10 Video Games That Caused Physical Injuries
8. Balan Wonderworld
Published by Square-Enix, developed by Arzest and directed by famed Sonic the Hedgehog co-creator Yuji Naka, Balan Wonderworld is a game that is associated with a lot of controversy. Which, considering it's cutesy art style and premise, seems very unlikely at first glance.
Aside from being the final game Naka worked on before his arrest for alleged insider trading, and some pretty damning claims of musical plagiarism, the game also had to contend with potential injury claims.
Liana Rapport wrote for GameInformer on the eve of the game's release that she had experienced epileptic reactions to a particular scene around the title's final boss. It wasn't clear if it was the result of a glitch or a massive oversight but the flashing images were instantly troublesome.
It's possible that this affected others who had the game early (such as review outlets) as well as those who bought it and don't stay connected to the internet, which is entirely likely considering parents buying the game for their kids. Square put out a message to their audience that asked them to make sure they installed the day 1 patch to correct this, which thankfully stopped any huge fallout.
Of course, the game isn't very good anyway so there's probably lots of players who get bored of Balan before they even get to the scene in question, patched or not.