"Goal!" is great if you dont have epilepsy

Out of interest have you suffered any issues with the game or is this just speculation on your behalf?

The medical advice on such things is that the range for 'flicker stimulus' which might cause epilepsy in someone is at a rate of 10-30 iterations per second.

The flashing in our products is outside of this range partially to ensure that it doesn't cause people any issues (and partially because its nicer generally for people when viewing it).

Studies also suggest that a distance of around 1.512 meters from the source is most likely to cause these issues, with a handheld product (or indeed a PC title) its unlikely that you will be viewing it at this distance.

As such the 'flashing' shouldn't cause anyone any issues regardless of their medical conditions (there are other different problems which very rapid flashing can cause such as migraines and suchlike).

This is the first time (in the ten plus years which we've used this system) that anyone has actually raised this as a concern - I can if anyone if overly concerned put an 'on/off' switch for it into the preferences for next years version.

Would it take a lot of work though? Especially for 1 enquiry in 10 years!

Not a huge amount tbh and with this side of things it isn't the 'volume' as much as whether its causing someone a physical problem imho (which I sincerely hope it isn't as we have already tried to ensure that the rates etc. are outside of the ranges which cause issues with these conditions).

Never had an episode, however possibly some minor dizziness. I do cover it up when it occurs, which obviously is the best way to prevent any problems. One mention in ten years is interesting... I wouldn't take that as a gauge on it not bothering anyone out there.. my bits of activism on the disease have suggested that most who suffer from it usually keep quiet out of embarrassment or other reasons.

Thats possible - however as I indicated we have designed things intentionally to try and avoid people suffering any such issues.

I think its great that you're active in raising awareness of such issues potentially effecting people - but in this case I hope we're innocent of any problems and will continue to monitor feedback in that regard (and will probably implement an 'on/off' switch for this on FMHi 2011 if I remember just in case).

As an aside while many people with disabilities do try and keep quiet about them, we have heard back with people about disabilities affecting their enjoyment in the past - I think it was CM00-01 which had a colour scheme on one page which wasn't optimal for people who were colour-blind, we implemented a system to switch the colours as a preferences option for that game.

I'm actually quite passionate about trying to ensure that we support people with disabilities - not least because I'm INCREDIBLY short-sighted myself (without correction, which fortunately my eyesight does allow, I can only actually see clearly for approximately 3-4 inches in front of my face).

The change would be for the 2011 edition.

I can confirm I've implemented this option now for the FMHi 2011 version.

(although as previously mentioned we had already checked to ensure that there "shouldn't" be any issues for people from the flashing text anyway)

I guess that means you can't disable it in FM11 for the PC then?

I'm afraid I don't work on the PC games these days - I can confirm an option to disable it is present for the forthcoming 2011 version of the iPhone game though (and will nudge Rich on monday to make sure he's rippled it back into the PSP game also). I will mention it to the chaps working on the PC title, but it might be a little late in the day for them to put in for this years version.