My husband upgraded my graphics card again. I know, not because I saw him dismantle my computer in his underpants again, but because waves of nausea hit me with diminishing frequency as I tried to get through ten minutes of House Flipper. I can't play with a lot of fast movement and immersive graphics without resorting to some dramatic mines. It's a problem because I love video games and I'm a game reporter who is supposed to play and write about these games. It's gotten to the point where I'm frantically searching for good lo-fi pixel art indie titles. I need games that I can play and finish, with good scenarios and options for combat and dialogue, and also, they must have static and slow graphics systems. So why is this happening? According to a source, it is about human evolution and game evolution. We owe our ability to know where we are in physical space to a constant feedback loop between our eyes, our inner ears, and our overall sensory system. When there is a disruption in this feedback loop, the result is nausea of the moderate to severe variety. Doctors call this phenomenon "historical conflict," and the general consensus seems to be that "historical conflict" acts like a poison in the body and nausea is the body trying to expel the poison.
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(Image credit: Fullbright) While humans have evolved slowly, video games have evolved at a breakneck pace. Gone are the days of 2D graphics and static backgrounds. Video games create living worlds with 3D characters and landscapes and that is enough to move the slowly evolving human body. Sitting at a desk or in front of the television, the eyes perceive the movement of immersive scenes on the screen while the body remains immobile. The disconnection causes the "signal conflict" mentioned above and a pause is necessary. I know there are ways around fast movement in many games. I can play Minecraft if I turn off the movement. I can play House Flipper if I lower the mouse sensitivity. But there are all kinds of games that I can't play like first person shooter games or battle royale games. What does Call of Duty look like? I don't know, I couldn't tell you. Even storytelling games like The Last Of Us 2 have too many races, and the cutscenes are too immersive for my delicate constitution.
Not only
I know I'm not alone in this case. I found solace in Googling "House Flipper nausea" and finding message boards and Reddit posts about how other gamers deal with motion sickness. The solutions range from changing the settings, creating mods so that you can change the settings, disabling the game completely, and reading a book. On the Dramamine website, the company offers several ways to limit video game sickness, including taking frequent breaks and playing or watching games for a few minutes at a time. Another way to limit nausea from video games is to adjust your field of view (FOV). Humans have 180 degree vision. Typical console games have a field of view of 60 degrees, while PC games have a field of view of up to 100 degrees or more. When there is a gap between the field of view on the screen and your actual field of vision, headaches and nausea can occur. Adjusting the FOV in the video settings menu may help alleviate some of the nausea symptoms. The closer you are to the screen, the greater the field of vision to limit headaches and nausea.
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(Image credit: Shutterstock) You can also fend off video game nausea by using the old "overview." On long car rides, I would often experience motion sickness as a child, and my dad would tell me to look at the horizon for a while. He was healed! I thought my dad was a genius (he still is), but really it's just a way to recalibrate his inner ear and allow his body to correctly perceive movement. You can apply this to gaming by taking short breaks to realign your body and vision of it. You can look at a table or look at a figure on a shelf. Having a well-lit play space is also helpful, as it increases visual cues in your environment, which can help limit motion sickness. You can always have cool LED lights around your battle station. Even in dim lighting, you'll be able to make out landmarks like your desk, a TV stand, or the edge of the screen.
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(Image credit: Shutterstock)
How Game Developers Can Help You
A simple way for developers to make their games more sensitive to motion is to create an in-game reference point, be it the player's weapon or the character's hands. A crosshair or dot in the center of the screen can also serve as a focus point. Many games already have this feature, but it may not be enabled automatically, so check your game settings for benchmarks. Another way to make gaming more accessible at all levels is to have higher frame rates. A sudden, forceful and unnatural movement can cause nausea and headaches because the brain reacts to what it expects instead of the stutter on the screen. Some console games let you choose how much detail you want to see on the screen, which affects frame rate, but it's still not a universal feature. PC games tend to have more options for lowering graphics quality, which can give you smoother movement and fewer marker conflicts. I wish more games had the ability to drastically reduce mouse sensitivity and change movement settings. I realize it's a high demand for all first-person games to have a third-person view, but I'd definitely play more if that was a standard option. By then, I'll be at my well-lit desk, endlessly adjusting my field of view settings with a box of anti-nausea pills at hand.