Video games are generally something you shouldn’t be doing at all if you have any form of epilepsy, as far as I’m aware. Hell, simply staring at a screen is discouraged and I doubt you didn’t know that. When you willingly do something that can trigger your condition, then that’s on you unfortunately
As another epileptic in this thread, this just simply isn’t true. Epileptics need to avoid their triggers, whatever they may be, but there’s no real linking video games themselves to epilepsy. There are tons of different triggers, and these are really hard to diagnose. For all we know, it’s a very specific sense of disorientation that causes the OP’s. Some people get them based on certain combinations of specific frequencies of sounds, which can be very unexpected in most forms of media. I recall a past neurologist of mine saying he had a client whose trigger was his mother saying a certain and sparsely-used word, just because of the very specific sound she produced. He needed no medication and went 18 years seizure-free after she stopped saying it in front of him. Avoiding triggers like these, especially, say, if they come from a certain vehicle engine noise or something, is hard to do and very unreasonable.
People often confuse seizures caused from flashing bright lights with epilepsy, when in reality, epilepsy is the diagnosis of having two unprovoked seizures caused by literally anything.
For example, my seizures have no known trigger. I’m one of those candidates for the computer-in-the-brain surgery because the docs have given up trying to diagnose what’s causing them. They’re controlled perfectly on medication (albeit way more than what’s healthy for my body such that I’m likely to see kidney and liver failure earlier than normal, but needs are needs), but it doesn’t matter what I’m doing; if not on meds, I will have them at some point, even in the middle of the night while fast asleep if I forget a dose. I’ve gone into the hospital numerous times on no medication, had strobe lights put to my face, EEG’s, sleep deprivation, fasting, physical exhaustion… everything, just to even figure out where they start, and I’ve never been able to produce one (week-long sessions of monitoring for a perfect diagnosis are sadly not possible in the adult world, and in my case, carry significant risks). On the converse, I’ve had them only a matter of a few hours after missing a pill and just sleeping in late. Of many seizures I’ve had since diagnosed, only one ever occurred while playing a game or near the time of playing a game, and all I was doing was walking into a zone that I’d visited thousands of times before for hundreds of hours. Triggers are kitten ed hard to predict in some cases, such that many epileptics don’t know what triggers theirs.
A lot of people seem to be getting offended at the OP’s post. Stop being stupid. Yes, those being rude, you’re actually being stupid. Research before you talk. The OP was just warning people with epilepsy to be careful. A change wasn’t even initially requested, because yea, it’s a lot to ask for especially since epilepsy comes in so many forms with an infinite number of triggers. It was just a warning to help people who might have the same problems.
As far as driving goes, this is up to state/national law. How much is really too much to drink? Again, epileptics have different kinds of seizures. Some are so mild that they themselves typically aren’t much aware they’re having one. You can’t be stupid about the decisions you make, but people with epilepsy need to be people. I have a job as a software engineer and I need to go to work every day. I’ve passed the legal requirements, and have a perfect driving record. The accident rate among epileptic drivers is way lower than of just people who drink at all – which is most people – indicating that if the person has the clearance to drive, they’re probably actually safer drivers than most on a given Friday night.
The people playing haven’t had substantial issues thus far, and, are in fact people. We need to have fun in some way, and having maybe a seizure or two playing a video game due to a very odd case of the content being designed in such a way is better than going swimming at a barbecue and risking dying in the pool.
