Letting Kids Play M for Mature Games.

[afaceforradio]

It's a federal offense to supply an underage person with an age-rated item, she shouldn't have been sold the item by law!

I hate it myself. Same with films. Age ratings are there for a reason.

IT is? Because I am fairly sure that the industry self regulates. In the UK, I know that I can get an adult to buy me an 18 rated game. I once wanted to buy a GTA game at age ~15. The guy in the shop told me to get an adult, and pointed out his mate in the corner (not an employee) and I got him to buy the game for me.

I used to play GTA: VC with my mate, who was 4 years younger than me (well, I say mate, he just had really good games) at release, in 2002. I would have been 10. A 6 year old had GTA VC and we used to kill and maim and what not. Funnily enough, he isn't screwed up. The psychological validity of saying "Violent games at a young age screws kids up" is almost nil. Sure, it can have an affect when a child can't tell reality from fiction, but they learn that pretty quickly. Of course, if they have a mental disorder, it's a different ball game, but adults have those too.

All that said, I generally don't think under 10's should get their hands on. Even if it's not going to fuck them up, it's not really the type of content suitable for them. My parents bought me GTA:SA when I was like 12, and look how I turned out a murderous sociopath a pretty normal guy.

Ok people are both understand and misunderstanding my original statement.

It is illegal for a vendor to sell a game if they know it is going to be supplied to a minor, however it is not illegal for your parent or adult to hand over the game to you. It's a silly rule but there it is. If a vendor sells a parent an 18+ game for a 6 year old, the vendor will get in trouble, not the parent. That was my point.

 

[Blue Musician]

snip

Yes it does bothers me, but most of the kids I have met do play that type of games since when they have 6 years. Most of the students of primary school have played Resident Evil 4, GTA VC and San Andreas (the PS3 and GTA4 isn't very well over here yet), and yesterday I saw a 8 year old play Gears of War. Now I started playing games since I was 6, but it was with RTS (Age of Empires 2, Age of Mythology, StarCraft, WarCraft 3) and it wasn't until 2008 when I got into FPS.

 

[Mr.Petey]

On reading the OP I did a loud intake of breath. A parent of a seven year old merely said "OK" to a concise and fair analysis of the GTA saga, obviously not paying attention.

The only time I've ever personally violated the age restriction was when asking my father to buy Dark Forces (rated 15 back then and I was 13) I learnt my lesson in short order though as I found it's chilling last-hope atmosphere and the Dark Troopers just scared the willies out of me.

But I digress. Regardless if the kid is mature enough to handle the various adult themes in said game, those age restrictions are there for a legal and law abiding reason.
So a game has adult themes, harsh language and violence...is it any better than other games that have more of a comedic nature with likeable characters and an engaging plotline other than murder/betrayal/revenge? Which, lets face it, are usually more miserable and lean towards that of gritty realism than actual enjoyable entertainment.

I'll always prioritise than in a game over some jar head wondering "How much blood is there???"

Finally, I will never appreciate any parent who simply doesn't care as long as it keeps them quiet...such as this post here

I don't care. Get them what keeps them quiet.

Some of us really do live in a society where we are ordered to shut up and behave...at the expense of any morality+the petty convenience of others dare we actually disturb them

 

[Blue Musician]

Growing up, I think the first rated M game I ever played was Starcraft. I didn't play a lot of them because I was a Nintendo kid and I had everything I wanted with my consoles back then. My parents were actually smart enough to see why a game was rated M, so there were some I could play, like Starcraft, and some I couldn't, like Grand Theft Auto, and that never bothered me. Now that I'm older I do have a copy of GTAIV and it's fun, whatever, but as a kid there's no way I would have been able to full appreciate the depth of the game. It's not the kids playing violent video games part that gets to me, it's the bloody ignorant parents who go buy these games, and like others have said, start complaining about how messed up your child is later on. People need to realise that adults like myself enjoy video games and collect a fair share of rated M games; it's not just for kids. All in all, it always comes down to being the parents fault for exposing their child to the content, or allowing them to be exposed to it.

StarCraft was rated M? *goes check ESRB...* Apparently it wasn't, unless you are referring to other rating systems, like PEGI, etc.
Some kids actually play it because they have been in a VERY hostile enviroment, so they use them as stress relievers. And one of them is me.

 

[EBHughsThe1st]

5-10 range, no M games. Unless it's halo offline, because there's very little blood.
12-14 maybe, because we are raised differently and maybe we're ready. I started here.
15-16, yeah, M games. Go for it.
17, your supposed to be this age.

