How Many Parents Go By The Video Game Content Rating Systems Worldwide

[oldgamerz]

Please Check Out this topic below for more information,

https://vgcollect.com/forum/index.php/topic,8623.0.html

My parents never went by a rating system for games I had growing up, and I turned out alright in my opinion. But how many of you use the ESRB ratings and others for example for what you're young children are exposed to.

I heard in another topic I think I remember 2 people on this site who attend this forum that follow the ratings. I personally still play any games that is not extremely violent but still violent enough to be rated M sometimes

I don't plan on having children due to my life illness

[marvelvscapcom2]

Prohibition has never worked.  And it never will.  On almost any level,  taking away causes rebellion.  Parents who go by ESRB ratings are not involved enough to form their own judgement on the matter.  The more you try to take away and hide rather than educate will cause problems fast.  It's a flawed form of parenting.   


Now of course their are limits.   But we have to remember that you can't watch over a child 100 percent of the time.  And when you aren't there.  They can and will play GTA.  They just will.   Or watch PewDiePie or play Eminem.  Or anything else that is deemed age inapporpiate. 

If the parent educates rather than eliminates the topic of M rated games,  the child would understand the graphic nature, and be more capable of not only handeling the game but understanding the responsability and the cause and effect of the game's depictions if they were to be acted out in real life.  Or if the child were to see them in the future.


But a parent who just took it away, banned it and didn't allow it.   That kid's first example of it comes from people who don't have his or her best interest at heart.  That's when it can be very dangerous.    Because they aren't going to educate them on the matter or the seriousness of it.  They'll just play it in some kid named Johnny's basement and get corrupted. 





My parents had a leiniant,  educate rather than eliminate approach.   And I think it works best.   I played GTA Vice City at age 5 I believe. 




Better to educate rather than let a rating decide what's allowed.  It's more a guideline than a actual parenting tool imo. 

[oldgamerz]

I didn't come on here to start a fight. but the only thing my parents were against when I was vary young was nudity. But I hope this topic don't get out of hand,

[hoshichiri]

Based on conversations I've had with customers & co-workers at work, you've got 3 groups:

Group 1: The videogame is a babysitter. I don't really care what the rating is, if it's popular with their friends & will make them leave me alone, great.

Group 2: I care very much about the media my kids consume, but I don't play videogames. I use ratings religiously and look up info from other parents to see if they snuck anything unsavory into lower age ratings. I do my best to talk to my kids about why these things are bad, but can't go into a lot of detail becuase I don't want them exposed too much.

Group 3: I actually play videogames, so I know which games are rated M for a reason. Ones that aren't allowed, we talk about why.


I think only the kids from group 1 really get shafted. You'll note the key here is whether or not the parent wants to talk to/spend time with their kid. As noted, these kids will probably find their way to banned games they're interested in anyway- at least the kids whose parents talk to them will go in with some knowledge of what's so bad in said game, and can help self-regulate themselves. I had a six-year old over whose parent gave them the OK to play Gears of War, which I thought was a bit much, and told the kid so- it's why I made him go get permission in the first place. He didn't even get through the tutorial before he agreed this seemed 'too scary' and we switched it off. On the flipside, I let a six-year old I babysat in the PS2 days play Zone of the Enders. I knew despite the M rating, the mature content was completely in the cutscenes, and the gameplay was just 'robots fighting other robots'. Kid didn't watch cutscenes, ever, so I knew it was safe. I've always wondered if he picked that up again when we was older and wondered what the heck I let him play.

[ignition365]

My kid doesn't play games yet, so it's mostly just controlling what I play in front of my kid.  We go by the content descriptors.  Things like gambling, alcohol, and drugs we aren't so concerned right now because he just has no clue what that stuff is and won't affect him yet.  fantasy, mild, cartoon violence is ok, violence is iffy, intense violence or any gore is not okay in general.  Language is a problem and a primary concern as he is learning to talk.

[sworddude]

I'd say 60 70Ish % ignores it probably allot more maybe 90%+

heck there was even an interview with a gta creator stopping a parent from buying GTA for his 7 year old kid and convincing the parent that these games are to violent for little kids.

