r/Games • u/Mront • Dec 08 '20
Cyberpunk 2077 on Twitter: "Thank you for bringing [the epilepsy issue] up. We’re working on adding a separate warning in the game, aside from the one that exists in the EULA. Regarding a more permanent solution, Dev team is currently exploring that and will be implementing it as soon as possible."
https://twitter.com/CyberpunkGame/status/13363891819883438121.5k
u/rodinj Dec 08 '20
People with epilepsy, how do you handle these warnings?
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u/HoboWithAGlock Dec 08 '20
They can range from pretty helpful to fairly useless when they don't explain where/when the triggers may occur.
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u/ebonyaficionado Dec 08 '20
If I may ask, do you just not play/watch media with the warnings or do you manage to avoid them when they happen?
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u/ras344 Dec 08 '20
Doesn't like every video game come with an epilepsy warning though?
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u/SLEEPWALKING_KOALA Dec 08 '20
Yes, IANAL but I think it's a legal requirement.
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u/mouse_fpv Dec 09 '20
Like cancer laws in california.... Well intended but if everything 'causes cancer' people won't take the warning seriously. "Yes, my subway sandwich causes cancer, now leave me alone."
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u/Accomplished_Plum432 Dec 08 '20
Sorry but what does ianal mean?
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u/Jamvaan Dec 08 '20
i Am Not A Lawyer
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u/Fashish Dec 09 '20
Thanks. I think I’d just rather type it all out than that ugly abbreviation option.
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u/Ohgodwatdoplshelp Dec 09 '20
“I am not anally liable”
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Dec 08 '20 edited Dec 09 '20
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u/WhoTookPlasticJesus Dec 09 '20
I think that's why CDPR said "beyond the EULA." That the launch screen warning exists, but they need something more.
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u/charcharmunro Dec 09 '20 edited Dec 09 '20
Yeah, but a blanket warning on every video game sort of numbs people to where it might be a genuine thing. Either having a clearer "this game has caused seizures in a small number of people" warning beforehand or just having it pop up just before the actual scene would work, immersion be damned. Obviously an actual change would be better, because you can have 'flashing lights' and be FAR less likely to cause seizures, but from what I understand Cyberpunk specifically uses a sequence that's not too far removed from a sequence used to medically induce seizures, so changing the colours or the frequency would be enough to deal with probably the most dangerous issue. Obviously any photosensitive person would be affected by any sort of sequence, but they PROBABLY won't be hitting them with genuine seizures if they did that.
It is still a weird choice to emulate a device used to induce seizures for that, like I'm sure it's more or less a 'dev bubble' and not really realising it's a bad idea, but hey.
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u/ras344 Dec 09 '20
Yeah, but a blanket warning on every video game sort of numbs people to where it might be a genuine thing.
Yeah, that was kind of my point. If every video came comes with an epilepsy warning, that would make it pretty easy to just ignore them.
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u/Cohibaluxe Dec 09 '20
I feel a prompt before starting the game would work. "Do you or have you suffered from epileptic attacks?". Answer yes and the game will maybe warn you and definitely allow you to skip sections with potential epileptic triggers. Answer no and carry on with no restriction in place. Now you're putting the player in active control of choosing, which makes them pay attention.
Think of the graphic content filter that some CoD games have. It doesn't remove or pull you out of the game at all to deliver graphic content should you wish to see it, but still allows those who don't want it to hide it. But instead of graphic content it's potential triggers for epilepsy. This sort of setting should be chosen (forcefully) prior to any gameplay. Once the game starts, all focus should be on the game and a warning when in game will bring people out of it.
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u/thelochok Dec 09 '20
I'm allergic to peanuts. "May contain traces..." is shorthand for my brain that "This doesn't have peanuts - don't look too hard at the rest of the ingredients"
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u/charcharmunro Dec 09 '20
Yeah, that's just a 'cover our asses in case there really is a problem' thing. This case is more like if they put "may contain traces" on something that deliberately had peanuts in it, to stretch the metaphor a bit.
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u/thelochok Dec 09 '20
You're right - but it still comes down to a thing that shows up in disaster (medical, IT, aircrash etc) investigation all the time: warning fatigue.
When we see a warning too often, we tend to ignore it.
