If I had kids the only thing they'd get to use a PC/internet for is homework/school/research, until they were 10 years old, and they absolutely wouldn't have a PC in their own room. After that it would depend on the child somewhat...don't care too much about the violence as long it's cartoonish/outlandish and not super-realistic gruesome, if that makes sense. Age 13, if they were into video games, they could play pretty much whatever they want, after homework/chores, but they'd be expected to chip in to pay for games via their allowance/own income, even if it was only a small portion. But they still wouldn't get internet in their private room.

...I'd probably be a fairly restrictive parent as far as tech goes which includes TV watching/internet. Outside of school, I think it's good for kids to grow up not using/relying on tech too much...eg, to learn it's a tool & occasional entertainment, not an addictive must-have-to-function. Go outside, play, meet people, learn social skills, learn/discover non-tech hobbies (sports, crafts/arts, whatever), do well in school first and all that. I'd be much more willing to pay for horse riding lessons or (say) extra computer programming/design classes than an Xbox+games. If they want to be addicted to tech as a mid-teen/advlt (since that's kind of the world we live in now) that's cool. Just not when they're friggin' 9 years old. Learn real-life first.

nothing online till hes around 12-14 depending on him of course. I wouldnt let he play gta till around the same age and i would not let him play bulletstorm or left for dead as well as duke nukem.

A whole lot, basically anything that's rated M and thank god for the ESRB or else we'd have somebody else, The (Censored) doing it.

Any of the Gears of War games
Fallouts 3 and New Vegas
The Grand theft Autos all of them
Saints row 1 and 2
Dante's Inferno
Bulletstorm (The most recent to start a stupid controversey, its dumb, dumb I tell you but I won't say any more)
Call of Duty (All versions)
Possibly Oblivion (That one is a stretch but there is a lot of violence)
Mass Effect 1 and 2
Dragon age origins and Dragon age 2

Any thing else that I missed that's rated M.

Nope. It's all good with me. Though I would definitely encourage certain games over others. KoToR, Shadow of The Colossus, Monkey Island or Morrowind as examples. Basically anything with artistic value, story or depth will be encouraged over the latest generic Grey FPS. Though this is depending on the kid. If it's an idiot kid who likes to act out things he sees on TV or whatever, then I'd keep a closer eye on what is played.

Actually, any game I deem to be crap, will be banned. My kids will have good taste GODDAMMIT!

i'd never let my kids play Elder Scrolls Oblivion, did you know that those characters have nipbles under their bras!

Yeah, there are plenty. When I was growing up I wasn't allowed to play most of the games my peers were, like the GTA games. By the time I was about 15 they let me choose what I thought was appropriate and what wasn't, and I think I'm better off for it.

I started playing GTA at like 7. My neighbor gave me Vice City

No. Not letting your kids play certain games is just an excuse to be lazy parents. Both me and my brother have played violent and mature games since we were 2 or 3. And we are both quite mature and "level" compared to our friends.

Know why? Because our parents took the time to explain the difference between a video game violence and real life violence. They explained the difference and that to actually harm someone is not right.

Any parent who blames violent video games for child misbehavior needs to step up and get their own parenting act in gear because its just a matter of them being lazy ass parents.

[censored] crap if you ask me.

@ injek: amen to that. Its just like tv. Can watch a hundred men get shot, stabbed, beaten to holy [censored], blown up into nothing but god forbid I see bloody nipbles through a wet shirt from Helen Hunt being in the rain!! (Movie with jack what-his-face)

Todays censoring is utter [censored] and shows us what a truly depraved and morally [censored] up society we have become.

Considering my oldest daughter is only 7, there are a lot of games I have no plans on letting her play for a while. anything involving Online play, Nudity, and extreme violence is off the table. I'll rescind the latter two when she's older(like 12-14), but online play will be dis-allowed until she's 16 and considerably more mature(and if she's not mature enough at 16, i still won't allow it). I know how I myself reacted once I gained access to the internet. I didn't do anything crazy, but I became enamored of every other person and believed they felt the same way. And that was nigh on 15 years ago, when the world wasn't quite as...(hmm, hard to explain) internet privy I guess. Predators still existed on the net, but nowhere near on the same scale as they exist today, and I have no plans on letting ANY of those wierdos' get near my daughters.

Oldest daughter has been playing video games(well, kinda, started with learning games on leapster) since she was 2, and I'm happy about that, because I love video games. I have, however, with my wife, set limits on her play time, and have explained to her many times throughout her young life that video games are NOT reality, and that there are also other things to do besides play video games. My youngest daughter(about to turn 3) is starting to show interest in video games, and we will be doing the same with her as well. Thankfully, both love to do others like play outside and socialize(which, honestly, is a step above me at that age, and quite frankly, all my adolescent life, I was quite the loner with only 2 real friends until Junior/Senior year), which is great! If either ever show signs of becoming recluses though, I'll take the game systems out of their rooms and lock them away myself.

As far as internet goes, neither will be allowed until they are considerably older(at least 12), and even then, it's going to be heavily monitored(i'll be in the same room sitting next to her myself), as I am a strong believer that the Internet is killing our youths creativity and intelligence, and is extremely un-necessary until an later age. The same goes with cell-phones. neither daughter will have a cell-phone until they are 16, working, and can pay for it themselves. Even then, there will be restrictions placed on there cell-phones, such as how much time they are allowed on, how much texting(and when) occurs, and I'll be making sure the Cell-phone company sends me complete transcriptions of every text sent and received. I didn't need a cell phone growing up, and I did just fine, and the same will go for my children. To much trouble can occur.

I wouldn't let them play any video games. I wouldn't even let them come home on the weekends, 'cause they'll be outside playing with friends and socializing. They will become everything I'm not.

Oh... Oh God :cryvaultboy:

Only the ones that I'm playing

Biggest reason I wouldn't let my kids play games is because I want to play. This could result in random grounding

Me while playing video game: Uh...No it's not your turn because you're grounded!

Kid: What why?

Me: You didn't clean up after your dog!

Kid: We don't even have a dog!

Me: Don't back sass me now go clean up after that dog!

Well, I wouldn't let them play anything with intense gore, like God of War, or Gears of War. That sort of stuff has always bothered me to a certain degree, and I wouldn't want a young kid exposed to it.

Anything else is fair game. If you're trying to restrict a kid from playing a game with language or sixuality in the hopes they won't be exposed to it, you're kidding yourself. Considering the state of the public school system, and just how quickly children seem to get into mature themes, any attempt to block that stuff from their view is pretty much futile. I suppose the same could be said for games with gore, since they could probably just go to a friend's house and play it, but... Well... Like I said, games like that bother me.

Since I don't have children right now, it's not a problem for me, but if I had them, it would probably depend on how mature I feel the children are, of course. But I'd be cautious about letting someone under the age of 13 play a GTA game, or other games of similar nature. Not so much because of the violence in itself, but because these sorts of games often give players lots of ways to cause various forms of cruelty to in-game NPCs, and may not include realistic concequences for such actions. I mean, sure, in GTA, the police try to arrest you if you commit crimes, but hat's part of the fun, and if you get caught, you just lose a bit of money and get back into the streets, as opposed to spending years in prison or something like that, and there's really no lasting concequences for such actions. Of course, I know that these games don't necessarily represent reality, but do children know that? I wouldn't want to give my children the impression that violence and crime are like a game.

I'd also be cautious about online games, because I wouldn't want my children to become addicted to them and lose anything resembling a social life.

Now, I'm not sure if I'd necessary not let them play these games entirely, but if they did play them, in the former case, I'd make sure that they understand that the video game is not a representation of real life and while they may be able to get away with stabbing someone in the street in the game, they should not expect the same in real life. And in the latter case, I feel it would be necessary to impose some limits on how much they can play games, and make sure that they get a healthy amount of other activities done as well. I suppose that would be needed with games of any kind, but the risk always seems easily great with online games.



How is controlling what you're children are exposed to "an excuse to be a lazy parent"? Isn't that by nature NOT being lazy because you're taking an active role in parenting? Lazy parenting would be ignoring your children and letting them do whatever they want.

Now, expecting the government to decide what games your children can play for you, on the other hand, is lazy parenting.



That's true, the idea is not so much that you don't want to expose your children to nudity as it is to sixuality, at least, that's how it should be. The problem is when people automatically assume that nudity = porm. I mean, yes, often, when used in media, nudity is used as what basically aquates to pormography, but that's not always the case, and yet people would seem to have us think that anything that shows any nudity is automatically pormographic. At this point, I'm surprised that I haven't heard of anyone trying to ban minors from entering an art gallery because some of the paintings in it depict nvde people.

All GTA games.

Minecraft. I am not allowing some poxy little 10 year old to build a structure that dwarves mine.

I wouldn't let them play games with a monthly fee since I'm not paying that monthly fee. Everything else they can play. If I see that they're spending most of their time indoors then I would do something about it.

Generally speaking, they can play anything. I can't wait to blow up prosttutes with my kid after using them in GTA XV !

WoW. If I had kids, I would not want them to be nerdy fatsos who spend most of their time playing WoW.
GTA. At least not until they're about 12. The first time I played GTA was when I was about 7...
Fallout. Too much gore for 'em.
Any game by VALVe (except for Portal and Portal 2). Seriously, most of the games by them are full of gore and violence (Left 4 Dead for example). Portal is a puzzle game, so it's fine.
Any Call of Duty games. They're too addicting and violent.

That's most of 'em...

Let me just say that I was a bit of a troubled kid (Parents broke up, may have had something to do with it. I still don't know why I did these things for sure.) with anger issues (Attacking my sister, mother, father, anybody who pissed me off.), and my dad (Who I was living with) didn't care what games I played (Well he cared, but he didn't really think that he had the right to tell me what games I should play. Odd huh?), no matter how violent. I started playing video games like Vice City all the time. I would play the game, do the missions, and drive the cars. I would also go on rampages, mowing down random civilians with my car/rocket launcher/assault rifle, putting http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VideoGameCrueltyPotential into full effect. However, after a while my attitude slowly started to change. I became less violent as, instead of letting out my anger on a person, I would let it out in game through the "misfortune" of random virtual people and sweet car jumps with some of the best songs of the 80s playing in the background. Vice City was, by no means, the only game I played.

I may be wrong about this, but I honestly think that, without video games, I would not have turned out as well rounded as I have, despite my troubled childhood. I may be able to honestly say that violent video games improved me as a person.

But, to be a little more on-topic, I would not let my kids go on XBL. XBL is fine once you grasp that all the people on the other end can do is sling words at you, and that those words should not phase you. However, with someone like a little kid I really don't think they can handle it very well. All the kids I see on XBL are usually complete jerks, and due to the internet hate machine those who aren't jerks soon will be, mostly due to them having to be to survive. I mean, if all anybody does is to insult you, insult them back, right? Well as most of us surly know, all that does is make things worse, and invite more insults.

Now of course it depends on the kid, but I don't think that most would do what happens on XBl in real life, lest actual consequences occur. You'd have to be a complete shut-in with no social interaction outside of that environmant for you to think acting like that IRL would ever be acceptable.

I'm pretty tired right now, I may end up regretting what I said once I get sleep. I'm not even sure if my ramblings have a point... at this point.

My son's been playing Medal of Honor and GTA since he was 7, and COD online since he was 10 (as have virtually all his school friends). He's fine. The only games I won't allow him to play are scary games like F.E.A.R. and Condemned. I also dissuade him from MMOs, and thankfully he's not interested in them.

As somebody who has grown up playing games from an early age, I was 8 when I played MGS (15s) and 11 playing GTA 3 (18), plus plenty of others in between, I think it just depends on the child. I've always been okay with playing stuff like that. It really depends on the individual though.

The only thing I would do, is check that they don't play online without a filter. I'd let them play CoD with their friends, if they could only speak to said friends. Wouldn't let them annoy the general public though.