Not many people give a damm. a ton of kids play cod or gta your not stopping it. there is a reason why there are tons of memes about it since tons of little kids play the game online. all my friends had gta san andreas vice city you name it i could buy gta or some gta game wich was 18+ at the time as 10 year olds. and this applies to all lower and higher class earnings and being smart or not does not matter.

also most of those parent knew about the age rating but bought it anyway because it didnt affect the kids and it was obviously fake. pretty much everyone played GTA at such ages at the time. if the kid behaves and doesnt have failing grades he gets the game havent seen crazy people taking a shot gun and shooting people down.

also as far as affecting language goes havent seen it back in the day people talking like the characters in game. maybe for a 5 year old or something but at 9 10+.

the main things that do affect kids in a bad wat are drinking smoking and drugs. titles like GTA might have kept kids off the streets to actually turn bad so I'm not to sure if it was all that bad. kids hanging out with such kids is how they turn bad and talk differently. or spoiling a kid to the core is equally as bad.

The only thing parents might be concerned about are games with sexual content as a main thing or people who have kids wich are very mentally handicapped.

the censoring stuff and parent complaining is only a very vocal minority. the people that don't give a damm obviously won't voice their opinion.

I'd say remove the rating system it might do them games some good instead of having parent complain about super minor details wich are hidden in certain games that have a low age rating and are questionable if they are appropiate or not for kids.

parents who dont give a damm buy it anyways and parents who are of those vocal minority are not going to but those games for the kids anyway. the age rating doesnt matter for both parties imo. people are buying it or they are not buying it plain and simple.

I'd say make the age rating optional so that the hardcore vocal people can decide to buy a game or not because most people ignore it. the only reason why games try to get an as low age rating as possible is to get a bigger audience yet in reality it might actually not matter that much but rather it might only hurt the game since they do make some alterations to the game wich are usually not that good.

also if we ignore videogames

censoring in cartoons for kids

I mean thanks to those vocal minority parents series like donald duck duck tales tom & jerry bugs bunny tazmania are absolutely ruined. Horrible to watch all characters are friendly shitty art style.

Less violence wich made it funny guns weapons. what's the harm in that it was obviously fake.

classic cartoons/ cartoons in general got hit the hardest. at least video games are way less effected.

even newer cartoons got hit actually say pokemon. not to mention current day cartoons it's a totally different ball park these days. no wonder tv is dying these days.

[Warmsignal]

Mine never really went by the rating system, and I turned out like crap... But that's probably for a host of other reasons than video games.

My folks were kind of old fashioned in the sense that they thought all video games were basically like Pac-Man, Mario, and Tetris. How bad could they really be? Following suit with the western mentality, my folks frowned upon suggestive themes more than gratuitous violence. You could blow heads off and go on a murderous rampage, but if someone referenced sex, it was the work of the devil. Suggestive themes weren't much of a thing in earlier games so they never had much to worry about, but I did see a few things in games at an age that I probably shouldn't have.

Given what I now know about games, if I had a kid, I'd follow the guidelines. But I would also hope to instill good taste in games into them, so that they understand just because it's ultra violent, or it swears a lot, or has adult themes doesn't make it a good game or somehow cool because of that. What makes a good game, is the game play. So I'd hope my child would prefer to play games that are just fun, and not games that are edgy for the sake of being edgy.

[turf]

I’m in Group 3.
I play games and I’m careful about what I let my kid play. It’ll be a few years before he gets any Call of Duty. I won’t ever buy him a GTA game. That’s on him to acquire on his own.

[wartoy]

My boys are grown now so it's thier choice what to play. But even to this day we joke about them not being allowed to play Conkers Bad Fur Day on N64. It was just too full of adult content and thay didn't understand why I  couldn't let them play when all their friends parents let thier kids play.

[oldgamerz]

I’m in Group 3.
I play games and I’m careful about what I let my kid play. It’ll be a few years before he gets any Call of Duty. I won’t ever buy him a GTA game. That’s on him to acquire on his own.

I can agree on not letting children play any Grand Theft Auto game, and Call OF Duty too. I personally never really liked the GTA series because I don't like being a bad guy and killing or beating people up for money or for fun just feels wrong,

But I've always enjoyed the "True Crime Streets Of LA" PS2 and GameCube  game, because I like being the good guy, but that game gives you a choice to be bad or good, depending on how you play that game.

[pzeke]

Based on the many times I used to be at a GameStop and saw how parents, mostly the mother, would buy violent games for their kids without ever looking at the rating, no, definitely no. I even remember advising parents not to buy certain games due to their rating and content, recommending something else that would be more appropriate. These days is still the same; I would say 2 out of 10, maybe just one follow the ESRB. Most parents think of video games as a virtual nanny, then cry wolf and blame video games when their kids do stupid shit or something terrible happens that catches the media's attention, like a shooting or some other similar incident.

