5 Shocking But Real Medical Conditions Linked To Video Games (Retro Repost)

Note: This article was originally published as part of my time as an Associated Content Featured Contributor to the Video Games Section. Associated Content was later bought by Yahoo! and renamed Yahoo! Voices. Yahoo Voices shut down in July of 2014. This article is being republished here on The Code, backdated to its original date of publication to remain as a record of my writing.

From your parents scolding you not to play video games so close to the television, to opinion and editorial pieces in newspapers across the country calling video games the next harbinger of a violent society, video games are blamed for a host of maladies, both social and physical. Video game players might be forgiven as dismissing old wives' tales, or ignoring talking-head pundits blustering about video games. When medical experts begin to weigh in with conditions they have seen in patients, it might do well for even the most hardcore gamer to sit up and take notice. Here are 5 shocking but true medical conditions that have been linked to playing video games.

5. Acute Wiiitis 

Dr. Julio Bonis, a practitioner of family medicine in Madrid, diagnosed and named a muscle injury he called "Acute wiiitis" in June 2007. He first noticed the condition, pronounced "wee-eye-tiss", when he awoke after a playing a few rounds of the Wii Tennis game the night before. While the injury was similar to the strain tennis players are at risk of, appropriately named "Tennis Elbow", his injury was in the wrist and forearm area. He noted that his colleagues had made similar observations or complaints of injury and muscle fatigue after playing Wii Sports. Luckily, the treatment, as outlined in the New England Journal of Medicine was fairly simple: take ibuprofen for one week, and abstain completely from playing any Wii video games.

Of course, this wasn't the first time playing games for a Nintendo console had sparked diagnosis of an injury. If one looks back a few generations to the heyday of the Nintendo Entertainment System, one will find doctors talking about a malaise affecting hardcore gamers of the 1980s called...

4. Nintendinitis

First discussed by Dr. Brazington in the May 17th 1990 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, Nintendinitis (also called “Nintendo Thumb”) is a repetitive strain injury caused by overuse of the directional pad on the NES controller. The main symptoms of Nintendinitis are blistering, swelling and acute numbness of the digits. The extremity most commonly afflicted with Nintendinitis was the thumb, but any finger used to operate an NES controller was diagnosed as at risk for the affliction. Nintendinitis can also be a precursor to other repetitive strain injuries like carpal tunnel syndrome. The recommended treatment for Nintendinitis was usually a short regimen of anti-inflammatory medication, an over the counter pain reliever and strict time limits on the length of video game play sessions.

Nintendo isn’t the only video game console manufacturer to have its own ailment. The Sony Playstation alarmed some dentists with one malady dubbed…

3. Playstation Lip

First noted in the June 10th, 2000 issue of the British Dental Journal, “Playstation Lip” had two dentists, R. L. M. Inglis and R. R. Welbury quite concerned. They noted two separate patients that came to their office with severe lower lip trauma. When further questioned, the patients admitted to intensely chewing and sucking on their lower lips while concentrating on playing Playstation games. Other symptoms included jaw muscle fatigue and bleeding of the inside of the lower lip.

While the usual treatment recommended for Playstation Lip is a matter of relaxation techniques and learning to modify one’s beahavoir when concentrating, in these patients’ case the lowerlip trauma was so severe that they required to use of soft splints and mouthguard-like shields for the gums. Of course, while the conditions outlined so far are injurious but not life threatening, there can be more severe consequences.

2. Video Game Induced Epileptiform Seizures

The first case of an epileptiform seizure that was linked to playing video games was reported in 1981. Over the past 30 decades, hundreds of cases of eliptiform seizures triggered by video games were reported. Further study has shown that the risk of seizures are not for younger children with photosensitive epilepsy (where seizures are triggered by light), but also in children and adolescents with epilepsy that are not photosensitive at all. This increased risk is why most video game published place warnings about an epilepsy risk in video game manuals, and sometimes in the video games or console startup sequences themselves.

There currently is no known cure for photosensitive epileptic seizures, so most of the treament methods treat symptoms, along with a healthy dose of risk prevention. The most important steps for prevention of these seizures when playing video games: take a 15 minute break every hour, play in a well-lighted area, and to make sure you’re at least 6 to ten feet away from the television when playing video games.

One curious case went even further than the possibility of triggering seizures, when a teenager came down with a case of…

1. Traumatic Mental Detachment

In late 2008, 13 year old Lorenzo Amato was found by his father, curled up in a state of shock, and appearing as if in a stupor. Lorenzo did not talk, respond to questions, or even seem to know where he was. When he was rushed to the emergency room, doctors thought Lorenzo might have suffered a stroke or aneurysm. Later, they determined that this had happened after a marathon session in front of the Playstation. Antonio Buccoliero, a local politician, told reports that “…once [the doctors] understood that this was a strange kind of mental detachment connected to his PlayStation,” they were able to successfully treat Lorenzo. Lorenzo later told reporters that he asked his father to throw out his Playstation, saying “If I even think about it I want to throw up.”