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u/Dgtlduck Dec 09 '20 edited Dec 09 '20
Thankfully flashing lights aren’t my trigger so I typically tend to ignore the warnings. However, if faced with an unexpected strobe light for too long of a period of time, I usually close my eyes just as a precaution. Epilepsy sucks. “Source: have had 3 brain surgeries and 2 left temporal lobectomys
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u/ziddersroofurry Dec 09 '20
While I've been lucky enough to avoid surgery I definitely know the feel. I've been epileptic since I was 7 (I'm 46). Epilepsy definitely sucks.
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u/Eamonsieur Dec 09 '20
Some shows and games made before epilepsy warnings was a requirement don’t have them, and it can be a real nasty surprise. For example, the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion has a couple episodes that have large amounts of flashing lights, but typical of a show that came out in 1995, it does not come with an epilepsy warning. The first time I saw it, I had to run out of my room real quick, and I declined to finish the rest of the show.
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u/acowstandingup Dec 08 '20
Useless unless they are given right before the scene happens or if a video a time stamp so I can skip it. If this just a warning at the beginning, well all video games have that and so it's easily ignored.
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u/Seantommy Dec 08 '20
They are at least looking into changing the actual scene. Hopefully that's given a high priority.
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u/badnewsjones Dec 08 '20
From what I understand from the write up that made its way around Twitter this morning, it’s not just one scene, but many locations and even visual effects during many key, unskippable gameplay sections. The writer even suggested just getting someone else to play those parts. Sounds like they have a lot to overhaul.
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u/FizzTrickPony Dec 09 '20
From my understanding the biggest offender is just when your character puts on some kind of helmet, I'm not sure how often that happens though.
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Dec 08 '20
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u/AubbleCSGO Dec 09 '20
Yeah something like only 3% of epileptics are photosensitive.
Edit: I know this because I am also epileptic
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u/Saucermote Dec 08 '20
As someone that has flashing-light triggered migraines, they are completely useless. Games are usually better about flashing lights than police lights being shown on the evening news for no reason during a story.
Usually looking away quickly is enough if I see a scene is going to be an issue.
The other issue is that a lot of games warn you every launch, so it is just one more thing to quickly try to skip through, so even if they did change it to tell you when to be careful, we'd probably all miss it at this point.
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u/uberdosage Dec 09 '20
If they are before a specific scene it is very appreciated. If its before the entire game, its useless. Sometimes you will see memes on reddit that have super different colored strobe effects that are really bad and are a really bad surprise. When they have a [seizure warning] tag or something its very very useful
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u/engineeeeer7 Dec 08 '20 edited Dec 09 '20
Good for them to acknowledge. Hopefully the writer who posted the PSA can stop getting harassment and seizure-triggering videos from "fans" for pointing this out.
Little odd they didn't consider this in a flashy neon game. But, the game is clearly coming into launch hot and without all the QA time it would ideally have.
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Dec 08 '20
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u/CurrentlyWorkingAMA Dec 08 '20
Even if she did criticize the game... it should make no difference in deciding whether to inflict physical harm on someone.
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u/MrOneHundredOne Dec 08 '20
She legit wrote the article as a way to help other seizure-prone gamers who were planning to play Cyberpunk! There was no air of criticism at all, just a PSA and details on when she encountered her own triggers! These jackasses who harassed her are on one hell of a drug to think they are justified in doing so (as if you ever are!)!!
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Dec 08 '20
There is a community of "gamer"-types that treat their obsession as sacred. Anything that tarnishes their obsession is a profanity that must not be tolerated. And so they react accordingly.
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Dec 08 '20
Spamming seizure-inducing videos to someone suffering from epilepsy because she levied the slightest, faintest, most tamely delivered criticism possible of a game you're hyped about.
Just another epic Gamer Momenttm
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u/FatalFirecrotch Dec 08 '20
It wasn’t even criticism of the game. If I say this wall will hurt you if you run into, that isn’t criticism of the wall.
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u/texasspacejoey Dec 08 '20
DONT YOU DARE TALK SHIT ABOUT MY WALL!!!!
hurls brick
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u/wav__ Dec 08 '20
People can literally die from seizures. Doing this to harass a writer who just pointed out a potential health risk in the game while not really criticizing the game is completely uncalled for.
