Riot Games Acts Fast to Remove Possible Epileptic Seizure Trigger

Riot Games

WARNING POSSIBLE EPILEPTIC TRIGGER - STROBING LIGHTS

A League of Legends player, Apricot Princess, took to the forums a last week to let Riot Games know that the Trial House Finishers - a new animation that had been added a few weeks ago - were causing issues for people with epilepsy. In her post, she writes

However, the new kill/death animations for the house missions–those big strobey house logos that pop up over a champion you kill– are a huge issue for photosensitive epilepsy and cannot be turned off nor the effects turned down. I understand that epileptics are in the minority for those who play the game, but League has brought me a lot of joy these past few years and it's heartbreaking that Riot doesn't take epilepsy seriously when developing and designing new game mechanics.

On the post, one of the game's developers apologized for the problem but noted that they didn’t have the “time or bandwidth” to create a toggle to turn them off. The developer wrote “we would rather ship [the finishers] with no toggle than not ship them because we couldn't do a toggle, but we knew there would be some level of frustration and risk with that. So again, my apologies for making League less enjoyable for you in the meantime.” Since then, Riot Games - possibly due to community backlash - has decided to remove finishers completely for the time being.

Apricot Princess added to her post, saying that she’s submitted multiple support tickets to Riot Games about things that could be changed to make the game safer for her and other photosensitive epileptics. League of Legends has a colorblind mode but has never had a photosensitive mode. “Ultimately, I was told that it has been brought up to devs before and that they, unfortunately, don't care or see it as a priority,” she wrote, but still has hopes that they will add a photosensitive mode in the future and has offered to answer any questions Riot Games might have about what could help.

Riot added to their response: “Because we take photosensitive epilepsy issues extremely seriously, Trials finisher animations have been disabled. When we bring finishers back, we’ll make sure players have the option to turn them off themselves.”The finishers were a reward for completing missions during the Trial House Event. Since removing the finishers, Riot Games has replaced the reward with a loot box, which seems to be a decent trade to the community.

Here’s hoping that Riot listens to the community and adds a photosensitive mode in the future, ideally referencing their epileptic player base to do so. Comments? Suggestions? Things we missed or that you disagree with? Drop them in the comments below or hit us up on our Facebook Fan page or @ us on Twitter!