You are not allowed to have video games that depict shooting at other Humans, or at least those are what the laws were at one point. You'll find some titles that where everyone else is fighting blodd and guts everywhere, the German version will have you fighting Robots or Zombies.

I remember hearing that about Carmageddon, the pedestrian were replaced with something else.

This completely made me dislike your tone honestly. I have a feeling we would be enemies if we live near one another. Simply because I started playing the GTA series when I was 7 (including San Andreas). I also played MK a lot when I was young like that too... And, due to how you worded your post, you kinda just called my parents 'scum' because of what I've played thru-out my life. Despite the fact that I am living a clean life right now and am one of the friendliest human beings that my sister knows.

Just because a parent bought a rated M game for their children doesn't necessary mean it is a bad thing, as it is (after all) just a form of entertainment. What really matters is the child's individual maturity, intelligence, behavior, and life style. Things which you can never know ye'self unless you life with the child for some time. If a parent buys a rated M game for their child, all you can do is hope that the parent knows what he (or she) is doing.

Look, I am not saying that the subject-matter experts are advocating this sort of parenting, but they are not the ones writing the rules and regulations. They are not the nosy neighbor that calls the authorities when they notice some kid is walking down the street without an escort.

Yeah, but I keep remembering the times I've been in (say) a Gamestop and overheard Clueless Mom hesitantly asking for, oh, Duke Nukem Forever for 9-10 year-old little Johnny who's standing two shelves away, and you just know that she's go no clue, is just buying it as an electronic babysitter, etc.

(And even more fun when the clerk isn't one of the semi-responsible ones who tries to get her to understand what she's asking for. /sigh)

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I can't speak for personal experience ("I played Horrible M Game Whatever when I was 5, and I'm just fine! "), because when I was that age, we didn't have ratings yet, and we also didn't have enough pixels for games to be terribly graphic. So, whatever. I do know that I didn't go see R-rated movies until my late teens, and I've always looked askance at parents bringing little kids into nasty movies and/or buying them definitely-deserves-the-M-rating games.

Same thing with movies and TV shows too. I watched R-rated stuff at young ages as well. It wasn't just video games...

To a normal mind, violence in games, movies, books, whatever, serves more as a catharsis than anything else. To an abnormal mind, all bets are off. There is no good way to judge someones state of mind at a point of sale, so we just use a generic age standard, where once you reach XX years old, you are "advlt" enough. I gotta tell you there are some advlts out there that I wouldn't trust with construction paper and paste. A kid might eat the paste, some of these so called advlts will eat the jar the paste comes in.

So you want to slap a mother because she actually cares what her son is getting? If you notice, she wasn't saying "SOUNDS FUN TO ME!" She noted she was now informed but felt that her son would have to learn the harsher and darker sides of life at some point. You're making a snap decision based on that mother's couple minutes with her child. For all you know, that kid's probably in college getting a tech degree and a productive member in society. She clearly understood but also thought it'd be a valuable learning experience for her child. GTA isn't exactly scholarly, but it does raise awareness to some of the darker and more taboo things in life and that mother decided it's best to introduce it to him young so he can understand it himself. You picked it out, you informed her what was in it, she understood and gave a sound reasonable answer. Your job was done and you have no room to have judged her for it. (Don't try and say 'but I didn't!' because the fact you indicated you wanted to 'slap the hell' out of her based on mere minutes of face time is just juvenile.)

I think it's worth pointing out here that Charon was only expressing an opinion and didn't actually slap anyone. I think most of us at some point feel like slapping someone in certain situations however things don't usually escalate that far in reality do they. If parents wish to teach their children about the darker side of life they should really make the time to sit down and explain it to them, not sit them in front of a violent video game aged 10 and hope for the best, that's just plain lazy. As for the child in question probably being in college getting a tech degree, that's just pure conjecture. The child could just as easily be in the state pen for murder or narcotic trafficking, also pure conjecture.

Acutely aware of that, but I'm saying that Charon's attitude of wanting to slap someone for something he had no right to judge someone on is just very pedantic and intrusive attempts at outside parenting. As for the tech bit, I'm aware of that. My point was that his actions echo the very oft heard "GAMES WITH VIOLENCE BREED CRIMINALS!" mantra of people like Jack Thompson and that my point was that just because she bought her son a game with violence does not mean their child was inextricably bound to end up a career criminal or other societal degenerate.