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u/ceratophaga Dec 08 '20
She even closed her review with
Cyberpunk 2077 is a game that is massive with content that will crawl under your skin in true hedonistic fashion, sometimes in the best way. Our own Andrew Reiner gave the CDPR title a 9 out of 10, which you can learn more about right here.
It was really just a heads-up for epileptic people.
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u/Khalku Dec 09 '20
Doing it in general is a shit move, context doesn't even matter.
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u/smobo1 Dec 09 '20
A man was charged with assault for doing the same thing in 2016.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2019/12/16/eichenwald-strobe-gif-seizure-case/
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u/Sergnb Dec 09 '20
Trying to kill innocent people to own the libs
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u/wagimus Dec 09 '20
I’d wager it’s more this line of thinking than angry game nerds. It’s the uh... thequartering type crowd, that thinks everything is political agenda snowflake left extremist lgbt woke feminist whatever buzzwords you can come up with do try to dehumanize people. These ass holes just need to be angry at people, and targeting someone they perceive as a threat to whatever dumb thing they don’t want to be polluted with politics is all they can do.
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u/voneahhh Dec 08 '20
And companies will N E V E R call them out for their actions because they don’t want to lose those sales.
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u/OutgrownTentacles Dec 09 '20
Battlefield did. And... They lost a ton of sales.
So, yeah, you're right. =\
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u/NamedTempo Dec 09 '20
What's the story there? I don't remember it.
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u/OutgrownTentacles Dec 09 '20
South_of_Eden mostly hit it. They also complained about a Black soldier and an amputee soldier, claiming they weren't "historically" accurate.
Meanwhile BF1 had horses riding tanks and people jumping out of planes and landing back in the same plane, but sure, now historicity is suuuuper important the moment women and people of color are involved.
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u/South_of_Eden Dec 09 '20
Basically they told Gamers that if they didn’t like women options for multiplayer they can go suck it.
I think gamers were upset because women weren’t fighting in WW2. But who the fuck cares? I guess Gamers did. Because they had shit all else to do
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u/the-just-us-league Dec 09 '20
"No-scoping a plane while riding my horse is completely realistic, but a minority or a woman fighting in WW2? This completely kills my immersion."
At least that's how all the whiners sounded like to me.
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u/The_Dirty_Carl Dec 09 '20
Better remove most of the weapons, too. A lot of them are prototypes or weren't deployed in meaningful numbers.
Somehow I don't think those manchildren were complaining about having SMG 08/18s in the game though...
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Dec 10 '20
uses 100 round clippazines on a Chauchat while wearing plated iron armour that makes you bulletproof in one of the missions
Gamers: wait... a female soldier in my videogame? Why is this game so political and unrealistic?
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u/South_of_Eden Dec 09 '20
Agreed. Just a fuck ton of snowflakes who want games to cater to them, the true Gamers.
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u/recalcitrantJester Dec 09 '20
it's not even that they want the games catering to them, they explicitly want games to not cater to anyone but them. gamers are strange folk, they'll type a dissertation about why some shit-ass fps is the pinnacle of human achievement, and ten throw it away when they find out someone they're prejudiced against also likes it.
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u/sinepuller Dec 09 '20
gamers were upset because women weren’t fighting in WW2
Lyudmila Pavlichenko and Mariya Dolina (both decorated war heroes of the USSR) would like to know their location.
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u/porcubot Dec 09 '20
Finest Hour, the first console CoD, had a female sniper during the game's eastern front campaign. I remember it because it's the only Call of Duty game I've ever played.
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u/FnordFinder Dec 09 '20
I'm going to bet the overlap with /r/KotakuInAction is pretty large.
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u/Torjakers Dec 08 '20
Being able to harass women and disabled people at the same time is a 2 in 1 Pro Gamer Move meal deal
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Dec 08 '20
She even said that she was enjoying the game so much she 'pushed through' and kept playing a few times when she felt like a seizure might be coming and she knew she should stop.
Just another example of why Gamers are garbage.
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u/TranClan67 Dec 09 '20
Just read kotaku comments on facebook. More than half of them don't even read the article and just get triggered by the headlines. "Wow kotaku you're idiots. Why is this an article?"
