Parents

jad4400

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Jun 12, 2008
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I have noticed that parents tend to get bashed a lot in forums, usually it is people complaining that they never take enough time to take notice of the games they are buying for their kids, and then later turn around and complain about they games they just bought for their kids.

My question is, did your parents ever take notice of they games they were buying, did they ever take a moment to observe what content may be in said game to see if it may not be appropriet for you, and did they ever say no to buying you a game, not out of menetary concerns, but out of a concern that the game may not be approprite for you at that age.

I remember that untill I turned 15, my mom would not let me play a grand theft auto game, I even remember asking if I could rent it when I was younger (10 I think) and she looked the game box and flat out told me NO! I was pissed, but now on reflection I realize that it was most likley a smart choice on her part.

I also remember wanting to buy Starcraft plus brood war expansion, my mom looked at it on the computer and saw the Brood War cover art (the one with the semi-scary picture of Infested Kerrigan with blood at the corner of her mouth) and she said that the game looked to scary for me and would not buy it. (I was 7 at the time) I still think that it was kinda dumb of her not to let me buy considering there are not that many scary parts in the cutscenes.

To get us back on topic, have any one of your parents ever taken a little time to observe what might be in game content, before letting you play a game?
 

darkless

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Jan 26, 2008
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Yup my mom censored the games i was aloud to when i was a kid i was never allowed play GTA or any games that had any kind of "realistic" violence, ie. Randomly killing civilians and other stuff of that nature.
 

xitel

Assume That I Hate You.
Aug 13, 2008
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All the time. I wasn't allowed to play a game if it had an M rating for certain things, namely sex or graphic violence. But if it was just cartoon violence or alcohol use, or gambling, things that they personally warned me about, then they would let me play it.
 

Zomni42

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Jul 22, 2008
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I have enjoyed a reasonable amount of freedom when it comes to my gaming experiences; And my parents similarly did not allow GTA games. (as a matter of fact i was nominally forbidden to play the game until i was 18). However it's not like i didn't get to play those games anyway. Play stations were common enough that many of my friends owned GTA 3 etc. And i was not allowed to by "Brood War" until i made the clarification between that it was not in fact entitled "BLOOD war" and that i already owned and played the first part of the game. So.. in effect my parents did look into game content before "letting" me play a game, but in the environment i and my friends existed, any rules "banning" a game were easily circumvented and virtually impossible to enforce.
 

MelziGurl

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Jan 16, 2009
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If our parents thought we were mature enough to handle certain game genres, then we were allowed to play them. For the most part though, we preferred Sonic, Alex the Kid, Paperboy etc. So I don't think our parents were too worried.
 

Flying-Emu

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Oct 30, 2008
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Yes, they did. And I'm a socially well-adjusted young man.

Who lives for the Swarm.

Erm.

But seriously. I was always forced to stay away from games like Unreal, Doom, etc. until I was about sixteen. Then they let me play some of the more mature games, and I realized they weren't all they were cracked up to be.

I think that perhaps, since a lot of us get exposed to large amounts of violence and gore at a young age, we naturally associate those with good games. Kind of like how I associate games with falling blocks arranged in a particular fashion to earn points good. I mean, I very rarely hear of a blood-encrusted game that isn't mildly well-anticipated.
 

Talendra

Hail, Ilpalazzo!
Jan 26, 2009
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Mine didn't but I did not really have any desire to play violent video games preferring platformers. Also with movies she let me see some that were rated not suitable for my age, but weren't too bad, and I mostly just had no interest in the bad ones.
 

Mask of 1000 Faces

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Feb 28, 2009
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I played the first Unreal at my cousins house. My mom thought it was cool.

I never had a problem with her, it's my dad that always whined about it.

Life's funny I guess.

Actually, now that I think about it, nudity was the only gripe my parents really had, they felt that senseless violence would attack my childhood normally anyway, since alot of little boys get violent one way or another when they're young.
 

shadow_pirate22

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Aug 25, 2008
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My mom never let me get GTA until I was about 15. Other than that, she was ok, since I rarely asked for any games way above my age level, or looked at the content first.
 

Cortheya

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Jan 10, 2009
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not really my mom lets me buy whatever game as long as its not grand theft auto (mainly because of the media attention probably) Example, she let me buy mass effect with no objection whatsoever
 

Clashero

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Aug 15, 2008
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I have always had complete freedom when choosing my games. It's not that my parents didn't care, it's that they knew I've always been responsible, and I know when something is too much for me (not only in games, also in things like alcohol, etc). I turned out alright, even if I was playing Hitman at the age of 9 or 10.

EDIT: Although I think if she saw a sex scene like the one is Mass Effect (or worse, Indigo Prophecy/Fahrenheit) she'd let out the loudest "WHAT THE FUCK!?" the world has heard.
 

Aardvark

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Sep 9, 2008
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So your parents don't understand videogames and ban/censor your videogaming experience. There's a reason for that. They're your parents. You can try all you like to tell them that they don't cause violence and that there are gamers who failed at school, yet went on to make squillions in the virtual shrimp market, but all your parents see are the school shootings and the unemployable bums wearing Mario t-shirts. Then they step in and do their jobs.

If you don't like it, too bad. There's only two things you can do. Either get a job and fund your own gaming habit or put in the hard yards and bring home those superior school marks. If you can demonstrate your ability to not fail at school, while still sacrificing hours to the almighty WoW Gods, then your parents will have no choice but to admit that they were wrong.

Sort of related, but still funny [http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/2008/01/22/16-hating-your-parents/].
 

Space Spoons

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Aug 21, 2008
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My mother always did her research when it came to gaming. I was restricted to E until I was 12, at which point I graduated to T. At 15, I was allowed to play M, on the condition that I wait until she had had the chance to screen it for content first. Pretty good setup, very responsible of her. She ended up being a pretty big Mortal Kombat fan because of it, too.
 

black lincon

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Aug 21, 2008
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My mom used to, she didn't let me get RE4 when that came out and she used to have a big problem with me playing GTA3 at my friends house. but eventually she realized my dad stopped caring that she care about what I played (they were divorced) and just agreed to let me buy whatever I wanted because he figured I could handle blood and gore.
 

Mask of 1000 Faces

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Feb 28, 2009
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zeldakong64 said:
My mother still thinks Halo is the devil incarnate.
It is ^_^.

Come to think of it, they refuse to let my little brother play anything from the soul calibur series, and yet they think its cool that he plays the newer console metroids.

Blood - Slapstick Violence?

Silly parents.
 

theSovietConnection

Survivor, VDNKh Station
Jan 14, 2009
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My parents only let me play games I was in the ratings range for, and thinking about it, I'm kind of glad they did, made some of those games all the better when I finally was able to get them.
 

ChickDangerous

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Feb 8, 2009
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My parents were usually playing them alongside us. Although that said, they were pretty strict about games with more mature content and while they don't care now that we're all grown up they don't want us playing certain games in front of our younger brothers.