That inner-ear, balance and perspective part of the brain (look at my technical understanding right here) gets confused, causing motion sickness. As explained above, your brain gets confused when it sees fast moving perspectives on the screen but your body is still stationery. Okay, I know that sounds complicated, but it actually isn’t. No longer, it appears that I am on the mend, now able to play FPS and other games that used to bring me to my knees. In general, I just avoided any games in first person, missing out on a lot of really awesome experiences as a result. So, how do we fix it? This has been my question for years. In essence, the problem comes down to cue conflict theory: For example, the visual system may perceive that the body is moving rapidly, while the vestibular system perceives that the body is stationary.Īlright, so we know what it is and essentially what causes it. They researched this phenomenon when pilots reported ill affects after using driving and military flight simulators.
This particular form of motion sickness has been documented by the US Army as simulator sickness.
Like car sickness, this can induce all the classic symptoms of motion sickness: drowsiness, sweating, nausea and even vomiting. Players can turn 90 or even 180 degrees with great speed, generating a dramatic perspective change while the body remains stationery. What causes the motion sickness to begin with? In a first-person game, the game engine creates a complex environment that can be quickly navigated with the touch of a mouse or analog stick.
No, not because of content of the game, but because I (like about 50% of the population) suffer from simulator sickness. Do you remember Goldeneye 007, or how about Perfect Dark? Yeah, I remember them well – that’s how I knew that FPSs made me nauseous.