While these conditions are strange but true, the key to continuing to enjoy playing video games without tying your muscles up in knots, harming your lips, or placing yourself at risk for light-induced seizures and eyestrain is moderation. According to the Mayo Clinic, taking breaks after every half hour, stopping when you get tired or feel fatigued, and resting your eyes if you feel sore, dizzy or nauseous will go a long way towards making sure you enjoy your favorite video games without taxing your body.

Sources:

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN0616721120070606

http://www.sportsscientists.com/2008/01/computer-games-continued.html

http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/1998/12/16579

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2330022

http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/173_11_041200/koh/koh.html

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14706041

http://iospress.metapress.com/content/nlw6et6ub0r13tmj/

http://www.qj.net/qjnet/playstation-3/playstation-addict-diagnosed-with-mental-detachment.html

http://www.mayoclinic.org/medical-edge-newspaper-2009/mar-13c.html

Retro Repost: 10 Most Ridiculous Video Game Products

Note: This article was originally published during my time as an Associated Content Featured Contributor to the Video Games Section. Associated Content was later bought by Yahoo! and renamed Yahoo! Voices. Yahoo Voices shut down in July of 2014. This article was later featured on the front page of Yahoo! in the Yahoo! Buzz section, as screen-capped here: 

In this format, it was renamed the "Top 9 Most Ridiculous Video Game Products" (they omitted the Sega Saturn to Dreamcast controller converter. Yahoo! shut down its Buzz section sometime in late 2012. This article is being republished here on The Code, backdated to its original date of publication to remain as a record of my writing. 

Consumers spent over $25 billion dollars on video games last year, according to Today's Gamers Survey by Newzoo and TNS. Video games as an industry have been around for over a quarter of a century. Billions of dollars and decades of being around have meant that video games have also given rise to other merchandising efforts: promotional tie-ins, spin-offs, and accessories. With so much history and so much money being spent, there were bound to be a few video game products that were clunkers. Here are the ten of the most ridiculous video game products ever released.

10. Nintendo Cereal System

Released by Ralston in 1989, the Nintendo Cereal System was a limited edition of cereal designed to cash in on the popularity of the Nintendo Entertainment System. The box of cereal was divided into two halves. One half had Super Mario Bros. inspired fruit-flavored Mario pieces, along with mushrooms, Koopa Troopas, Bowsers, and Goombas. The other half promoted The Legend of Zelda and had berry-flavored cereal shapes of Link, along with other items from the video game like shields, boomerangs, hearts and keys. The cereal itself was bland and unexciting, tasting like an even sweeter Trix knockoff, but that wasn't really the main selling point. The back of the box featured Nintendo trading cards, Nintendo stickers and a contest entry to win a Super Mario Bros. cereal bowl, or a Nintendo Power Pad.

Though the cereal was only produced for one year, the flavor of nostalgia is still strong with the gaming enthusiasts of today; sales of vintage boxes of the Nintendo Cereal System often reach a hundred dollars or more on E*bay.

9. Sony Pocketstation

Released in 1999 in Japan, the Pocketstation was a memory card for the Sony Playstation console that had an LCD screen, flash memory and a built-in real-time clock. The Pocketstation garnered some attention in the US when it was announced that Final Fantasy VIII's US release would retain the Pocketstation mini-game present in the Japanese version. Eager gamers who paid the exorbitant import prices were rewarded with the ability to play a Chocobo-themed mini game... and that was about it. After you had paid more than a Game Boy or a Playstation memory card to get a much tinier screen with games that weren't all that fun, and a memory capacity no better than the cheapest memory card, you can understand why most importers were disappointed.

8. Total Control Saturn To Dreamcast Adapter

This device allowed a Sega Dreamcast owner to use Sega Saturn peripherals on the console's successor, the Sega Dreamcast. While the idea behind this device may seem like a good idea at first blush, there are two major problems with this product. First of all, the demand for the Total Control Saturn To Dreamcast Adapter was going to be low in the first place, as the reason the Sega Saturn was discontinued was due to slumping sales. The second problem was that instead of building backwards compatibility for controllers into the console, as Sony has done with its Playstation lineup, Sega was essentially requiring customers to pay for a feature that should have been included in a next generation console.