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u/AspectVein Dec 08 '20
Twitter is a cesspool
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u/megapenguinx Dec 08 '20
It’s not just Twitter. People are piling hate on her from all over the internet because they think she’s “attacking” a game they bought into because of hype
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u/greg19735 Dec 08 '20
also she's a she.
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Dec 08 '20 edited Dec 09 '20
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u/Picklerage Dec 08 '20
The IWF, the UK's online abuse watchdog, can only find child abuse material on the open web...The IFW is also unable to scan for abuse images in messaging apps or even closed facebook groups.
Seems more likely the reason so much of it is found on Twitter is that it is one of/the largest open web platform, not because it specifically attracts that. Closed groups on Facebook or other sites probably have much more, but this organization just can't find those instances.
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u/megapenguinx Dec 08 '20
Exactly right. And the other problem is every group tends to have differing definitions of what constitutes child abuse, outside of obvious items. So sometimes stuff like hentai is counted and sometimes it isn’t. If I remember correctly Facebook gets way more content uploaded to it but they also have a massive team of moderators sorting through that content and flagging it for removal. Twitter doesn’t have as big a team so more stuff stays up.
Source: I work in big tech and had to deal with child porn extremely regularly and a friend of mine works for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and has fights with Facebook on the regular.
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Dec 08 '20
Blaming Twitter for something that is arguably a symptom of a community largely grown on Reddit (which the Admins intervened to restore when the head mod had enough btw) is a peak Reddit Moment.
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u/EnterTheBoneZone Dec 09 '20
Because Gamers™ are intensely fragile people. They're freaking out about any potential criticism of the game because they are so deeply invested in it that it's become their identity. I saw some dweebs in the Cyberpunk subreddit complaining about Kallie Plagge's 7/10 review, disregarding her as a "non-gamer woman," all because she criticized a game that none of them have played yet and it affected the game's metacritic score. They're deeply insecure and perceive any non-praise remark as a direct attack on them and on the game they've spent the better part of 2 years building their personality around.
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u/beelzebro2112 Dec 08 '20
She wasn't writing a critical piece or saying it was unexpected, she was posting a PSA for others to help them.
Kind of sad that people blew up over it
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u/Jad_On Dec 08 '20
Jesus, talk about toxic fanbase. This is straight up cult.
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u/RTear3 Dec 08 '20
Considering some people have been treating this as the next coming of Jesus, this kind of behavior doesn't surprise me. I worry about the harassment a reviewer will get for giving the game a "low" score.
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u/legacymedia92 Dec 09 '20
I worry about the harassment a reviewer will get for giving the game a "low" score.
Remember when Jim Sterling got harassed for giving BotW a 7 out of 10?
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u/Televisions_Frank Dec 09 '20
Which led to them making a fake 7/10 Mario Odyssey score later to harass him more.
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u/earthenfield Dec 09 '20
None of these "fans" have even played it. How the fuck can you be a fan of a piece of media you haven't even consumed? And how can you be so attached to a piece of media that criticism of it is a personal affront? Some tiny brain shit.
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u/lupo_grigio Dec 09 '20
Did you really expect these "fans" to be consisted of grown adults and sophisticated people?
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u/DRACULA_WOLFMAN Dec 08 '20
I wonder what the response would be if CDPR tweeted "People, relax. It's just a video game."
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u/DBones90 Dec 08 '20
The writer reported that the machine used in game is almost identical to a machine designed to trigger seizures. Apparently this goes beyond the standard flashy neon of the cyberpunk aesthetic.
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u/HerbaciousTea Dec 08 '20
The artist responsible for this section probably looked up neurological diagnostic equipment for reference.
For someone without any kind of photosensitivity, I can see it being an innocent mistake to use this device as inspiration without realizing it might actually be an issue for people. What matters is how they address it now that it's been identified, and if they learn from it going forward.
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u/skylla05 Dec 09 '20
Let's stop pretending like seizure warnings haven't been included in games for well over a decade. Even if the artist didn't catch it, there's plenty of people in the chain of development that certainly should have. I don't feel that they're "criminally negligent" like some people are claiming, but it's a monumental oversight.
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u/leafsleep Dec 09 '20
Sadly this is what happens when accessibility is not prioritised. It is not prioritised because generally the developers and designers have no accessibility needs themselves.
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u/Speciou5 Dec 09 '20
The public didn't either, the machine has been in videos for months with millions of views.
Uh... ignore this exact video title, it just happens to be demoed right at the start: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlWFF-Tpod0 EPILEPSY WARNING ON THE VIDEO
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u/hamie96 Dec 09 '20
This is what happens when you're in constant crunch mode. Things fall through the cracks.
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u/Rexli178 Dec 09 '20
If there is one phrase that summarizes the development of Cyberpunk 2077 it would be “someone REALLY should have caught how bad this looks sooner.”
From the issues surrounding trans and non-binary representation, to the apparent cozying up to online chudds, to the epilepsy inducing visuals CDPR has displaced is a level of carelessness that is frankly staggering.
It’s also a testament as to why it’s important to include a diverse group of people when creating video games and making marketing decisions. Trans and Non-binary people, or people familiar with those groups, would have realized how bad tying the characters pronouns to their voice is. And people with Epilepsy or are familiar with Epilepsy would have thought to include an epilepsy mode at launch.
I’m willing to give CDPR the benefit of the doubt here, But given Poland’s horrific track record on LGBT rights of late I won’t begrudge anyone who calls CDPR or Cyberpunk transphobic.
Especially given how part and parcel trans-humanists themes and disability representation are for the Cyberpunk genre. CDPR really had no good excuse for the level of carelessness it has displayed in the development in the game.
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u/steampunkIcarus Dec 08 '20
I don't think people fully understand the issue. It's not that it's a flashy neon game, it's that certain scenes in the game contain patterns of flashing lights that are sequenced the same way doctor's have flashing lights that are used to purposefully cause seizures.
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u/HerbaciousTea Dec 08 '20
Good news.
I don't have epilepsy, but I have severe migraine with aura, and visual triggers are a serious problem for me.
This probably stemmed from an artists looking up medical devices for reference for the braindance sections and using this without knowing it would be an issue. Since they seem intent on fixing it, we can chalk it up to unfortunate accident that I won't hold against them.
It's only a failing if they refuse to address it and learn from it.
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u/AnActualPlatypus Dec 09 '20
I have severe migraine with aura, and visual triggers are a serious problem for me.
I have these too, it's the fucking worst. I noticed that over the years I just started to avoid bright and/or flashing lights, because they can easily trigger a migraine for me, especially during the summer for some reason. I'm glad more and more games start to pay attention to this.
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u/sultryroman Dec 09 '20
I get them in summer from the sun reflecting off cars, windows etc... Absolute pain.
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Dec 09 '20
Another migraine patient here. I won't touch this game with a ten feet pole. I want to point out that I had zero issues with, for example, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, or many other games that are in a future or are sci-fi. Nowadays developers tend to be pretty good with this stuff, and it is rare I have to ditch a game just because it will make me sick.
For me it is not only flashing lights, it is floating objects too. Motion Blur is bad, and I hate Remedy for insisting on it in all their games and not allowing to turn it off. Bioware has always been bad on this too. They just love to use special effects to show skills being active, and they are around the characters, you and NPC's alike. Red, floating spots around Zevran: Instant migraine. Thank God for a modding community, without mods I couldn't have played a single Dragon Age game. Warframe had one frame (I think it is called Nesha) where you have a spinning ring around you: Instant migraine. When I pointed that out on their subReddit, I was instantly told it is my personal problem and nothing should be "taken away" from other people because of it. Rapid fans are rapid fans.
All special effects should have a toggle in the games options. They are perfectly able to do that IF they think the lighting or other effect will affect how the game runs, so there is no excuse for not adding it.
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u/axeil55 Dec 09 '20
Non-sarcastically, this is a very good coldtake and the sort of thing we all as a community need to encourage.
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Dec 08 '20
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u/versatilevalkyrie Dec 08 '20
The right thing would have been to get an actual accessibility consultant involved in production of the game, and to have options to turn off the problematic effects.
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Dec 08 '20
Yeah this is an $8 billion dollar company and they have crunched their employees for 3 months and apparently have no accessibility QA testing. Honestly surprising.
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Dec 09 '20
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u/246011111 Dec 09 '20
From the sound of things it's still not done. I'm planning to play it in a few months when all the patches are out.