What I'm trying to say here in Charon's defence is he did what he thought was right. He explained that the game included advlt content and was rated as such, so really inappropriate for a 10 year old. The parent ignored this good advice which annoyed him, he has told us how this made him feel but apart from that has crossed no line. I don't think it's for us to judge him because he has shared an honest opinion with us, especially when he has actually done nothing wrong. I think we all get frustrated with people from time to time and deal with it, what we think at the time is probably very different.

Thanks for trying to steer the thread back on track, everyone

If there's one thing I've learned in my 3 years of being a parent, it's that it's an incredibly emotive issue that nobody gets 100% right. You should see the debates about how to feed, or even give birth to your child!

The other, HUGELY IMPORTANT lesson, is that you should never judge a person until you've walked a mile in their shoes.

Because then you'll be a mile away, and wearing their shoes.

Anyway, be nice to each other. And remember: while my sister woke up screaming every day for a month because she saw The Exorcist at the age of 12 (really, really STUPID and irresponsible advlts there!), I saw Aliens at the same age and it became one of my favourite movies. So, ya know, two sides and all that. Just remember the mile/shoes thing.

Yeah, that's why i try to avoid commenting on parenting, seeing how my only experience with kids is couple of hours every 6 months or so when my brother comes to visit with his boys It's one of those things people feel real strongly about, so like politics and religion, best not to go there

Oh, and i secretly watched Poltergeist 2 as a kid. Ruined my sleep for that night, but i don't think it left any permanent damage. Well, nothing that can be pinpointed on it among all the other damage, at least

Anyway, threatening to inform police just seems like an overreaction to me, if they are serious about it. Which i doubt, like i said earlier.

This article came to mind- http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-ways-grand-theft-auto-v-turned-my-son-into-monster/

Over Reaction by School Officials, which is quite common these days.

First, this is a letter from a school principal, it does not carry the weight of a law passed by the government. They certainly can not get a kid arrested nor parents arrested for this.

Second, as much as they might want to, schools have no control or legally binding influence on kids activities when off school grounds and not involved in school activities.

Third, every few years, some idiot tries to blame entertainment media for the problems that kids have.

Which of course makes me think of this article

http://venturebeat.com/community/2010/06/05/my-four-year-old-son-plays-grand-theft-auto/

It's satire, not serious

I've read the one you linked before and while it attempts to prove a point about violent games, the only point it makes to me is poor parenting...at such a young age, your child is a sponge so why would you want him to soak up such things, even if he seems to handle it well? I don't think any video games are really healthy for that age and the sad thing is I see so many kids with their own tablets...it's a generation of people attached to their phones/tablets teaching their kids that's natural. (I'm ranting off topic now)

On the other hand, you can be exposed to such things and turn out "normal". My mom has a photo of my kindergarten class dressed up for Halloween and I'm dressed as Rambo, which means at 5 years old I was already watching and enjoying movies like First Blood

I miss John Cheese articles. Most the good writers left Cracked.

I've never read anything by him or in Cracked but after stumbling across that article, I will definitely look for more from him.

Hey, at least you didn't grow up in Romania .

In case anyone thinks otherwise, this is actually quite logical, as it implies a lack of attention given to the child and what said child is doing. As an outlier, it wouldn't mean much, but as part of a trend it would be yet another feather on the camel's back.

http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?id=3688.


And my mummy thinks I'm the nicest, smarterest, handsomestest, most specialest person in the world. Everyone else thinks I'm an utter cint .

I'm not really up to date on the UK's laws regarding video game ratings and privacy. Can people actually get in trouble with the law for letting their kids play violent video games in their own homes over there, or are the teachers just blowing hot air?

I don't get it.

If memory serves, many children in Romania are (or were) not well cared for.

The Ceausescu's orphans? Yeah, I wouldn't wanna be them. I doubt they had to worry about video game violence, though. And of course I could have been born in poverty or a broken family in any other country as well.
On the bright side, Romania has the fastest internet in Europe, so there's that.

*Jokingly wonders if there is a correlation between fast/easy internet access, and terrible family life for children in Romania...* ^^