Children playing online games

[osg87]

Just throwing this out there - I've been in a guild where one of the guild member's 12 year old daughter was also a guild member - and would occasionally play. Her dad asked us not to swear when she was on.

Was this a problem? No - because the rest of us were adults and were mature enough to respect his wishes as a parent.

I think there is some reasonable room to be concerned about whether a kid is mature enough to socialize with adults in a game, that's a debate you could totally have, but I think gettig bent out of shape over being asked, as an adult, to respect the fact that you're playing with kids simply belies one's own immaturity.

In the case of ERP - those elements can make even many adults uncomfortable. And bans on ERP in games like wow are not just about protecting little timmy from hearing two night elves discuss the sensual effect of having one of those long, shapely ears dragging down the length of grimwald the hunter's sweating, chiseled abs, as azalea the druid made her way, gradually and teasingly down to his pulsing-

There's a place for things like that, and it's really not in a T rated game, despite the ESRB warning of "gameplay experience may change online".

-m

Actualy erp is what got me started on the subject. i have no care about erp personally. The part that bugs me is Now on my free time. something i do to relax me from work or just to sit down enjoy and have fun. You know my Own extra curricular activity im forced to not be able to play and say how or what i want. MY free time is ruined simply because a child isnt ready to handle mature content and is now put in a mature situation

And as I said - I think the fact that you consider this to be a big enough deal that you need to post about it on a forum speaks to a lack of maturity on your part.

If you're an adult, act like it - either respect the fact that you're in a guild that requires you not to swear, or change guilds to one that'll allow you to say or do what you want. This is such a small-potatoes kinda thing, it's silly to be concerned about it. You're the responsible one, act like it.

-m

Its not just the guild issue. Which i have moved guilds and traded guilds. and all the such. In fact after a year or two one of my main concerns when joining a guild was the level of mature players in it. But more importantly the guild issue is just a small portion of the entire problem. What about in a random pug 4 people are mature and smart enough to play the game. One kid comes joins. gets on the mic and screams and yells most of the game. Or we use vent to commuincate more efficiently we get on start talking..one thing slips...and all of the sudden we got some parent yelling at us.. We are the mature ones. It sounds to me like you think an entire community should change who they are and the way they play something in there free time just to suit one or 2 people. now im sure you can agree that something like that is just unheard of or unfair

 

[JoJo]

its a combination of both actualy. and they actually coincide quite well. Children are not mature enough to socialize with adults and excessivley swear at annoying times . parents getting annoyed is an annoyance as well. IF you dont want your kids to be exposed to the content. Its as simple as not letting them play. If they whine and cry oh well deal with it. Its the parents job to decide what there young children are and are not ready for. Not mine Im not at work. im not being payed to play the game. IM PAYING to play it. i should be able to play the way i want when i want as long as im not ruining others who pay to play like. Children tend to bring down everyone elses time they payed for..thats just not fair

In my opinion it's your problem if you feel the presence of children on the game is bringing it down, they have just as much right to be there as you do. It's not going to ruin the experience that much to keep a lid on the swear words and not mention sexual themes directly, I'm sure there are adult-only guilds if you care that much about the issue.

 

[Matt_LRR]

Its not just the guild issue. Which i have moved guilds and traded guilds. and all the such. In fact after a year or two one of my main concerns when joining a guild was the level of mature players in it. But more importantly the guild issue is just a small portion of the entire problem. What about in a random pug 4 people are mature and smart enough to play the game. One kid comes joins. gets on the mic and screams and yells most of the game. Or we use vent to commuincate more efficiently we get on start talking..one thing slips...and all of the sudden we got some parent yelling at us.. We are the mature ones. It sounds to me like you think an entire community should change who they are and the way they play something in there free time just to suit one or 2 people. now im sure you can agree that something like that is just unheard of or unfair

Votekick/mute?

I play wow every single night, and have for years. I have never had a problem with this.

Yes, occasionally you end up with terribads in a pug group (actually, with depressing regularity). That's what the kick feature was added for. And being a terrible player is hardly just limited to kids (there are a lot of TERRIBLE adult players).

If you don't want idiots clogging your vent channel, keep it private. you don't need vent for 5-man dngeon runs.

As I mentioned - the only time I've ever had to censor myself in wow (or in Mechwarior 4 before that) was when a guild member had a child that was also a guild member, and having been asked politly and by nature of our collective guild members not being douchebags, it was no big deal for us to keep a lid on things until the kids went offline.

What i'm saying is, you're an adult. you're playing a social game. You know there are kids that also play. You also know the tools available to you to control your game experience.

You are the adult here. You can't stop the kids from playing, but you should be able to exert enough control over yourself and gaming that this shouldn't be an issue.