7. U-Force

Released in 1989 by software company Broderbund, the U-Force was actually a hardware release. It was a controller for the Nintendo Entertainment system that unfolded like a sort of laptop computer and used infrared beams and flat panel sensors to translate the motions the player made in front of it into what the video game would interpret as button presses. It sounded unbelievably futuristic when it was announced, and television commercials showed clips of gamers sticking and moving, unleashing devastating right-left-right punch combinations in Mike Tyson's Punch Out by throwing actual punches.

In practice, the infrared beams were very weak. The motions required a lot of effort to even register, and in many cases, the U-Force made a video game even more difficult to control. It proved to be a critical flop, even years later when IGN named it one of the 10 Worst Controllers of All Time.

6. Wii Hip Street Cheer Pom Poms

Kobian USA released this Nintendo Wii accessory last year, hoping to ride the bandwagon of the spate of cheerleading games on the Wii. For the low, low price of 20 dollars, the Wii Hip Street Cheer Pom Poms can be strapped onto the end of your Wii Remote and Nunchuck controllers, and... do... ...well, that's it. You've now paid 20 dollars for cheaply made pom-poms that dangle off of your Wii controllers and do nothing else. And if you bought this set hoping to make the most popular cheerleader series, We

 Cheer, more fun? Well, you are going to have to buy a second set, as the Wii Hip Street Cheer Pom Poms set has one attachment for a Wii Remote and one attachment for the Nunchuck controller; the We Cheer series uses two Wii Remotes simultaneously.

5. Gamer Grub

It turns out that the 1980s don't have a complete lock on ridiculous video game related food items. Gamer Grub was introduced as a "performance snack formulated especially for gamers" because it was engineered to be grease-free and crumb free so that you wouldn't clog up your keyboards or gunk up your controllers. Also, you didn't have to bother with the restraints of civilization commonly called "utensils". The Gamer Grub package was designed to be torn open and tilted directly at your open mouth so that you could keep playing with your free hand.

As if the one-handed junk food that fed into gamer stereotypes (as well as gamer waistlines) wasn't bad enough, the names of the flavors were laughable. With flavors like Action Pizza, Racing Wasabi, Strategy Chocolate and Sports PB&J, Gamer Grub marketing made the promoters of GoGurt look like geniuses in comparison.

4. Wii Party Station

The Wii Party Station demonstrates why video games and food just don't seem to work well together. Video game accessory maker Nyoko first debuted the Wii Party station prototype at the 2007 Electronic Entertainment Expo. It featured a hand fan unit to cool off sweaty palms, a tiny storage try, and four separate LED screens for presumably keeping score. What drove this accessory from the boring into the ridiculous were all its additional features: four plastic cup holders with freezable liners, and a shallow bowl in the center to store chips and dip.

While storing greasy chips in a chintzy plastic bowl atop a unit that has a hand fan out of a bowling alley might seem to be the key reasons Nyoko sent this product idea back to the drawing board after a much-hyped release, it turns out that the rising prices of oil have made the amount of plastic used for the accessory too expensive. So the world has been spared this plastic monstrosity. For now.

3. Sega Dreamcast Fishing Rod

Released in 1998 alongside the inexplicably popular Sega Bass Fishing video game, this official Sega accessory attempted to make the typical fishing video game more realistic by releasing this video game controller shaped like the fishing rod and reel. Unfortunately, since the Sega Dreamcast games didn't officially support any sort of controller vibration or motion controls, all this gave you was a more frustrating experience as you struggled to use the analog thumbsticks and other buttons attached to a heavy lump of oddly shaped plastic.

2. Power Glove

Released in 1989, the Power Glove was an accessory for the Nintendo Entertainment System that attempted to bring a virtual reality type control to the game console experience. It was a black and white glove that fit over the hand that also contained a joypad and keypad across the forearm. It was an accessory that received prominent product placement in the Nintendo-produced drama-comedy The Wizard, about the adventures of a group of tweens entering a video game contest. The movie's antagonist, Lucas, showed off the Power Glove in what would become an Internet meme two decades later when he uttered the line, "I love the Power Glove. It's so bad."

In the late 80's "bad" was slang for good. But as it turned out, "bad" meaning "not achieving an adequate standard; poor" was much more accurate. Most games were not specifically designed for the alternate range of motion the Power Glove offered, making attempts to play video games designed for use with a standard controller difficult to play. The glove was usually awkward or ill-fitting, and the forearm mounted controller pad usually seemed like it was just in the way. Only two games were ever released for use specifically with the Power Glove. One, Super Power Ball, was packed in with the Power Glove for free. The other game, Bad Street Brawler, was a critical and financial flop. Additionally, both Power Glove designed games could also be played with regular joysticks or controllers, making the Power Glove a superfluous purchase at best.

