Do you happen to have any information on the Harding test and if any companies are required to use it in the US? Like if online ads are required to use it, games, etc.
I had a few seizures from Psychonauts 2, and the game does not have a flashing lights warning. I requested that to be patched in so no one else might figure it out by experience like me. The staff responded well, and mentioned that Microsoft should have done internal testing. I found Xbox's gaming accessibility guidelines for photosensitivity, and it mentioned the Harding test as what they use to check for photosensitive accessibility. I'm trying to find more information on how it works, but can't. All I can think is that maybe it is like PEAT (Photosensitive Epilepsy Analysis Tool) but more robust. I would ideally like to not send in £30 + a clip for checking how it works for their online testing with content I know can give me a seizure to see if it picks up on that.
Hi Anon,
I've been sitting on this for a while and been thinking on how to answer this.
I don't have any additional information outside of what's available to the public regarding th Harding Test.
I have some personal opinions by now on flashing lights however, so maybe this helps you in some way, but beware that this is all based on my own experience/observations:
To my knowledge the Harding Test was created to detect the worst of the worst flashing lights and photosensitivite effects.
So this means, that there is a certain threshold that must be passed in order for it to be like "Beep boop this stuff bad!"
So. What about all the other stuff that is very flashing lights, but not flashy enough to kick off this response? Well - that stuff is potentially triggering too, but less likely to like... to the average (non-photosensitive) person.
Now - I am quotig wikipedia here, so not the best source but the wording puts it well:
"Any such over limit violations give rise to the media being failed. Otherwise the media is passed fit for broadcast and a pass certificate can be automatically generated." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harding_test
So, to me this means: The Harding Test has a specific limit/amount of flashing lights that needs to be reached for it to flag something as dangerous.
It's basically detecting the worst of the worst.
But it does not seem to be designed to catch flashing lights that are only dangerous for "some" part of photosensitive people.
Photosensitivity seems to be a spectrum, when you look around on tumblr, users have a lot of different tolerance levels for this! Some get triggered by a still image that is otherwise pure red, others are mostly fine. Some people experience motion sickness via rapid scrolling, some people don't.
So.. The Use of the Harding Test is no 100% guarantee that a game will be absolutely SAFE for every level of photosensitivity.
Also - to my awareness, the XBOX accessibility guidelines are just that. Guidelines. They are not mandatory to be applied during development. They are a toolkit and ressource pool for Developers, but not a "Must have" for every game.
It is great that this ressource exists!!! BUt it isn't a mandatory step within the development of games.
I reckon, it's possible that Psychonauts 2 was run through the Harding test by microsoft, but none of the footage run through was severe enough to reach that threshold for the Algorithm to go "Beep Bop this sucks!"
Hence the game made it in as is.
On the note on how the harding test works - I think looking at movies makes it also clearer, that the Harding Test has a certain threshold that media needs to pass, but this revision won't guarantee absolute safety.
Looking at Spiderverse and the Incredibles 2, the movie's intense strobes were certainly reduced for the UK movie theatre release. But the reduction of the effects in Incredibles 2 was only just enough to pass the test, it did not make the movie less dangerous to a wide audience with differing photosensitivity levels.
I hope this helps!
