thankfully, I love GTA). Nice to know I'm not the only one!
Eek! Actually vomiting from a video game. I've never had that happen. I've stopped long before it got that far. Getting dizzy or nauseous is very common. You/we are definitely not alone! 🙂
I couldn't play Eat Lead or Left 4 Dead. Got extremely nauseous and it lasted for 2 days. Also couldn't play Avatar because like Eat lead, the camera centers off to one side.
I also get carsick from playing FPS which is why I have not interest in HAlo. I have found that Killzone 2 tends to give me a headache so I try and play for 20-45 min at a time. I will try inverting the Y axis and see if that helps. I read somewhere that this sickness is due to the brain and the inner ear. Basically the brain thinks that your body is moving with the character in the game but gets confuse when it realize your not actually moving the picture on the screen is.
I googled “video game induced vertigo” and found your blog. I find that I get vertigo during and after playing Modern Warfare 2. The next day even after I play I get vertigo. So you are not alone
Hi there!
I just googled this topic and found your commentary.
I am one of the unfortunate sufferers of this problem as well. I LOVE gaming, and I CAN play my games on my PC. For some reason, I can NOT play games (ANY GAMES) on the XBox 360 without becoming very ill. It starts with a headache and quickly changes to nausea with headache and then I become physically sick.
Its HORRIBLE! I bought a Special Edition Resident Evil XBox 360 before discovering this. I tried motion sickness pills, ginger pills, wrist bands, EVERYTHING!
The ginger pills worked the best, but I found that I had to wait about half an hour for the ginger to get into my system to work. That made it impossible for me to say, “Hey, I've got some time, I think I'll play XBox!” No spontaneity allowed!
Well, I ended up giving my XBox to my son, (he's happy!), so the only games I can play are on my PC. And NONE of them make me sick o.O
Why would this be the case? Why can I play PC games, but not console games?
ETA: Forgot to say that the PC games that I CAN play are Oblivion and Morrowind, Dead Space, F.E.A.R. 1 and 2, etc, All games that I am convinced would make me sick on the XBox
XBox games that made me sick: Call Of Duty IV, Bioshock, Left 4 Dead, Resident Evil (All of them), etc.
If anyone else suffers from this and can play on PC without a problem like me, I think we need to start a group to encourage game companies to continue to produce PC versions of their games!
Please Email me at didadragonfly@yahoo.ca
What other games have you played on the 360 Dida? As you can see from my original article Resident Evil also made me sick on the 360 as well as a dozen other games. But there are many dozens more that don't. Also, older games are more likely to make me nauseous than newer ones. Have you played newer games? All the PC games you listed below (Oblivion, Morrowind, Dead Space, FEAR 1 and 2) are all available on the Xbox 360 too. Have you tried playing any of these on the Xbox to compare PC to Xbox head-to-head.
I find it very hard to imagine that its the Xbox per-se. For me, I'll get equally nausous playing Half-Life 2 on the PC as I do on the Xbox, but many, many other games do not make me sick.
…Dale
I don't think you mentioned one source of dizziness. It is a real problem in the original xbox game Black. It has to do with zooming. Some games instantly switch to scoped view and back again, which is fine. This type of zooming does not cause dizziness. But in original xbox Black shooter game, they actually show the gradual transition from normally view to zoomed view and back again. The thing that really makes me dizzy is the unzoom transition, which distorts everything in a backwards direction. Yuck. Another thing they did, which is quite amazingly poor judgement on their part: When you reload, everything is out of focus except the reloading of the gun. When I play the game I get nauseous.
Hey Jerry, I think you are on to something!
I don't recall the game, but I remember playing a shooter where if you were using the sniper rifle, if you were zoomed and you reloaded, the game automatically zoomed you out during the reload and zoomed you back in after the reload finished. This always made me nauseous. I would have preferred no zoom change at all, or just leave it at the zoom out, but the double zoom over the course of a second or two always churned my stomach!
…Dale
I find that Modern Warfare 2 and Bad Company 2 will both make me ill. I can still play for hours but it I can have a nasty headache later. Breaks help but other than that I don't get motion sickness ever. I ha e noticed that when I play I have a tendency to try to follow the camera more than it moves. I do know that my peripheral vision is highly tuned from years of drill practice. I do notice slight offsets in color on my TV and I know the backlight wavelength of florescents isn't good for your eyes either. So maybe one of the new TV's that includes Yellow and has LCD Backlight might be easier on the eyes and at least reduce some of the visual stress. Getting closer or maybe even adding blinders (such as the wrap around glasses comment earlier) might help.
Hi I found this page by typing in 'fable shaky camera' into google. Like you some games gave me headaches and some didn't. I am quite prone to headaches anyway due to tiredness, hot sun, stress etc. Quake3 I could play endlessly. HL and HL2 I can play for half an hour to an hour before getting a headache. Same with Portal, same engine.
Does anyone remember a game that came out a few years ago where you could run up the walls and across the ceiling? you were in some alien spaceship with weird gravity settings. It actually made me dizzy, so i returned it within the 14 day period and got a refund.
I just bought Fable on Ebay and tried it, i can't play it for 2 minutes without getting a headache. Its all to do with the camera, during the cutscenes i'm totally fine but when controlling the avatar, its really bad. I worked out its probably 2 things: One is the head-bob you get when strafing left or right. The other is lack of direct mounselook control. When you move the mouse, the character turns at its own rate a split second later. What that means is that I don't have control over the rate of movement with my mouse. That feeling as the camera accelerates and turns and then slows down is really nauseating. Just thinking about it is sickening. Its the first time i've experienced something like this in a FPS.