And I'll kill anybody who disagrees with me!*


*Bad joke

I've been playing violent videogames (Age of Empires 2) since I was four and taboo games (GTA 3) since I was around nine or ten. I turned out fine. It would be hypocritical of me to withhold all videogames from my children if they are developing perfectly normally. However, there are beneficial and detrimental videogames for childhood development, and I intend to distinguish between the two.

Games that teach maths, reading, puzzle solving, diplomacy and coordination are great. I'll be trying to instil these qualities in my kids from the moment they're born, and videogames are a fantastic aid. For instance, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype:_The_Time_Quest develops pattern recognition puzzle solving and teaches children to listen to what others have to say in order to glean important, interesting or funny information. RTS games improve multitasking, mathematical and coordination skills. Games with morality systems like Fable and KotOR are fantastic simulators that portray life accurately in rewarding players for being nice with good relationships with the NPCs.

Once they hit secondary school (twelve years old) I'll start relaxing it a little bit. I'll start introducing games with mature themes like Mass Effect, Fallout, Half Life, Splinter Cell and TES (starting with Morrowind for the immense amount of reading involved), but I'll also start allowing the play of games that are just fighting things for fun such as Halo, Perfect Dark, and the LOTR hack and slash games.

When they hit fourteen I'll let them play any game they want provided that they aren't developing into psychopaths, but 18 rated games have to be approved by me or my partner first. And no MMOs. Too addictive, too expensive and they don't instil any good qualities except for communication, which can be honed by team sports which I'll also be encouraging.

So yeah. I see videogames more as an immensely useful tool for parents rather than the spawn of Satan.

As long as I don't have to pay money for Monthly fees, then I could care less what my kid plays. Video games aren't gonna make them some psychopath who kills people for the lulz.

My kids would be not allowed to use Club Penguin, IMVU, or any of those "free" online games that make you pay real money for clothes and stupid crap like that. Also no GTA or Saints Row for kids under 13, and no, I'm not just saying 13 because thats how old I am and I want to be able to play those games (I hate those games, and I'm 17) I'm just saying once you're a teenager you can see the funny/stupid side of games like GTA and SR and I'm sure a 10 year old could also get some laughs out of it but something about a 10 year old playing a game where you shoot cops, sell dope, hire hokers, and rob stores just doesnt seem right in my book, am I out of line for thinking that? Because thats just me :shrug:

Edit: At the same time though, I cant really talk bad about the parents that let their kids play those games, my first really violent war movie sequence I saw was the D-day scene in Saving Private Ryan when I was about 6 years old (it came out in '98 and I'm 17). Then I saw Black Hawk Down in theaters with my dad when it came out in 2001 so I was about 9 and I grew up on games like Medal of Honor way before that and I turned out fine...I've been obsessed with war movies and games ever since and even going to war myself but other than that perfectly normal...

Well; having been a kid not so long ago myself; I'll admit that I've played some M rated games in my youth; but it had absolutely no ill-effects on my life. Atleast not the games itself. The fact that I used to game all the time made me fat, as I used to stay indoors and play Xbox all day while drinking soda, rather than do something productive..

So if my child is a gamer, I'll let them play pretty much anything after 13 or 14; depending in their maturity level as long as they play in moderation. Being interested in games myself though; I'd know if something wrong was in the game before them anyway. So; no RDR or GTA IV or anything else with extreme content; but yeah, most things are fine..

Boobies? If you think people react badly when they put boobs on the screen, god forbid they put male nudity in. :facepalm:

People can be too prudish, really. sixuality is a perfectly natural thing, yet some people just HAVE to make it out to be some evil or whatnot. <_<

Anyway, I wouldn't let a 12 year old play anything with an M on the box. 15-16 year old? Sure, be my guest.

Now, that being said, that's assuming they haven't been exposed to that sort of stuff yet. Public school throws a wrench in that. A very large one, actually. So depending on what they'd already been exposed to I might let them play M rated games.