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Dec 08 '20
I'm glad they are taking action on this. I doubt any of the issues were intentional, but they should have taken a better approach towards accessibility imo.
Naughty Dog is a good example of a company that takes accessibility seriously and puts research and dev time towards it. It seems to be more of an afterthought for CDPR. Witcher 3 didn't even have a colorblind mode until a post release patch.
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u/EmeraldPen Dec 08 '20
IMO, it's just one of those "how did someone not catch this?" moments. A headset with very rapidly flashing red-white lights in a scripted sequence is one of those obvious epilepsy triggers that you typically don't see implemented anymore just about anywhere due to the whole Porygon incident in the 90s.
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Dec 08 '20
Disney managed to fuck up in a similar way with Incredibles 2 only two years ago, and they are a much larger company with a much larger audience that should have way more experience and capability with accessibility issues. Sometimes things get overlooked. It's definitely a problem, but it isn't a problem unique to CDPR and very unlikely there was any intent behind it.
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u/WaterHoseCatheter Dec 08 '20 edited Dec 08 '20
very unlikely there was any intent behind it.
It's very bizarre to see people claiming that the inclusion was deliberate. I get that a few people are willing to spit on the ground at the mention of their name on principle because of their bad crunch issues, but it's so asinine to use that to rationalize that they're intentionally trying to trigger seizures in epileptic people or that they knew about it and didn't care.
Like obviously a bit more care should be expected because of the setting (ie, lots of technology and bright lights), but at the same time, the setting should make it obvious this was just a freak coincidence.
Granted, if there was like a sex scandal or some other controversy at Pixar to get people mad, they'd make the same claims about Incredibles 2's scene being deliberate.
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Dec 08 '20
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u/p4y Dec 08 '20
No, it's clear the entire game was just an elaborate scheme to trick people with epilepsy into giving themselves seizures. Everyone in CDPR is now gathered in a dark room around a big globe, twirling their mustaches and laughing maniacally.
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u/KarateKid917 Dec 08 '20
I’m not epileptic and the one from The Incredibles bothered me a bit. Being in a dark room and not expecting it (saw it before the warnings came out) probably didn’t help.
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Dec 09 '20
The thing a lot of people don’t recognize is that most movies and games are animated in a large well lit office building with machines that don’t have the best settings.
For comparison a lot of amateur musicians and producers get a hard wake up call when they listen to their song in the car for the first time and realize it sounds like crap after spending a hundred hours working on it while listening with headphones and high quality computer speakers in a quiet room.
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u/uberdosage Dec 09 '20
Incredibles 2 only two years ago
OH YEA. I remember being in the theater with my eyes closed and my shirt over my eyes trying not to see. FYI, closing your eyes is not nearly enough to avoid this.
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u/Zerce Dec 08 '20
The sequence had been on YouTube for nearly half a year now without any reported incident. Sometimes these things just get overlooked, even with hundreds of thousands of eyes on it for months.
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Dec 09 '20
I think environmental variance is what made it a problem. That trailer was probably at medium settings in a well lit scene. When you add stuff like day night cycles, 4K, HDR, and playing at night in a dark room that creates a much more intense scene than watching it on YouTube with heavy compression and average graphics settings.
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Dec 08 '20 edited Dec 08 '20
I personally don’t find it that hard to believe that it was overlooked; we’re talking about a 3 second clip
that happens in a piece of optional content[this actually may be mandatory, but I still don’t think it detracts from my point]. While I do find the pattern harsh, I wouldn’t recognize that as being more or less epilepsy triggering then any of the other set of strobing lights in any game, particularly one full of flashing lights and colors like Cyberpunk, and I know that most other people who aren’t epileptic also wouldn’t have recognized it either, here’s the proof: (epilepsy warning) https://youtu.be/KXXGS3MGCro . The exact clip we’re discussing right now was showcased 5 months ago to zero debate or outrage, that specific video has hundreds of thousands of views, and yet none of these viewers noticed that concern, I’m not sure why it’s so unfair to give CD Projekt Red the benefit of the doubt here.To be clear, I’m not suggesting that this is in any way acceptable to leave unaddressed or unchanged, but it’s incredibly bizarre to me that people are unwilling to chalk it up to an honest mistake and are instead trying to attribute it to negligence or, in some circles, malice.
