07-25-2006, 08:42 PM
Quote:ps: this might be a better link than my first. http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/hu/gr...g/9606.htm
Anecdotal as it is, I remember one of my friends complaining of similar though milder symptoms while playing Half Life 2, so the problem might not be going away anytime soon.
I guess that link answers my question about horizontal rotation. Heretic is a Doom-engine game (flat floor, low ceiling, no mlook), so those people were experiencing nausea without any (or extremely little) up or down character movement. They also weren't actually moving, and they weren't involved in a simulation that is even remotely realistic. So in this case, it seems that the headset/head movement technology was mostly to blame. Maybe it's a good thing those VR glasses never really did catch on. People having symptoms 15 hours after playing Heretic for 20 minutes... if it was like that under normal gaming conditions these games would have been banned years ago. It would be interesting to have a study involving newer games on widescreen monitors vs. regular to see if widescreen results in a higher number of symptoms (although I guess widescreens aren't really that wide).
Personally, I don't recall ever having these symptoms when playing an FPS game, and certainly no prolonged aftereffects. Some of the mild symptoms would not necessarily indicate upset vestibular (unless it can be linked to a specific character motion like the case you described). The stress these games put you under alone could cause many of the symptoms, and some of the graphics in the newer games can make people nautious whether the character is moving or not.
When it comes to my own gaming health though, I'm much more worried about permanent hand/wrist damage. Neither the rapid key inputs of Angband nor the constantly left-clicking of Diablo are particularly healthy for the hands.