Poll: What age did you start playing M rated games

[ImperialSunlight]

Around 10, but they weren't my games. My stepsister played them with me. Grand Theft Auto, mostly.

Edit: Oh, also Mortal Combat at around 7.

 

[rissr]

to be honest ive been playing as long as i can remember

 

[stinkyrobot]

12, but it was only Conkers bad fur day on the N64

 

[Chased]

When I was 5 my Dad got a computer that had Wolfenstein 3D on it (at the time they didn't have the M game rating, I believe it is now rated M though). I played that game like crazy, didn't beat it until I was 13 or so.

 

[thomaskattus]

Well, since I started playing videos games in the Pong era the rating system never affected me.

 

[War Penguin]

I didn't start playing M rated games until I was sixteen, but that's because I didn't start playing games until I was ten.

The first ones that I remember were Mass Effect and Half Life 2. Still awesome to this day!

 

[targren]

I was an adult before the rating system started.

This. I think the first M-rated game I bothered to play was Resident Evil, and I was 17 when that came out...

 

[Diddy_Mao]

I was 17 when the ESRB was founded and the first M rated game I remember buying was GTA III (I was more of an RPG guy at the time so not a lot of FPS or fighting games in my collection.)

If we're talking spirit of the question more than letter however. Yeah I played Mortal Kombat in the arcades pretty much every weekend for 2 months straight and logged in more than my fair share of hours on Doom II.

So...13 or 14 is probably a reasonable guess if you take that into consideration.

*Edit*

I was an adult before the rating system started.

This. I think the first M-rated game I bothered to play was Resident Evil, and I was 17 when that came out...

Doh!
Yeah, I played Resident Evil 2 until my eyes were sore...so yeah I was 18 on the nose when that came out.

 

[Weealzabob]

Mgs2 was my fist ps2 game at 10 and it took me 2 years to beat/understand it but when I did MG became one of my favorite series of all time.
at age 13 my mom realized what M meant and tried to fix the problem by making me get rid of all my M games, mostly Metal gear's but I got games in return. By 13 I knew how to cheat the parent system so I was back to M games, but I began to hate stupid violence in them.

Now while I don't dissupot teens playing some M games, Games have gotten a lot worse and parents need to watch their kids a little more. I mean I actually had to stop a parent from getting thei 7 the new Mortal Combat. I mean that stuff is not ok for pre-teens. But it's the parent's responsibility and choice I suppose.

It's funny around the time I started playing games on the PS3 I started feeling the same way about the excessive gore in games. I think a slight reason was that I was starting to mature, but my main issue is that the technology is now at the point where the blood and gore in-game looks so realistic that it's genuinely disturbing.

 

[Skops]

5-6. Playing Wolfenstein 3D. Though I don't remember there being a rating on the box.. First M-rated game I remember seeing the rating? Resident Evil and I was 11.

 

[w9496]

I completed DOOM when I was five, so a year before that maybe.

 

[owen20011993]

gta vice city when i was 11

 

[Nyaoku]

Age 4: Some Duke Nukem game.
Age 5: Turok 2 Seeds of evil. - actually taught me how to read/spell
Somewhere after that I started up the RE series.

 

[teebeeohh]

Probably doom at age 9. but I was really bored by it and went back to playing AOE

 

[Screamarie]

I honestly can't remember...I chose 13-16 because that's about the time Devil May Cry came out and I know I played that. My mother never really paid attention to ratings on games...partially because I don't think she realized how graphic, violent, and gory games had gotten, but mainly because I was a bit of a special case.

Compared to my elder brother and sister (and by elder I mean 6 and 5 years respectively), I was always more calm, quiet, and mature so she never thought of censoring a whole lot from me. So as long as it wasn't a minor step down from porn or something along the lines of Saw level violence and gore, I was allowed to watch or play it when I was young. Then I turned 16 and she didn't even worry about it anymore.

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

I was under ten. I think it was the first Halo.

 

[iLazy]

I was 8, and played GTA: San Andreas. Memorized all the cheats for weapons, health and lowering stars.

My brother was quite impressed

 

[Kuroneko97]

Around 5-6, I remember playing Grand Theft Auto. I played Vice City and San Andreas. I actually started to become corrupt, telling my brother he should run over motorcyclists, but then I got scolded.

I actually could never hit someone with a bat or shoot anybody, unless my life were in danger. I'm extremely physically empathetic.

I'm going to laugh at all of those concerned parents who say videogames make you murderers now.

 

[Snotnarok]

I'm not even sure, I played Wolfenstein, Blake Stone, Duke 3D, Zero Tolerance all at an early age.

 

[MiriaJiyuu]

Doom, GTA, Quake... played a lot of M rated games until I was 7, Then my mom figured out what the ESRB ratings meant, and I didn't get a T game until I was 12 and the first M game I actually got and played myself was AC2 when I was 17