-m

 

[Continuity]

Um... no they don't. Not in my area at-least, I can only remember one time in the last few years I heard an under-13 swear (couple of boys about 10 or 11) and I remember because it shocked me. Excessive swearing is more like 13-16 age range.

Kids are very careful about not doing it in from of adults, its only when they hit the 13-16 age range that the inhibitions drop off, but by then they're getting a little bored of swearing every other word so the volume goes down a bit.

At least from my experience anyway, and I went to CofE schools.

 

[Zantos]

Ironically, in most MMOs, it's the kids that are swearing and making vulgar sexual references. The kids are corrupting me, not the other way round.

This was exactly the point i was going to make. I'm no saint and still when i dare go online for call of duty these 13 year old prats are using words i have to spend most of my respawn time looking up. Vile little creatures.

I don't think that they should be stopped from playing online, but if it's upsetting them or whatever then they should have to make the effort, not everyone else who is just trying to enjoy the game. I would say the problem is 10% children being exposed to adult material and 90% overprotective parents panicking that their child might be upset at being exposed to it.

 

[Retal19]

I have no clue why people complain about little kids being everywhere. I've only once run into a sterotypical annoying whining little brat, (But GOD he was annoying. 'I don't like this map, why are you using the ballistic knife you homo noob, oh my god you hacker I hate you I hate you, I fucked your mum last night, oh my god ballistic knife what the fuck how did you hit me I was standing perfectly still and everything, oh my god you homo ******, etc, etc.') and I really haven't seen much of a problem with little kids otherwise, although half the time I'm thinking that their parents probably shouldn't be buying them these games. I have seen a marked tendency for children to swear more than the adults though.

I've had more problems with people playing Rap constantly through the microphone, but I don't think others should suffer because one kid wants to play a game for people twice his age, that his parents shouldn't buy him if they have any sort of brain structure.

 

[Space Spoons]

If the kid is being a respectful (and hopefully not too unskilled) player, I haven't got a problem with it. If they start getting annoying, I just mute them like I do anyone else. There's really no difference.

That said, there are MMOs out there intended for younger players. If I were the parent of a budding young Warcrack addict, I'd look into those alternatives until my kid were, say, 15.

 

[JoJo]

Kids are very careful about not doing it in from of adults, its only when they hit the 13-16 age range that the inhibitions drop off, but by then they're getting a little bored of swearing every other word so the volume goes down a bit.

At least from my experience anyway, and I went to CofE schools.

I'm sorry if the place you grew up was like that then, I didn't learn any swear words until I was 11 or 12, the first I learnt around that time was "gay" in about year 7, and no-one else my age was using proper swear words until a couple of years after that (around 13 or 14). Regardless of where you live though I think you are making a little bit of an error saying that 5 year olds there swear every other sentence.

Just to clarify I'm not pulling these facts out of my ass, I have two teenage brothers, a 7 year old sister and I do voluntary work with kids aged 8 to 11, so I have had quite of alot experience with kids of those ages.

 

[C95J]

Here is my view on children playing online games:

I am 15, and have been playing online games since I was about 12, when CoD4 came out. Although I think that people are wrong when they stereotype that age group harshly, I would agree that sometimes you do hear all sorts of crap coming out of their mouths. But it's not just kids! It is also "mature" adults, I sometimes hear people shouting the same stuff down their mics who sound at least 20. Of course, regardless of the age, I mute them all.

Now I think that, with the right parenting, and maturity from the children, they should be allowed to enjoy the fun and benefits of online gaming. It's when bad parents let their loud mouthed 12 year olds say the sort of stuff, which really they shouldn't be (definitely including racist and homophobic remarks)over the mics, that is what annoys me and sets off all the stereotyping.

Here is the worst example of bad parenting in my opinion. This actually happened to me when I was playing MW2 Search and Destroy:

Spoiler: Example of Bad Parenting

It was me and one other friend in the lobby, with lots of other random people without mics. There were two other people with mics though, and they were a little girl (I would say around about 5-6 years old) and (I assumed) her dad, who sounded mid twenties. Now as we were in game I was just casually chatting with my mate, and I swore at him, nothing serious, right? Apparently so to the father of the child who he was letting play on a game with the age rating of 18, with lots of blood, gore, and, you guessed, swearing. Out of the blue he went into a full on rant about how I shouldn't be swearing, because I was in the presence of his little daughter. Now to be quite blunt, I didn't give a shit about what he said, and ultimately ignored him and just kept on chatting to my friend as I muted him and his daughter. What confused me, was the fact that he was letting his own daughter, play on this type of game, but expected other people to abide by his rules, of keeping the language down to a minimum. This annoyed me to a great extent but in the end nothing came of it, and I just carried on as normal.

