ESRB ratings when you were a kid.

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Lunar Templar

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Sep 20, 2009
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BeeGeenie said:
Back in MY day we didn't have ESRB ratings. We played our Super Mario, and we liked it! By the time the ESRB came out, I was buying my own games.

Also we walked 5 miles to school in canvas shoes, uphill both ways in the snow.
*grumble grumble kids today get off my lawn grumble*
this
so much this.

so no :D not a fuck was given in my house

also.

canvas shoes? fucken rich kids .... i had to go TEN miles, up hill both ways, in 6 feet of snow, BAREFOOT, to get to school
 

MetalMagpie

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Jun 13, 2011
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Ando85 said:
I notice this with a lot of parents, that a lot could care less about blood and guts, but sexuality is taboo.
It's been observed (mostly by columnists - so read into that what you will) that this is more the case in the USA than in Europe. In the UK, parents (including my own) are generally more bother about violence than about sex.

My house was a "No Gun Games" house. In fact, no modern (or vaguely modern) military equipment of any kind. I blame my mother for how bad I still am at shooters. Too little practice as a teenager.
 

Quaidis

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Jun 1, 2008
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Nope. They relied on the stores to keep me away from that garbage, which they did a good job on concerning anime (the obscene tentacle stuff). I didn't really have money back in the day for games.

Once in a while my big brother would buy a violent anime or game (Mortal Kombat! DOOM!) and they still wouldn't care so long as I knew that it was pretend (not hard back then).

Father would occasionally get me games like Return to Zork and Zork: Nemesis (where you had to transport a dismembered head in an old lab/morgue and plug it in to electrodes to get a message. Fancy stuff) and 11th hour/7th guest.


Once in a blue moon in my later childhood television or my brother would expose me to some gory b-rated movie (Lawnmower Man! The Stuff! Nooooooooo...) And I'd be scared out of my wits for days. It's called growing up. Mind you, anything I had done to me medically at the hospital during the years of medical malpractice and lack of knowledge over child-hood trauma more than made up for anything fantasy would give me.


Mind you, I don't remember the first nine years, but I'd imagine it was much the same.
 

zelda2fanboy

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Oct 6, 2009
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My parents didn't pay attention to ESRB ratings at all. I mostly self censored and played kid friendly stuff anyways (most M rated shit scared me), but I had my share of M rated titles, too. I was just another well informed consumer and knew what to ask for at bdays and xmas. By the way, I'm 25 now and I have never shot anyone, contrary to what the media has us believe when it becomes fashionable.
 

Gatx

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Jul 7, 2011
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It didn't really matter much back then on the SNES but it wasn't my parents who did the monitoring. I just wasn't interested in games with blood and gore and etc. like Mortal Kombat and what not.

Even later on I typically regulated myself so to speak. While God of War looked fun, I wanted to avoid the awkward situation that might've resulted from them walking in on the sex mini-game or beating up bare breasted snake ladies.
 

L0dest0ne

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Sep 24, 2012
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My parents were very strict about violent games until I was about 12, then they just kind of gave up. Besides, most games nowadays are downloaded (or pirated) so who cares?
 

Callate

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Dec 5, 2008
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*sigh* I'm older than the ESRB ratings system. I remember when Sega had its own ratings system, largely to address parental fears about Mortal Kombat... but even then, I was in my teens.

I think my father was a little disturbed when he saw me playing Double Dragon ("Yes, I'm hitting a woman with a baseball bat. Is something wrong?") but I don't think they ever out-and-out said "no, you shouldn't play this." Fortunately, I was a reasonably sensible kid and didn't go out of my way looking for things that were somehow going to warp me. (That didn't really start until college.)
 

CannibalCorpses

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Aug 21, 2011
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Nah, my parents knew that if i was going to go out and kill people it wouldn't be because of something as silly as having played a computer game :p
 

l3o2828

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Mar 24, 2011
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My parent's never cared about the ESRB.
It helped that me and my brother were never interested in the stupidly offensive games.
I remember our mother asking us about the plot of Metal Gear Solid.
And we weren't too far in it, we just explained that One bloke mind controlled a chick and for some reason she was all over you...well we were quite open with her.
She raised some concerns about the content but her concern was over before we could even try to defend the game: We just went 'Nah, It's not shocking'
And that was it.
Nowadays i'm old enough to buy porn games (If i was remotely interested, which i'm not), so That's that.
 

Saladfork

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Jul 3, 2011
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My parents never objected to anything I ever played, I assume because they figured I was mentally healthy enough to be able to distinguish between fiction and reality.

You know, that thing most people are able to do after the age of like 6 at the latest.

If I ever have kids I'll probably be more concerend with the quality than the content. Cue judgemental looks if they ever come up to me with a copy of COD 53 or something.
 

l3o2828

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Mar 24, 2011
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Saladfork said:
If I ever have kids I'll probably be more concerend with the quality than the content. Cue judgemental looks if they ever come up to me with a copy of COD 53 or something.
I had to reply because THIS.
THIS FOR THE TRUTH.
I think we don't give kids enough credit, some of them are smart enough to know they shouldn't go around murdering people and using drugs. They KNOW both of those are wrong.
And Yeah, quality control is something i WILL enforce with my possible future kids.
Then again, i'll probably let them play CoD 86 if they promise to try something else aswell.
 

RJ 17

The Sound of Silence
Nov 27, 2011
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Ando85 said:
I notice this with a lot of parents, that a lot could care less about blood and guts, but sexuality is taboo.
Welcome to America. There's nothing wrong with letting kids watch someone get their eyeballs pulled out of their ass, but don't you DARE show a nipple! DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE!!!!
 

SlamDunc

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Aug 17, 2012
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Outlaws (1997) is the first game I remember playing. I was probably around 5-6 at the time. I am sure there are others before that but I dont recall them. There was a fun helicopter war game too.

Halo came out in 2001 and I played it pretty early in the Xbox cycle so I was probably under 10. More around actually.
 

Nekron_X

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Jan 30, 2011
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Rumpsteak said:
No, age rating never came in to it when I was a kid. My parents took the approach that they're the same as movies in that, as long as I knew that not everything in games was acceptable in real life, they were harmless.
this is how it was for me. it went pretty much like this

Parents: you know this isn't real and you can't go out and do these things understand?
me: yep!

and that was that. learned it once and they never cared what i played after and would let me rent whatever i wanted so long as it wasn't overtly sexual in nature....though i DID manage to sneak the xbox Leisure Suit Larry past the radar somehow...that was fun.

captcha; easy as cake.

that it was captcha, that it was.
 

newfoundsky

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Feb 9, 2010
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My mother bought me GTA:VC, possibly one of the greatest games but most notoriously filthy things to have ever been made. Her reasoning? "The commercial made it out to be a good guy getting revenge on evil drug dealers."

I have yet to find that commercial.
 

Extra-Ordinary

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Mar 17, 2010
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I was able to start playing T games at 7, and M games at 13.
My sister, however, didn't have to wait that long, she started playing M games with me when she was about 10 of 11.
 

Orks da best

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Oct 12, 2011
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I played red alert, fable, halo, and other games where blood was common in one form or another since I was a wee laddy. In short they didn't really care. And why sould they, it had no really affect on my osyhicoally. bar the games I liked.
 

Magic Muffin Man

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Jul 20, 2009
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When I was a kid, my parents looked at each game, used the ESRB as a signpost, and let me play games that they thought I was emotionally mature enough to play. This continued until I was around 14 and their official policy was "anything that isn't GTA is fine," which is weird considering they let me play Mortal Kombat at the time (I think it had more to do with the perceived "realism" of GTA compared to something cartoonish like MK.)

Also, working at GameStop, I've noticed that a lot of parents are totally cool with violence, blood, gore, etc., but get up in arms if a video game has sex in it. I remember talking to a woman about wether Gears 3 was an OK game for her 8 year old son, which I said it wasn't on account of the massive amounts of blood, gore, language, and general nastiness in the campaign alone. Her response?

"Yeah, whatever, but there isn't any..."
"Yes?"
"You Know...*whispers* sex in it is there!?"
"I..uh...not really..."
"Oh, well all right then, it's fine!"

I guess chainsawing a man's head off is fine, but if there's side-boob? God help us.

God help us all.
 

Souplex

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Jul 29, 2008
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My parents subscribed to the same philosophy I did: Do I think I can handle it.
 

Ironman126

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Apr 7, 2010
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I loathed my mother for years because of the ESRB ratings! From age 8-15 i wasn't to touch any shooter, ever, without express permission from my mother (my dad couldn't be assed to care). If there was even the potential for semi-realistic violence, sexual themes, or language, it was off limits. I remember once my friends (all of us age 12/13) came over for some get-together and one brought his Xbox with Medal of Honor and some James Bond TPS. I got to watch from afar as my friends enjoyed the games. Christ, she was such a **** about it all. I remember finally turning 17. Bought the retail version of Fallout: New Vegas and fucking flashed that shit all over the house! God, that felt good. Of course, I had access to plenty of M-rated games from age 15ish, good ol' Steam and my sane father...