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Deleted member 46948

Account closed at user request
Banned
Aug 22, 2018
8,852
I'll definitely be cautious playing this, I'm not even epileptic myself (that I know of, anyway), but I did feel nauseous in the past while consuming certain media.
Umbrella Academy season 2 ep 9 has an incredibly uncomfortable scene that I'm still baffled did not come with a seizure warning.
 

Palette Swap

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
11,212
As much as I want to dunk on Cyberpunk and CDPR, I doubt this is on purpose, too.
It's just sloppy and maybe tries to be edgy and cool without ever stopping to think, which, honestly, seems to sum up many things about the game in general.
Yeah, Hanlon's razor applies.
That they're negligent is already really reprehensible anyway, so intent is immaterial, honestly.
 

Terbinator

Member
Oct 29, 2017
10,252
I'll definitely be cautious playing this, I'm not even epileptic myself (that I know of, anyway), but I did feel nauseous in the past while consuming certain media.
Umbrella Academy season 2 ep 9 has an incredibly uncomfortable scene that I'm still baffled did not come with a seizure warning.
I watched EP1 of Mandalorian over the weekend and there is a blacksmith scene where each hammer blow is a flashback which nearly sent me in to a spin and I'm not photosensitive at all.
 

L Thammy

Spacenoid
Member
Oct 25, 2017
50,044
Intentional or not doesn't really matter. How the hell does something like this make it through?
I suppose that if it turns out that you don't give a shit about minorities being actively harmed with by your game, it turns out that you probably didn't think about a subset of people who might be harmed by your game.
 

AGoodODST

Member
Oct 28, 2017
2,480
Surely unfortunate. but i am not sure that they intended to cause seizures in people. how should they test this, get some people suffering from epilepsy and let them play the game or what?

besides that, back in the days, Kid Icarus on the NES caused epileptic seizures. and warnings were nowhere to be read.


They are developers. It's their job to make sure stuff they include in their game is safe.

I don't think citing Kid Icarus on NES as an example is especially relevant to 2020 come on.
 

Tovarisc

Member
Oct 25, 2017
24,431
FIN
What about all the people who'll buy the physical version and not use online or download the patch? They need to be helped too.

It's good if patch adds splash screen warning, but ideally patch would alter flickers that need to stay and remove filler ones to minimize risk of an episode from them.

Edit: derp me :| Offline people who never patch are screwed, yeah.

It's pretty crazy they even put it in a promotional gameplay video.

It's apparently pretty central part of the game as feature (braindance that is) so it makes them to market it. As someone who doesn't have epilepsy I really didn't think about it as it didn't come across as that intense, unlike in some games and movies with very intense flickering.

But yeah, they need to patch that.
 
Last edited:

Deleted member 36578

Dec 21, 2017
26,561

It starts at 50 seconds
Mod Edit: Added spoiler tags

Hard for me to tell exactly what part it is. But I'm glad this thread is here to warn everyone about it.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Jun 20, 2018
1,269
I hope that is patched out ASAP. The vast majority of people will play this without reading any kind of news, previews or reviews and not see any warning.
 

SirDante

Alt-Account
Banned
Sep 20, 2020
972
The hell did this make this into the game??? Surely it's not a coincidence. This crap needs to be patched, honestly. Scary.
 

laoni

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,721
Thats what I thought at first but then the article describes them as white and red so I dunno.

There are flashing red lights on the sides of the device

EDIT: Screenshot before the flashing

wq38utl.png
 

Deleted member 36578

Dec 21, 2017
26,561
There are flashing red lights on the sides of the device

EDIT: Screenshot before the flashing

wq38utl.png
Got it. I see where they are now. I've seen a lot of different video games have seizure warning screens so I'm pretty surprised this one doesn't.
 

bob100

Member
Oct 29, 2017
1,726
Seems like people who are prone to seizure due to flashing lights should be careful playing Cyberpunk 2077. It even includes a certain flashing light pattern very close to a pattern doctors use to trigger seizure on purpose. Be warned.

www.gameinformer.com

Cyberpunk 2077 Epileptic PSA

For those excited about Cyberpunk 2077 but are vulnerable to epileptic episodes, here are a few things you need to know.


WTF why on purpose?

This is beyond messed up. Why would they think this is ok?
 

12ozbeehouse

Member
May 16, 2018
144
Most come with a very generic one, yeah.

But taking something that almost straight lifts a sequence used for triggering seizures in real diagnostic spaces...you should probably be very specific/make it much more prominent
You should probably just go ahead and not include this kind of imagery in your game. because it's ableist AF. No warning covers how irresponsible this is.
 

Jokab

Banned
Oct 28, 2017
875
Does anybody have links to what kind of patterns doctors use to trigger epilepsy? I wanted to compare how close the pattern in the video is. I tried googling but didn't find much and the OP piece doesn't cite anything.
 

thepenguin55

Member
Oct 28, 2017
11,815
I think this sort of thing would be ok include IF it's a well labeled option that's off by default that includes all kinds of warnings about turning it on. But to just include these sort of visual effects by default without any warning is fucked. If not for some of the other stuff related to the devs surrounding this game I would be willing to give the devs the benefit of the doubt but they don't really deserve the benefit of the doubt at this point.
 
Oct 30, 2017
764
This seems like a particularly bad example of it, but seizure inducing problems are pretty common in gaming in overall and more ought to be done to counteract it. I don't know what kind of controls and testing are done, but basic safety guidelines should exist for this if they don't already. You can't expect developers to know all of this independently unless you set guidelines, communicate, and enforce them.
 