 

[GiantSpiderGoat]

Wow most you people are prude's. It's not games that make your children bad, it's bad parenting. I remember knowing from a young age, what was real and what was not real. Heck I was aloud to watch horror movies with my parents from the age of 8. I remember playing mortal combat and all those blood and gore games from a very young age. If a parent thinks there child is smart enough to know the difference then they will buy their kids those games. What I see here is, oh I am (insert age above 15 here) and I'm old enough now to judge little kids from my vast experience of things and I know what they should and should not play. Trust me kids are more than likely fucked up because of how their parents treat them.

 

[Hitari0]

I believe that anyone under the age of around 12 should not be allowed to play M games (I did play Halo when I was around 9, but that's not very M), but after 12 it mostly depends on the child's maturity level and if the parent feels the child is ready.

 

[Assassin Xaero]

I played Duke Nukem back when I was 8 and I'm not some psychopath womanizer who smokes and drinks all the time... I miss that game too... :/

 

[thawk]

Playing M-rated games at a young age is not a big deal in general. Almost every friend I have has played 1 or more M-rated games before the age of 9 and most of us haven't even punched anyone in our entire lives. I've personally played GTA, Doom II, Duke Nukem 3D, Postal and Quake before age 9 and probably around 25 M-rated games before age 13. Something can be said about violence now being much more realistic but thinking back on it I probably would've just enjoyed the games even more.

It's really up to the parents to do some actual parenting (which seems to be the one thing that parents these days just love to avoid doing) and 1) inform themselves about the games they're buying and 2) try to take into consideration the personalities of their children. If your kid isn't extremely impressionable, isn't squeamish and doesn't have a hard time discerning fantasy from reality they are going to be just fine and will probably get a kick out of playing M-rated games, I know I did. On the other hand I fully agree that if their kid is any of those things and the parents just don't care and buy M-rated games the kid can't handle they should be sent to the 7th circle of hell.

 

[Chris Binkley]

I think the biggest problem is the kids themselves. I remember when I was 4 playing Doom and Rise of the Triads. But I was also told "these are video games they aren't like real life" and was taught a since of right and wrong. Now a days kids are given what ever they want and never told no or if they are their parents back down before the kids do.

 

[Therumancer]

Nothing bothers me more when I see a parent go into gamestop, pick up a title like Manhunt and say "Oh yeah, my 8 year old would like this".

It gives me a sense of slight disdain as I see an obvious nongamer pick up a game for their gamer kid without any knowledge on the content of the game.

My buddy who works at Gamestop told me that he had a woman come in and grab a copy of GTAIV. The guy, being a good employee, asked if she'd ever played a GTA before.
The lady responded, "Oh this isn't for me, it's for my 7 year old son". The man aked her if she knew anything about Grand Theft auto. The woman responded with a simple "No".
After explaining that you can buy hookers, drugs, beat people to death, shoot police, and all the other things you can do, the woman (who wasn't listening) just said OK and still bought the game.


Before I get the "Well if they're mature enough argument" let's step back and think.

DO you remember how you acted a 5-10? Most likely you weren't the cream of the crop maturity wise. I sure wasn't. I climbed trees and played Scoooby Doo and Boogerman on my Genesis!

I don't mind when parents let their kids play games, but I do mind that they aren't taking a more active role in watching what their kids play.
These are the same people who look back 20 years later and say "Why is my kid so fucked up?"

What is your opinion on the matter?

I've had some unusual thoughts on the subject recently, so I guess I'll be a bit contreversial.

I think there are two parts of this equasion that are not being considered. One is quite simply that I think kids become more intelligent and to some extent mature faster intellectually and emotionally with each generation. I think most people would be a bit shocked at what a 7 or 8 year old knows and is capable of today, in part because previous generations were not that capable. To put things into perspective it can be argued that even though it's one generation "Boogerman" and "Scooby Doo" might not do the job for them that they did for you.

I'm not saying that Grand Theft Auto, and Manhunt are good choices for a young child. I'm just saying that I think a big part of the shock comes from that it's really hard to find a middle ground that will appeal to those children.

-

On top of this, on the general subject of "M" rated games I think one of the problems is increasingly that the goverment/industry/ESRB have ruined the integrity of the rating system themselves. Due to political pressure, and a desire by producers to get games approved and out quickly, I think few people are fighting for their rights and proper ratings under the current system. It's easier to just go for an "M" label in many cases than to fight for a "T" label.

I am NOT thinking of 7 and 8 year olds, but of older kids here for the most part here. I think part of the problem is that if a game for example shows breast nudity, or has a sex scene/making out or whatever people go for an "M" rating. Ditto for people being shot or foul language. The thing though is that pretty much all of that is PG-13/M rated. I mean self-aware horror movies like "Scream" have even made jokes about "keeping things PG-13" before a girl flashes her breasts to her boyfriend. This is to say nothing of the violence where to be honest simply shooting people and seeing dead bodies is again PG-type material. Plenty of good old fashioned "shoot 'em up" and "kung-fu" movies carry a PG or PG-13 rating and have loads of violence, and even a decent amount of blood and gore in some cases.