This list has spanned two decades' worth of video game accessories for many systems. And two of the preceding spots on this list were taken up by two Nintendo Wii accessories. The Wii itself is known for having a number of third-party accessories that add little to the gaming experience, from steering wheel attachments to fake tennis rackets that snap onto the end of a Wii Remote. In such a distinguished field, what video game product could possibly stand apart from the rest? What accessory could soar above the Power Glove to take the throne of number one most ridiculous video game product? Say hello to the...

1. CTA Wings for the Nintendo Wii

The CTA Wings are designed to be used for one specific mini-game for Wii Fit

 Plus game called Bird's-Eye Bull's-Eye. According to The Escapist, the Wings are promised to let you "truly experience what its like to be a bird". How does it accomplish this? It's simple: you take these "wings" that look like over-sized pot holders, slip your hands and arms through the loops, strap on the Wings, and then flap your arms up and down like a bird while holding a Wii Remote.

That's right, the CTA Wings do nothing except make you look even more ridiculous, and all for the sake of a single mini game on a popular title for the Wii.

Holy Crap! HOmestar Runner Game To Be Released On The Nintendo Wii!

The above concept art by Strong bad.

Yes, your dreams of a Homestar Runner video game have now come true!

The WiiWare/PC game "Strong Bad's Cool Game For Attractive People" is a joint collaboration between Mike and Matt Champman (the creators of Homestar Runner) and Telltale Games (the brains behind the Sam and Max adventure game series).

From the official site:

These are story games, with weird plots and tons of dialogue conceived through a mind-meld between the guys who make the Homestarrunner.com cartoons and the team who brought you Sam & Max Seasons One and Two. In each SBCG4AP episode, you take control of Strong Bad and interact with other characters in beloved locations such as Strong Bad's basement, Bub's Concession Stand, and The Stick. Besides talking to other characters and messing with their minds, you'll also get to dress up in funny costumes, check email on Strong Bad's trusty Lappy 486, and play arcade-style mini games such as the timeless Snake Boxer 5.

Check out the official ad here:

http://homestarrunner.com/sbcg4ap.html

Check out the official trailer here:





That's it, between Michelle and I enjoying the hell out of Wii Tennis a few weeks ago, and THIS announcement, I'm sold. WE're getting a Wii with our rebate. :D

Get It While It's Hot: Fan Ripped SSBB Soundtrack

Now that Super Smash Brother Brawl for the Wii is out in Japan, everything that the Brawl PR team endeavored to keep secret has been released to the public by enthusiastic Internet fans.

In what is making me giddier than a schoolboy is that a SSBB fan is ripping music out of the game and dumping it into a directory for everyone on the 'net to enjoy. I'm guessing that it won't stop until all reportedly-300-plus songs in the game are on it.

Guys, there are a LOT of high quality tracks in there that will have you grinning from ear to ear if you've liked any Nintendo game pretty much ever.

There's the orchestral arrangement of the original Legend of Zelda. The boss battle music from Metal Gear Solid 2. And Humoresque of a Little Dog -- aka "The Drugstore music from Earthbound" is my favorite arrangement in there so far. The NES Medley is a great audio quiz to see how many old NES games you remember, though if you want medleys from just a single game there's the Kid Icarus medley.

The theme song to Sonic CD is in there. The ENGLISH version.

You need to go and check them out right now.
GO GO GO!

Want the new Bionic Commando game To Appear on the Wii? Here's how.

While many PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC owners are excited about the forthcoming update of Capcom's classic Bionic Commando, many Wii owners are sitting around pouting about how great it would be to control a robotic swinging arm with their Wiimote. Well don't just sit there, do something about it! Let Capcom know you want it, and who knows? In an interview with Videogamer.com, Capcom's Ben Judd suggest that a surge of fan interest could get the job done.

When asked if a Wii version could ever come to the Wii, Judd said: "It will largely depend on what the fans want for the future of Bionic Commando."If the interest is there, of course we want as many people as possible to appreciate this great franchise."

If you come, they will build it.

Full article at Videogamer.com

All YouTube, All The Time!

Hope everyone had a festive holiday. Here's some geeky youtubery related to the season:

First off, this video short was animated in the space of about 6 months-- two guys, adobe photoshop and adobe premiere and after effects. The premise: 3 LARPer nerds end up interrupting a nativity scene. Hilarity ensues.



They also animated two youtube responses:





Heh, of course, technically, I think if you're a paladin to Tyranus, you CAN be Lawful Evil;. But then again, I didn't see the lawful evil paladin use any class abilities. ;)

Here's a video for all the gadget dorks and Wii hackers: How you can take a Wii remote, a Wii sensor bar, and your laptop to create a Virtual Reality display! Seriously! The display properly reacts to head and body movement as if it were a real window creating a realistic illusion of depth and space: