What is the minimum age of Gaming?

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

I started gaming at 3(got NES from uncle) and managed to finish Megaman 2, Probotector(Contra) and Super Mario Bros. Although controls were simpler back then but the games were harder and more punishing. Also your cousin is just young and doesn't really quite understand yet so there is nothing you can do there except try and be nice. There a different buttons for Sprint, crouch, prone and stand up so you can move at varying speeds decide how big of a target/accurate and fast moving you wanna be. It is not that arbitrary. One of the biggest things I missed about CoD when trying to play BF:BC2 for the first time was Lean. Yet this is seemingly arbritrary functions serves as a massive tactical advantage than say stand in door way the try move back in when shot at.

As for minimum age there should probably be a minimum age/maturity level for online gaming but that is it really. Well but this is just more to do with the fact that the people shouldn't even be playing the games in the first place anyway.

Just get your cousin to play Mario or Crash(the first 3) or some other game. Try get him to play some simple Flash games on Kongregate but make sure you know what he is playing first as I am sure your Aunt/Uncle wouldn't want their 3 year old playing Last Stand 1/2 or Endless Zombie Rampage or Rage or something like those.

 

[ZephrC]

Well there's some evidence that an infant spending a lot of time looking at 2D images instead of interacting with things in three dimensions is likely to grow up to have a harder time understanding spatial relationships in 3D, and this seems to relate somehow to also being worse at things like logic, although that connection is extremely tenuous so far. Anyway, all this usually happens around 3-5ish months old, so by the time a child is about a year old should be perfectly safe.

Other than that, as soon as they are capable. Even if a kid seems to just be mashing buttons and not really producing useful results, as long as they're having fun why not let them play? They'll probably learn relatively fast anyway. Contrary to popular belief, kids aren't stupid, they just don't know much yet. They actually tend to pick up new concepts much faster than adults.

 

[badgersprite]

It depends what you mean by 'gaming', since there really are games available for all ages. I had a point and click game called Ruff's Bone when I was a really little kid, which I could play by myself, but there were also more conventional, mainstream games that my dad would basically pretend to let me play, when he was really doing all the work. =P

But, yeah, there are age appropriate things out there, even if they aren't things we would think of when we think video games. Get him into that sort of thing. You can even sneak in a little education, which is always a good thing. I remember playing some kind of space adventure game where the answer to everything was MATH PUZZLES. Yes, solving math puzzles = FIRING MAH LAZER and POWERING UP MAH JETPACK! Thrilling. It was weirdly addictive, but then I was always a math geek, so there you go.

 

[Taddy]

Age 2 or 4 i can't really remember too well, Doom. Ah good times.

 

[BlastedTheWorm]

I started at 3 with a Master System.

 

[SomethingUnrelated]

If you had it, you'd probably want to show your Nephew some of the more basic stuff on LBP. It'd introduce him nicely to gaming on the whole, I think.

I started gaming at 5, and starting getting the gist of what was going on at the time, but didn't fully comprehend gaming until much later.

 

[Fozzo]

Started at about 3 when I got a Megadrive. Obviously online play didn't come in until I was much older. I think kids should stay the hell away from online gaming because they piss me off no end. I'm sure many of you feel the same.

 

[GreigKM]

Minimum age of gaming? Well, what it the minimum age of reading? The minimum age of watching a movie? You see, the problem you are facing is that the games don't fit the age. Trying to get him to play Portal is like trying to make him watch Citizen Kane (and appreciate it, I mean). Anyone remember the old Pajama Sam or Put-Put games? That's the kind of stuff he needs, games made specifically for young kids, to not only help them grow and develop, but also to introduce them to gaming. As for how long I've been playing games, since I was about 4, good old Sonic on a Sega Genesis, going on to the kiddy games on PC, but soon after Myst and a game called G-Nome (similar to Mech-Walker games, but I still like it more).

 

[Rayansaki]

Started when I was about 10. I have a cousin in the same situation as OP, he is 6 yr old and whenever he comes over he wants to play PS3, but he really can't do much of anything in any game.

In gran turismo, he goes from wall to wall;

In Time Crisis:RS, he gets like 5 kills for every 100 I get, so I'm playing solo arcade;

In Little big planet he can only really do very basic jumps and grabs, anything that requires him to go from one rope to another is suicide.

In Fifa11, he actually has a decent grasp of what to do because he has an old Fifa game on his PSP, but he never ever passes the ball to another player, whoever gets it runs all the way to the goal, so I have to set minimum difficulty for him.

 

[Rayansaki]

I started when I was 6-7. I'm South Korean by the way, so quit thinking I'm a Starcraft addict xD! My first game I believe was Maple Story, a fantastic game which now unfortunately bores me.

When was your first GSL?

 

[MadCapMunchkin]

Started gaming at the age of 5 with the SNES. Never looked back.

 

[Sn1P3r M98]

I started at around 5 with learning games, and at about 7 or 8 I played my first FPS and RTS on the computer. Got a PS2 when I was 9 or 10 and went on from there.

 

[TeeBs]

I got pokemon red and blue for gameboy when I was 4, very simple game though and I didn't really understand alot other then attack attack attack, hell I only had a Charizard and A Gyrados because I didn't know how to catch pokemon.

 

[GeneticallyModifiedDucks]

Started gaming at age 5. Played the original Prince of Persia on my dad's Commodore at the time. Good times.

 

[Macgyvercas]

I started gaming when I was around 5 or 6.

 

[DazBurger]

Minimum age of gaming - None
Minimum age of online gaming - 16


... Plz!

 

[JEBWrench]

My best friend's son is 3 and fully understands how to play driving games on his XBox.

 

[SinisterGehe]

I started gaming when I was 4 I had my first computer at the age of 7½ and I have always been playing. No I am much older (you don't need to know how old, But heres a hint one of the first games I ever played was Doom). I think k-12 rating would be enough.
Mainly because of the reason that at the age of 12 a Finnish child who does about average in school has wide understanding of English and social behavior. But like always I can and I been proven wrong; when I think on international standards the age req for online games should be k-16 mandatory.

 

[trophykiller]

I started playing at six, my first game being link to the past. I sucked at it and gave up, moving on to zelda 2(which crapped me out in about 2 seconds), until I finally moved on to metroid zero mission, where I learned to get good at games and even learned valuable lessons like coping with defeat and not giving up(because I'm a complete upgrade slut and thus that game appealed to me).

Truth is, I know a lot of underaged gamers who manage to be quite mature and take gaming as a healthy hobby rather than an obsession.

 

[XT inc]

I mean I started gaming when I was 2-3, but back in 1990 games were really fun, but they weren't so involved that it's all you wanted to do. I mean the level of difficulty to a child playing nes games, gave you a reason to go outside and play.

Now games are nubbed down so anyone can play these long time consuming things, I think the minimal age for regular gaming not educational gaming should be like 8-12. Then I think they should change the M rating from 17+ to 18+ just as a way of sorting out the kids from the adults, make parents who wouldn't buy the saw series or a porno for their 12 year old think about the games they buy them.