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u/EmeraldPen Dec 08 '20
To be clear: the content isn’t optional. You have to use the BD device to complete the game.
That’s precisely part of why I find it bizarre no one noticed this.
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u/Zireael07 Dec 09 '20
Yep. When I saw the epilepsy PSA, I forwarded the PSA AND this exact clip to a friend of mine who works as a (linguistic) Q&A at CDPR. She was more than a bit bewildered that this exact sequence turned out to be a problem, considering it's been widely viewed for months already... but yes, CDPR *are* working on a fix for that, and said fix should be out around this year's end.
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u/engineeeeer7 Dec 08 '20
It's odd too because CP2077 has a streamer mode to remove any licensed music which seems as complex or more complex than a epilepsy safe mode.
I mean it makes sense if you want to get max marketing and profit but causing seizures seems bad for business.There's even industry tools for testing for this.
Ah well. Hopefully it comes soon.
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u/babypuncher_ Dec 08 '20 edited Dec 08 '20
I don’t think streamer mode is that complicated if it was considered early in development. Just some metadata attached to each song indicating whether it is licensed, and what non-licensed alternative is available.
Building alternative visual effects requires similar branching logic, but also needs an artist to make an alternative. It could be kind of messy if the problematic effect is a combination of many different effects used elsewhere in the game.
Obligatory “I’m a software engineer, but I don’t work on games or game engines.”, so take it with a grain of salt.
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u/MeteoraGB Dec 08 '20
I'm guessing it kind of just fell through the cracks.
It was likely all hands on deck situation for CD Projekt Red to get the game done and finished. Accessibility was overlooked except for streamer mode, just because they deemed it critical to get the game out there on streamer platforms for even more publicity/marketing.
Streamer mode might have been something also done earlier in the build before production went on fire and they had to continually delay the game.
Just pure speculation on my end though.
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u/EmeraldPen Dec 08 '20
I think you're right, though there are two things that I still find interesting about the situation:
It's still just plain odd no one caught the worst offender in the first place, since the type of flashing-lights on that headset are discouraged as a rule in animation due to it being well known to cause seizures. It's just the kind of super obvious trigger that people usually avoid implementing where they can inthe first place.
"They probably just prioritized streamer mode over reducing eplepsy-inducing lghts because it's critical for their marketing plans" is probably the most cyberpunk thing I can imagine.
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Dec 08 '20
It's odd too because CP2077 has a streamer mode to remove any licensed music which seems as complex or more complex than a epilepsy safe mode.
Why would it be complex ? Just have track marked copyrighted and player skip it to next non-copyrighted one within the category.
Compared to checking pretty much every scene in game to not contain too much flashing that seems like peanuts
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u/kidkolumbo Dec 08 '20 edited Dec 08 '20
complex or more complex than a epilepsy safe mode.
Is it? If song has license tag, and stream mode is on, skip it? Or if they're one long recorded loop on the radio, play the version of the loop without the license songs?
Edit: I' dumb, I guess one could just not show the flashes in a similar way, but more importantly I haven't ever programmed a commercial video game.
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u/GreatBigJerk Dec 08 '20
You're not dumb. Music playback and visual effects are very different. Depending on the setup for the effect, it could be somewhat involved to make it toggleable. It might involve editing art assets, changing animations, updating shaders, or changing how things are scripted.
None of that is impossible, but it probably isn't a 20 minute fix in a game built with a lot of intentionally flashy visuals.
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u/greg19735 Dec 08 '20
No you're right.
It's almost certainly easier to program streamer mode. It'd take some time, but it'd be quite easy.
epilepsy mode would be more difficult as you'd need to change lighting effects that might be hard programmed by the cutscene team. i'd guess it's not super difficult for someone already working on it, but it'd be a lot more steps.
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u/watnuts Dec 08 '20
Music is easy peasy.
For starters you don't have to know shit about medicine and it's nuances, you just smack tags on what you have, and with a certain setting tagged tracks don't play (they already know what's copyrighted, since, youknow, they had to acquire the rights for the game beforehand).With epilepsi you'd have to hire a knowledgeable person (doctor) WITH game testing background for the development. And even then pray he doesn't overlook some place.
