Getting motion sickness while playing videogames affects a lot of people, yet it seems almost like a taboo to talk about among gamers because you might not be seen as "hardcore" since you can't play certain things. I'm here to change that. Gears of War makes me want to puke, and I want everyone to know! In this article, I share some of my personal experiences with what games make me sick, what game mechanics cause the problem, and what you can do if you also suffer from motion sickness.
Videogame Motion Sickness - What Causes It And What You Can Do About It
Please read the article, and if you have any other theories about what causes your videogame motion sickness, or have any other ideas about how to prevent it, please e-mail me or leave a comment on the blog. The more people that share and the more theories we can put together, then the more people we can potentially help.
3/19/08 Update - I have put a couple of different motion sickness treatments to the test, and updated the article. Medications such as Dramamine, Bonine, Meclizine and Benadryl work, but they all make you drowsy which surely isn't what a gamer would want. Ginger pills work surprisingly well. Special wristbands called "Sea Bands" that pressure on a nerve in your wrist that sends the motion sickness signals to your brain also work spectacularly well. I wore the wristbands and took a ginger pill before I started playing Condemned 2: Bloodshot, and even though I could kind of feel that uneasy "motion sickness" feeling deep down, it never got to the point where it was too uncomfortable for me to keep playing. So I'd consider that a successful test run.
Comments
Eric,
Great article! I am a heavy FPS gamer and I don’t get sick at all. Playing Guitar Hero III on the other hand is a bit harder. Not during the game, in fact it doesn’t make me sway until the song stops! It just makes me dizzy, I never associatred it with motion sickness. I suppose they are synonomous, but one sounds easily overcome and the other makes it seems like you have a problem. I suppose that if there was a study done then they would find that players of FPS games have a much faster response rate and improved hand eye coordination. I used to play so long that only the t.v. image would be visible while everything surrounding it looked like it does when you shut your eyes and see those left over images of light floating through the air. Has this ever happened to you?
Thanks for the comment. I do know what you’re saying about Guitar Hero. It doesn’t make me dizzy or anything, but if I try to look at a computer screen afterwards it seems like all of the words are moving around. The way you can make that feeling go away is if you just look at a blank wall for a minute or so to sort of “reset” your eyes.
Eric
I get horribly sick on loads of games. FPSs are the biggest offenders, as they are for most people. However, I can’t even play the original Doom without getting sick! It sucks because I would actually quite like to play some of them.
I also can’t play Shin Megami Tensei, either the old first person dungeon ones or the new third person ones on the PS2. I’m fairly sure that with the new ones that it’s the slightly blurred and stylized graphics that get me.
The biggest offender for me, though, is the Spyro the Dragon series. It gets to me so badly that I feel awful until I go to bed and sleep it off.
I can’t say for certain what causes it most of the time, though. First person is a big one, probably because I appear to be moving and yet I’m not. But I have no idea what it is with Spyro. Maybe something about little purple dragons triggers the nausea and headaches?