I know its got nothing to do with detail, res and hertz because I first played it on default setting then cranked everything up to max.
I think i need to have control over acceleration of movement.
The only game I have ever gotten really sick feeling after playing is Far Cry 2. I have played it on ps3 and on pc and either way I feel like I am going to puke after 10 to 15 minutes. Its pretty bad, every single time I play it.
I am more than a casual gamer and experience all the symptoms with some games or the other. It seems to be a problem related to the individual. Like some people get sick when reading in a moving vehicle (like me). My problems are with games that have rapidly moving cameras in different directions. This can be games which changes view all the time (like devil may cry) or a game which allows me to control the camera 100% and i constantly rotate it all over the place to view areas rapidly (as i would in reality) – this is why i get ill when playing GTA4 or Darksiders – and some games like Arkham asylum also give problems when i rapidly change camera angles. Games like god of war and fifa (where all action takes place in the same steady locations) are perfectly fine and i can play for hours.
so i think it is a case of how your brain interprets the rapid motion in relation to your actual state – similar to reading in a moving vehicle where you are physically moving at one rate and your eyes are moving at a different rate while focuses in a specific general are. In gaming the screen in taking your eyes everywhere at rapid speeds but you are stationary. However, if the speed is in a constant direction (like in driving games) than there is no problem – this is why i have no problem travelling a super speeds in burnout – another factor here may be is that although my environment is changing – my focal point (my car) is in one place thus allowing my brain and eyes to have a relative frame of reference.
This has been a real problem with my gaming experience and i avoid certain games cos it is not healthy. I heard that if it is constantly experienced and we persist with it, it could lead to problems such as epilepsy etc. SO i avoid it. Thankfully my two fave games, god of war and fifa are problem free. but then again, this could be the converse of my theory where instead of regressing with the problem and getting worse, my brain actually adapted to the game and rendered it problem-free.
Solution: either give up the game to avoid potential problems or play the game in short bursts until it isnt a problem anymore.
Another factor i forgot about is gaming conditions – never play in complete darkness, when hungry, or tired as these factors contribute to feeling ill.
I am more than a casual gamer and experience all the symptoms with some games or the other. It seems to be a problem related to the individual. Like some people get sick when reading in a moving vehicle (like me). My problems are with games that have rapidly moving cameras in different directions. This can be games which changes view all the time (like devil may cry) or a game which allows me to control the camera 100% and i constantly rotate it all over the place to view areas rapidly (as i would in reality) – this is why i get ill when playing GTA4 or Darksiders – and some games like Arkham asylum also give problems when i rapidly change camera angles. Games like god of war and fifa (where all action takes place in the same steady locations) are perfectly fine and i can play for hours. nnso i think it is a case of how your brain interprets the rapid motion in relation to your actual state – similar to reading in a moving vehicle where you are physically moving at one rate and your eyes are moving at a different rate while focuses in a specific general are. In gaming the screen in taking your eyes everywhere at rapid speeds but you are stationary. However, if the speed is in a constant direction (like in driving games) than there is no problem – this is why i have no problem travelling a super speeds in burnout – another factor here may be is that although my environment is changing – my focal point (my car) is in one place thus allowing my brain and eyes to have a relative frame of reference. nnThis has been a real problem with my gaming experience and i avoid certain games cos it is not healthy. I heard that if it is constantly experienced and we persist with it, it could lead to problems such as epilepsy etc. SO i avoid it. Thankfully my two fave games, god of war and fifa are problem free. but then again, this could be the converse of my theory where instead of regressing with the problem and getting worse, my brain actually adapted to the game and rendered it problem-free. nnSolution: either give up the game to avoid potential problems or play the game in short bursts until it isnt a problem anymore. nnAnother factor i forgot about is gaming conditions – never play in complete darkness, when hungry, or tired as these factors contribute to feeling ill.
Alister, the game you are referring to is/was Prey. It’s on my list above and it made me very sick too! I never tried Fable 2 as I didn’t much like Fable 1 – not my kind of game. Head bob is definitely a killer for me. Funny how you say “just thinking about it is sickening”. The same is true for me. I just think of the game Prey and I instantly remember how it felt playing it and I start feeling it. 🙂 I do think herz and res can have an affect on gaming. I’m certainly feeling less nauseous since I moved to a high-def plasma screen from the old CRT I used to have.
Ha! Far Cry made me sick too. I’m not a PC gamer, though that is one game I did play on the PC for as long as I could stand it, which wasn’t long. nnIt uses the Crytek CryENGINE. I should add this to the list above when I get a chance.
Your camera nausea is the exact opposite of mine Nivesh. The more control I have over the camera, the faster I can move it to where I want it to go, the less nausea I feel. The more the game controls the camera or limits my ability to move it the sicker I feel.nnThere is no game I could ever play and get used-to-it as you suggest by playing in short bursts. No amount of starting or stopping or short interval play ever cured me. A game that makes me sick always makes me sick.nnDarkness, hunger or fatigue have never made me nauseous. But, playing at the end of the day can get me very ‘riled up’ so that when I try to sleep after and I’m still buzzing from the game it can take a very long time to ‘calm down’ and fall asleep. A glass of wine helps! 🙂