It has recently come to my attention that my child (whom is a month and a week old tomorrow) is going to grow up someday. Now knowing his dad, he will probably be a hardcore gamer lol. As such he will learn the ropes of all sorts of games early on, some in which will be kind of violent (if he likes those kinds of games). M-Rated games at that. I frankly could care less... as I was raised on games like the Mortal Kombats, DOOMs, Wolfensteins, and Demon's Crests of our time (NES, SNES, early PC era games). Not that those games are NEAR as violent as games such as God of War, Gears of War, Call of Duties and so on and so forth, but you get the gist of what I am talking about. My question is: How many users on here are not allowed (or were not allowed) to play Violent M-Rated games or watch movies that are violent with cussing or anything of that sort? Do your parents not let you get games because of that? or movies? And do they explain why? I am just curious is all.
MY parents dont really care if i watch violent movies with tons of swearing, but movies with lots of sex and prejudice are generally ones they would rather i not watch.
I had restrictions lessened in each category, rather than "Can't play M games until I'm __ years old". For a while, I couldn't play a lot of games that had any sort of gore, stronger language, or more suggestive themes than just some woman in a bikini. As I got older, I was allowed to play games with gore, and then the violence restrictions basically became whatever I could handle, the language restrictions got lesser and lesser, until they're almost gone, unless every word is practically the f-bomb, and as far as sex goes, as long as there's no nudity, it's alright. I'd say base it on what your child encounters on a daily basis, or has seen in movies, as well as allow progression. I think it mostly comes down to common sense. While you shouldn't let a 5-year-old play Nazi Zombies (I've played a game with one before...), you shouldn't restrict them completely until they move out.
My parents generally don't mind me watching violent movies, but that's probably like I'm the type of guy that doesn't go around saying the 'f' word and killing people after seeing something. If your kid is the type that will be easily affected by these things or is prone to being influenced by media, I suggest limiting those kind of things until at least middle school or something. I know this one guy who's never seen a rated-R movie or played a rated-M game, but still goes around pretending to shoot and stab people, so I don't know, it's just a personality thing.
I didn't have that problem, when I was young games didn't really have enforced age ratings... almost as soon as they were introduced I was old enough to buy them anyway I used to watch a lot of horror movies though. Classic 80s slasher films like A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th, and all the old Hammer Horror stuff... I was about 7-8 years old at the time, watched them with my dad. The only effect it had on me was giving me a love for the horror genre
Back when I was younger (like under 14) my mom could care less about violence in video games but didn't really want me playing games with sexual content or a large amount of language but she soon stopped caring after the age of 14 as she knew I was going to grow up someday and just stopped with the censorship to allow me to understand the world better.
My parents always let us play T and below games, but for M games...it all depends. If the game is GTA-No. Halo- Yes. COD- Yes. It all depends. Something which is M for only blood gore and language well thats cool. But a game dependent on slapping hoes and fighting the gangs? Nahhhhh. Movies? Always was allowed to watch PG-13 movies. From ages 10-12 I was allowed to watch a rated R movie with an adult and now that I'm almost 14 I have freedom. But of course the more I want to do, the more I have to work for it! More freedom=More responsibility=more chores Good luck and Congrats- BTW
My parents have always been there guiding me making sure I didn't go overboard with the blood, guts, and gore. I watched some pretty violent movies when I was young, around 6 or 7 with my parents. I never had any trouble with it. I got freaked out by horror movies, but I just stopped watching them. I still don't, but mostly cuz the majority of them are more laughable than scary. Video games have been a different story, since I'm playing and in a way committing the action, instead of just watching. Games like RDR, CoD, and GoW I can play no prob. Modern realistic violence games (weird self-made genre) like Saints Row and GTA don't fly. I'm not a big fan of the games anyways, so it doesn't really matter, but my parents would probably revoke my Xbox if I brought either one into the house. My little brother is the exact opposite of me, however. What he's sees on the screen he'll mimic. Violent games are a no-no, his Nintendo DSi being the only thing he's allowed to play (seeing as how there's nothing violent in the market, nor technology enough to make it realistic), and racy scenes are always skipped or paused if he's around. It really depends on your kid. Some are naturally moderated about it, some charge in it at full speed. You just have to make sure he doesn't fall into the metaphorical abyss of M-rated material.
I don't really have any restrictions when it comes to video games, but my mom doesn't want me watching horror movies in the living room since she hates them. It's not really a big loss since i'm pretty apathetic to movies, but i'm just glad she doesn't censor my video games.
well, my mom let me get the first three terminators form netflix and there rated R. 13 is such a great age.
Yeah, 13 was kind of the middle age as far as parental censorship. 13-15 were when my restrictions started to lighten up a bit. I could watch most PG-13 movies, depending on content, and some R-rated movies, like Glory (which I still love). Same went for games. Btw, I think that horror movies are actually worse than games. Sure, they're not interactive, but they're much more graphic from what I've seen. Using real actors and today's special effects makes it look very realistic, as opposed to games I was playing at that age, such as Resident Evil 2, Left 4 Dead, etc. where everything looks pretty fake compared to using real actors and gore effects. Trust me, I'd let a kid play Left 4 Dead (maybe 2... idk) before they'd watch something like Scream, while although somewhat fake, was pretty graphic, especially the beginning.
I agree. horror movies are much more gory then anything game consoles can render. movies are more "realistic" than video games.
I grew up in the age of Doom, Wolfenstein, Terminator, The X-Files, etc. There were only a few games/films I wasn't allowed to play/watch when I was younger. I picked up stuff quick always so I was reading Stephen King & Dean Koontz by the time I was in grade 5 and 6. I found that having some restrictions when I was young was for the best - I was not allowed to watch obscene stuff when I was young, but most rated R entertainment is pretty shallow and undeserving of the rating and therefor I was able to watch it. By the time I was 14 on I pretty much defined my own interests and did not pay attention to any rating scale - obscene art was never really what I was into however as I have entered my 20s I have learned to love authors like William S. Burroughs, Charles Bukowski, Tom Robbins, and Hunter S. Thompson all who balance the obscene with the beautiful and sad. I have found that seeing violence in films and games has done very little to desensitize me from real violence. However I may be an exception to this as a lot of people I know are heavily desensitized to violence, maybe they are just drunk though.
The reason people generally assume games to be worse than horror movies is that with games it's actually the player's choice to hunt down that prostitute, disfigure her face beyond all recognition with a titanium bat and then burn her charred remains next to a couple of trashcans down a back alley. Watching someone else do it isn't quite the same thing as having the underlying pulsating urge to do it yourself, to keep hammering the button, smashing that face over and over until the eyeballs roll out of their sockets.
I played 18+ games and watched violent movies since I was about 10, and I thought of doing stuff like cutting of body parts or stealing cars (like in GTA3,GTA:VC and GTA:SA ). Ratings are stupid, games like GTA actually teach you what not to do in real life, but don't let a +- 10 year old kid watch movies like Saw, they are way too nasty.
I was playing Doom on my dad's PC when I was really little . They never set any restrictions on video games for me, but I was (and still am) so into Nintendo that I never ended up buying anything violent anyways. The worst games I've ever bought to this day are probably MGS and Diablo 2, lol.