What I would like to know (if you have made it this far) is how you would have reacted to this, and if you thought I was right or not.

If you managed to read that whole story, then well done! This example sort of relates to various other posts before me in this thread, concerning the parenting and restrictions of the children in question, playing these games.

But as I said before, it is not just teenagers, or younger. I definitely know that I don't cause trouble on online games, I usually don't even talk to random people online. It is also the older generation of people, and this is a point which I think most people miss out on.

TL;DR: sorry, but there just isn't a short version, looks like you're just gonna have to read through it all

 

[C95J]

underage gaming should be ILLEGAL. that means it's illegal for a 13 year old to play a 15 rated game. it would solve so many problems-

no more hate from the media about it corrupting children.
less violence in schools.
no more annoying children or clueless parents in game stores.
and most importantly, no more of those 12 year old racist, homophobic, annoying little turds on XBL!

Underage gaming is illegal, there's just no viable way to enforce it.

It also doesn't help when people working in GAME & Gamestop etc tell kids to go get their parents to buy it, rather than just telling them they're not allowed it. Stupid sales targets....

no it's not. kids can't buy games, but they have every right to play them. I saying that parents should be fined if they get caught letting their kids play a game that is not suitable for them.

I'm guessing you guys have never played a game with an age rating older than you are have you?

I won't flame you for your views, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, I'm not gonna stop that. Just mentioning that the stereotypes of 12 year olds etc. etc. aren't always true (see me above post) I agree with the fact that some people can be, well to quote: "racist, homophobic, annoying little turds" but this isn't always 12 year olds in my opinion, although in my experience it is mostly them.

 

[OliverTwist72]

Don't most MMO's have swear filters? I thought WoW had one but I'm not sure it's been awhile since I played WoW.

 

[Rofl-Mayo]

I didn't have any kids in my old guild, and I was the youngest in it actually, and I didn't mind the swearing.

 

[SturmDolch]

Kids shouldn't be playing online until they're of the proper age. Under 13? You shouldn't be playing that many video games anyways. They should be developing their imaginations. Paint, Lego, write, read, etc. Or at the very least, playing age appropriate, offline games.

Once you're 17, go ahead and play as much Black Ops as you want. But until then, please don't come into the server and talk non-stop about how you have no friends in your nasally, high-pitched voice. The minute a kid enters a game and talks, the intelligence level doesn't just go down; the meter gets thrown out the window.

And I agree with you on the swearing. It goes without saying that some guilds would restrict conversation topics. But swearing? Come on. There's a language filter for that. Then the kid sees you saying "What the %#@@!" which isn't any worse than a cartoon.

 

[funguy2121]

I recently read something about ERP in World of warcraft. It stated one of the biggest reasons it should not be allowed in mmo's is because children might be exposed to sexual content they are not ready for. Then it clicked in my head. Most Online games have either a teen or mature rating. It even states that when online a rating can suddenly change to mature. I remember when i use to play wow. there would be guilds that did not allow swearing cause a 10 year old was in the guild and his parents did not want him to be around swear language. This always bugged me. If someone is not mature enough to handle mature content or adult language. ARE they indeed mature enough to socialize with adults on a regular basis. Any online game especially mmo's revolve around the community. And for a lot of people if you are to enjoy the game you need to be surrounded by mature intelligent players that are capable of there core role in any aspect of the game that requires group effort. My point is IF a child is not mature enough to handle mature content. is he really mature enough to socialize with adults and add to the gameplay experience of his surrounding players or simply hold them back and ruin their game play experience. should 5 people now have to suffer a headache and annoyance on the game they paid for just so one kid could play? What does everyone else thing about this?

It's unlikely, compared to real social interaction mediums like Facebook, that an MMORPG will become a conduit for predators to actually hurt kids. Therefore, I say it's no more harmful than movies meant for adults. I mean, kids learn to curse at school. All the "foul language" of the movies I saw as a young'un went over my head. I didn't start using dirty words until my friends did.

 

[oreopizza47]

Man the first reply kinda sums it up. Most of the time it's the kids who are doing the swearing and stuff, trying to act like big shots that are too cool for the other players or whatever. I'm certainly not saying it's only the kids, or that it's all kids, but it's mostly. Although I know of some very polite online gamer kids, some of them can manage an intelligent conversation without getting racist or anything. It's the ones with mics that you gotta watch out for, those guys can damage your hearing if you use headphones, because as a generalization, they tend to be whiny about when they mess up or get killed, and then their parents get on and have the gall to insult the other players. It's really a bit pointless.

EDIT: Started reading some other posts and realized that the swear filter is more of a problem than a help. Because once it's there, people find ways around it, and the swear filters have to block even more to cover that hole, and you end up being unable to speak without half the sentence being blocked. Again, a bit pointless.