The thing is that many parents are probably looking at games from the perspective that it's no worse than a typical action or science fiction movie, but people are overreacting. I mean how old we you when you saw "The Empire Strikes Back" and luke got his arm chopped off and was standing there with a caurterized stump? Did you watch "Enter The Dragon" or other Bruce Lee movies? How about some of the movies by guys like "Van Damme", "Chuck Norris", or "Steven Seagal"? Heck, in the last Star Wars movie (end of the prequel triology) Anakin got three of his limbs chopped off and was left to slowly burn to death while he was screaming (which they showed incidently).

Due to over rating, a lot of parents probably tend to read "Mature" as "Teen", which is a mistake when it comes to the titles that deserve an "M" rating.

What's more ironically it seems to me that the "AO" rating is being used for content that is R or M rated. Generally speaking getting an "X" rating requires very specific things like actually showing sexual penetration (two people can tie each other up, break out the whips and chains, or play naked twister on a bed, and it won't be "X" rated. A point made by the entire "Erotic Thriller" genere).

Assuming the parents are naive (which I think is becoming less common), a cursory examination of "Grand Theft Auto" or "Manhunt" would make them look like pretty typical action adventure stuff. Given all the other over rated games, you can see how mistakes would be made. People who aren't hardcore gamers don't know all the titles and what they are, but that doesn't make them totally naive. In this case I think consumers being somewhat savvy to the content and how the ratings are used (even if they don't think of it this way), without being "hardcore" when it comes to information, is a big part of the problem.

 

[okiness]

You know what's worse? When I actively tell my mother "Hey, you shouldn't buy that game for Jarrod. It has sex and blood in it. I know, I played." When I was his age she said .hack looked too scary for me.

 

[aarontg]

Personally I think it's up to the individual. Anyone below ten maybe is obviousely gonna take a thing or two from the game's violence but I believe that any kid above ten should be able to distinguish between the right and the wrong, the realistic and the fantastic and so on. Not to say they should bump down the restrictions but they should make it mandatory for employees to restrict adults from buying games they say their buying for their under age children.

 

[xmbts]

Personally I don't think the game is gonna mess the kid up but the parents do need to actually know what their kids are doing and not just let the TV babysit them.

 

[lwm3398]

If they're something like, I don't know, 7th or 8th grade, I think that's fine. If you're not mature enough when you're only a year from being a high school freshman to play an M game and not have it bleed into your reality, you shouldn't be going into high school. But I do admit that 7 is much too young to be playing an M game, and that the stupidity of that parent is very obvious.

I think parents should at least look at the rating before blindly buying whatever their kid wants. That's what it's there for. You look at the rating before taking your child to a movie, you should look at the rating before buying a game as well.

 

[similar.squirrel]

Heck no. It's really disturbing to see these tykes in Gamestop frothing over the next Kill of War Zone: Modern Battlefield.
Literally stammering with emotion and hyperactivity. Wantwantwant. And their parents usually acquiesce, which I think is just lazy and morally suspect.

Games are really, really involving. Hell, most of us here are in our late teens to early thirties, and they're mostly what we discuss. Toys, essentially.
Letting a child go near one that's violent will most likely have a bad effect. They do affect scholastic performance, as well.

Let them play Mario Kart or Zelda or whatever in hour-long stints. There's no reason for kids to play games about homicide for hours on end.

 

[Life_Is_A_Mess]

I played M games when I was young, like 7-12, but I could see that murdering, doing drugs and others was wrong.
My concern is that there are lots of kids who play these games that are ignorants, and don't understand the contents of the games, thinking that it's okay to smugle or kill people.
I don't think kids should be too exposed to this kind of games, because there can be consequences later, in their teenage or adult life.

 

[pyrosaw]

As I said a while ago, why should people my age not play TF2? Just because it's M rated? That community could die out soon and i'll never experince it. I'll be stuck playing Modern Warfare 4 or something.

 

[Skull Kid]

I have to say that I am not allowed to play 18 rated games and I am 14 and it really annoys me when a game I have been looking forward to is rated 18 and all I can do is listen to my friends talk about it. So at least some parents are not screwed up in their heads. It isn't right that some parents don't bother to find out what their kids are playing but surely it can't do too much harm seeing as kids will be doing the same thing (shooting guns at evil dudes) in their imagination. If their is anything sexual then they wont understand, possibly think its boring and move on. If something is scary then they will put it down or eventually get over it. When I was 8 I was scared of ANY boss fight no matter what it was (Zelda and Mario games to name a few) I would then proceed to give the controller to my dad/older brother.