Last week I talked about being sick of playing games.  This week I thought that I would talk about getting sick while playing games.

While many of you may have grown up playing 3D games, some of us did not experience them until later in life, when they were first introduced.  The first simulated 3D-game that I remember playing was Wolfenstein 3-D.  The Wolfenstein franchise began as a top down scrolling shooter.  It did not make the jump to 3D until May of 1992, when it ushered in a new era of videogames.

Wolfenstein 3-D begat games like Doom and Duke Nukem 3D.  These early games were crude by today’s standards but they did a fairly good job of creating an artificial three dimensional environment on your screen.

The problem with games like Wolf 3D and Duke Nukem 3D was they created an artificial reality that was beginning to infringe on our senses' ability to discern simulated environments from the real world.  Sure, we know that we're not running around a castle with a shotgun, but our eyes and ears have a harder time reaching the same conclusion.  Your eyes sense movement and your ears hear footsteps but your other bodily nerve receptors are not experiencing the expected sensation.

The result?  Confusion between the senses that can cause headaches, nausea, vertigo, and dizziness while playing that may continue for long periods after play has ended.  Welcome to the world of simulator sickness, a condition similar to motion sickness that is caused by exposure to virtual environments.  Modern videogames come with labels warning against epileptic seizures, but maybe they should include a note about motion sickness as well. While researching for this article I came across literally hundreds of people that said that they had gotten nauseous and even vomited from playing some of the more advanced games of our era like Half-Life 2 and even Grand Theft Auto III.

Although it’s not the norm, it is not uncommon for someone to feel the effects of virtual immersion, particularly after a marathon gaming session.  The effect is more common to those not accustomed, be it a n00b, or an old gamer making the transition to 3-D games.  I know I experienced some of these effects when I first lost my 3-D virginity.  The lesson here, is be aware of possible side effects, and worst case, pop a couple of Dramamine before settling in for an all night FPS battle.

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