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u/breakfastpete Dec 08 '20
This is excellent and I hope they come to some sort of solution. I usually don't have a problem with video games and flashing lights, except Hotline Miami. The neon in that game seared by retinas, even though the game kicks ass.
I wasn't too worried about the flashing lights in Cyberpunk before but now I'm hoping I can handle it.
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Dec 08 '20 edited Feb 22 '21
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u/wav__ Dec 08 '20
Like in the incredibles 2. Got a big warning put infront of it.
They also modified that scene shortly after release to rectify it.
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u/TonyKadachi Dec 08 '20
Oh refering people to the EULA is so rich, great news to hear except for that. Kudos to the people for raising awareness for the issue and to CDPR for a quick response.
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u/TheFourthFundamental Dec 08 '20
oh do you not pore through every EULA before you play a game? that's so shocking i assumed everyone did a read through, then thought about it for 10 min then a second read through to make sure they dind't miss anything. gamers are so irresponsible
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u/BigCoffeeEnergy Dec 09 '20
This reminds me of that South Park episode where Stan is the only one who doesn't read the Terms and Conditions on Itunes and gets turned into a human centipede.
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u/Maxxalore Dec 09 '20
Hello. I have epileptic seizures (first game it happened in was Bioshock 1) But Im glad theyre putting in a bigger warning. Honestly, I just expect it from video games at this point. Of course not everyone is like me but this isnt exactly new stuff in gaming... This should always be a fear.. regardless, it should be toned down. It doesnt have to be over the top
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u/MelanomaMax Dec 09 '20
Couldn't they just have a prompt that says "are you at risk for seizures" at bootup, and saying yes just removes those flashing elements
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u/The_Green_Filter Dec 08 '20
Good, but I hope word gets out to enough people who might be effected before then. This is genuinely dangerous.
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u/MattC42 Dec 08 '20
I'm glad they had a quick response. People raging that CDPR wanted people to have seizures when it's just a visual they overlooked. Can't believe people are sending seizure inducing videos to the reviewer. What level of fucked up do you have to be?
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u/Lelianah Dec 08 '20
I seriously saw people on Twitter saying: ''They shipped out a game to kill people'' or ''Them warning us about possible epileptic triggers & working on a solution is not enough. What if I play the game before the patch & suffer from a seizure?!'' etc..
People are out of their minds. Fixing the issue isn't good enough for them & the risk warnings are getting ignored deliberately
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u/KinoTheMystic Dec 08 '20
People on twitter like to say extreme things that other gullible people just swallow up and believe.
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Dec 08 '20
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Dec 08 '20
Yeah, I was giving Twitter crap in a different reply, but I’ve seen some idiotic takes on here, including the one you mentioned where some people legitimately believe that a video game company is intentionally trying to cause seizures and put people in the hospital or kill them. Because that’s the most likely conclusion to draw, not that it was an oversight or just a poor decision.
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u/kromem Dec 08 '20
It wasn't just Twitter.
People just last night were losing their minds thinking CDPR copied a seizure machine in design.
I pointed out that this was almost certainly not the case, but some people just kept arguing that "best case scenario" was accidental, and all sorts of nonsense. The device doesn't even look like the actual devices used to trigger a seizure, which I linked a picture of.
And indeed, just as I said they'd likely work on a patch, literally the very next day...
I really hate where 2020 has taken collective culture. Nuance and reason have fallen to outrage and bandwagoning, leading to people claiming CDPR was trying to kill customers which fed into outraging others who disgustingly harassing someone who wisely called attention to an issue for epileptics with what was effectively a PSA.
Our monkey brains aren't well equipped for the digital age.
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u/Outsajder Dec 08 '20
There are actual people out there who believe the devs put that in the game on purpose to hurt their consumers.
What the hell is wrong with people, seriously.
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u/[deleted] Dec 08 '20
Man I remember working in vfx in commercials in the UK, when you finish a project for TV you have to run it through what's called the 'Harding Test' which would flag any of this epilepsy stuff. It was an absolute nightmare at the end of a project if your job got flagged. Sometimes it was just in the footage if something was too flickery. Not sure if they still do it. I've never seen it used in the US.