Falore

Banned
Feb 15, 2019
745
Reports like this make me nervous. I've never had a seizure in my life but sometimes I cant help but wonder "do i wanna test my luck... could this be the first???"
 

Deleted member 29682

User requested account closure
Banned
Nov 1, 2017
12,290
This seems like a particularly bad example of it, but seizure inducing problems are pretty common in gaming in overall and more ought to be done to counteract it. I don't know what kind of controls and testing are done, but basic safety guidelines should exist for this if they don't already. You can't expect developers to know all of this independently unless you set guidelines, communicate, and enforce them.

Budi mentioned this in his post earlier, there are guidelines but seemingly no repercussions for not abiding by them:

Great that this is discussed, devs really should avoid stuff like this whenever they can. Or atleast offer options to turn off some of these effects, like Stardew Valley in example does with it's lightning effect. I don't think people really understand how common problem this is with games though. Playing Knights & Bikes last year with an epileptic friend made me incredibly anxious, because the game makes these transitions with sudden incredibly bright white screens. Everytime got me thinking if it's potentially bad for her. And honestly I got bit angry at the devs for doing the transitions this way. Was still great fun to play the game with her.

Some ERA darlings are guilty of this too, but it just has never(?) been brought up before here. https://videogameseizures.wordpress.com/2018/02/15/seizures-from-2017s-best-video-games/

Maybe this controversy helps people pay more attention to and care about this issue in the future.

2017-best-games-chart-new-yorker2.png
 

Last_colossi

The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
4,256
Australia
Is there an option in settings to disable strong flashing sequences like the "suit up" one? cause ugh, if not then WHAT THE FUCK CDPR?!?!?
 

Samiya

Alt Account
Banned
Nov 30, 2019
4,811
There's an entire sequence in that film that, frankly, people should be put in jail for. There's not a single case of epilepsy in my entire extended family and even I felt uncomfortable.

They really don't care beyond maybe enforcing those generic-ass warning screens.

I shouldn't have looked up this scene, I already feel sick. I can't believe going to a movie theater and see that scene on a silver screen.

Disney or Pixar or whoever should've gotten some sort of punishment or compensation for putting in a seizure-inducing scene in a fucking kids movie.
 

aronmayo

Member
Jul 29, 2020
1,803
This is an issue in like majority of action video games that exist. It's not new to Cyberpunk 2077. Anyone with epilepsy will know that almost every game has a warning up front to make players aware. Doesn't mean more shouldn't be done to allow players to avoid it.
 

daegan

#REFANTAZIO SWEEP
Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,899
I'm really thankful I saw this thread - I am not epileptic afaik but I don't want to find out that changed by playing this game. God. It seems easy enough to fix and I hope they do quickly.
 

Alek

Games User Researcher
Verified
Oct 28, 2017
8,471
Well I'm sure this wasn't done on purpose or without care for people with epilepsy but you would have thought this would have been picked up fairly easily in QA? surely they have people with all manor or neurological/visual issues test their games, right?

Most certainly not. 99% of games do not. If there happens to be someone with x disability in QA then that's a bonus but it's not deliberate that they're putting the game in front of those people to test.

Also I think it's okay to make games that feature content like this, you just need...

A) warnings
B) options to turn the flashing features off

I will probably get a migraine from this sequence in Cyberpunk, but not a seizure.
 

BlueKaty

Member
Nov 30, 2020
274
This is just another example that games need to have better accessibility options. I don't remember the name but I have played a game before that allowed you to disable flashing lights if you suffer from epilepsy or if you just don't like them. This should be a common option for every game, modes for color blindness and full customization of controls too. I mean imagine a game that has voice acting but no subtitles.It would be unplayable for a lot of people.
 

Scottoest

Member
Feb 4, 2020
11,356
Yep. Maybe I missed the part about no warnings in game...are there warnings? If not then that's a really dangerous oversight.

Do games not legally have to have those warnings?

At any rate, it seems like it would be simple enough to patch in a mode that simply doesn't have the lights flash on this machine. In a game with so much flashing neon shit everywhere though (especially at night), I have to imagine a game like this is a nightmare for people who deal with seizures. If the game is easily moddable, perhaps players will quickly pick up the torch and do it for them.

I assume this is just a coincidental oversight they didn't consider (like a lot of games that fail seizure standards, including a bunch of Nintendo's critical darlings), but it's definitely an egregious oversight simply because the game actively flashes lights at you.
 

Phellps

Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,810
There's an entire sequence in that film that, frankly, people should be put in jail for. There's not a single case of epilepsy in my entire extended family and even I felt uncomfortable.

They really don't care beyond maybe enforcing those generic-ass warning screens.
I remember feeling really uncomfortable during that scene, and watched it at the theater, so it was also pitch dark, which only heightened the effect. I actually looked away at one point.

It's the kind of negative reaction that is very easy to notice and conclude it's not a pleasant experience to the viewer. I can't imagine playtesters never played this game in the dark during these scenes. Then again, I'm starting to wonder if this game even was playtested much. This is sounding more and more like Oversight: The Game.
 

R1CHO

Member
Oct 28, 2017
751
This is from the trailer however many months ago, I wonder how this is only coming to light now?

On the youtube video it dosnt look nothing out of the ordinary, at least for people without sensibility problems.

In any case, they should patch it out, dosnt really add that much to the experience.
 

DarkPrince

Member
Dec 2, 2017
1,055
Why am I excited to get to this and see how it affects me? :p I'm sure they will patch it before I get the chance though.