I have a lot to say about this, but I've grown quite apathetic to the subject over the years to be perfectly honest.

Here's a recent anecdote: I was at the Walmart I frequent the most recently, and ended up eavesdropping on a few parents who were buying games for their children; they had the foggiest idea of what they were doing, so I did my best to help them. One that stands out was a couple who had picked Just Cause 3, Persona 5, and The Witcher 3 for their 11-year-old son, and I think at one point they picked God of War as well. The crux was that the mother kept going on about how she didn't want to get her son any violent games, yet held in her hands three 'M' rated video games that she seemed to strongly consider getting. I tried to just ignore the noise, but I had to intrude. She said she picked those games because the covers seemed "childish" (her words), and that she didn't pick Mortal Kombat XL and Bloodborne because one had "mortal" and the other "blood" on the title. And by that I assume they left God of War because it has "war" on the title. I think that says a lot, quite frankly.

[Warmsignal]

Based on the many times I used to be at a GameStop and saw how parents, mostly the mother, would buy violent games for their kids without ever looking at the rating, no, definitely no. I even remember advising parents not to buy certain games due to their rating and content, recommending something else that would be more appropriate. These days is still the same; I would say 2 out of 10, maybe just one follow the ESRB. Most parents think of video games as a virtual nanny, then cry wolf and blame video games when their kids do stupid shit or something terrible happens that catches the media's attention, like a shooting or some other similar incident.

I have a lot to say about this, but I've grown quite apathetic to the subject over the years to be perfectly honest.

Here's a recent anecdote: I was at the Walmart I frequent the most recently, and ended up eavesdropping on a few parents who were buying games for their children; they had the foggiest idea of what they were doing, so I did my best to help them. One that stands out was a couple who had picked Just Cause 3, Persona 5, and The Witcher 3 for their 11-year-old son; and I think at one point they picked God of War as well. The crux was that the mother kept going on about how she didn't want to get her son any violent games, yet held in her hands three 'M' rated video games that she seemed to strongly consider getting. I tried to just ignore the noise, but I had to intrude. She said she picked those games because the covers seemed "childish" (her words), and that she didn't pick Mortal Kombat XL and Bloodborne because one had "mortal" and the other "blood" on the title. And by that I assume they left God of War because it has "war" on the title. I think that says a lot, quite frankly.

Yeah, I don't know how many times I've seen this.

GameStop employee: "This game is rated M for blood, gore, realistic violence, nudity, sexual content, drug use, strong language and general blasphemy, are you sure you want buy this for your little one?"
Parent: "Oh, dear. Well... that is the game he keeps asking for. I guess so".

Most parents really don't care. If it shuts the kid up, then throw $60 at it.

[bikingjahuty]

My parents never cared, and none of my friend's parents did either. I know that now they pretty much make it impossible to buy an M rated game if you're underaged, but most kids just have their parents buy them.

[oldgamerz]

children need discipline and that lacks in a modern society mostly, I guess most parents don't socialize with their children? and they may not know wrong from right. Although I don't see what makes children want to do things like that.

 I always thought that any boy or girl that want is inspried by criminals and grows up to be one or wants to be a criminal or wants to do anything bad in real life a dumb child, sorry but that is how I feel. I am just against all the protesters about video games because I don't want them ALL to become illegal because of some stupid teen or child.

I heard a story even a song sang by Bob Seger telling the story of a boy who saw a gun in a general store and thought a gun looked cool and how his mother scolded the child. But it did no good according to how the lyrics story continue. the boy got older and bought a real gun and shot a man

 the song is called " The Devils Right Hand" from Bob Seger's "Face The Promise Album"

(edit) if you are a parent then I think children are safer with older games like Atari, Nintendo, Sega and most retro games in general

[pzeke]

I was fortunate to be brought up right by a loving mother, and I would venture to guess that most, if not all of you did as well. My mother knew the kind of video games I played at the arcades and at home, but it wasn't that she didn't care; she did care about what type of entertainment I consumed as a kid, but like I said, she raised me well. Nowadays we pretty much have kids raising kids. Most parents today don't admit their failure, so video games, or whatever is the flavor of the month, tends to be the scapegoat.

(edit) if you are a parent then I think children are safer with older games like Atari, Nintendo, Sega and most retro games in general

Nonsense! Yeah, I reckon a child's innocence is precious, but parents shouldn't keep their children in a bubble. I believe there's a time where children can be taught a lot and be allowed to see certain shows and movies and play certain video games with the notion that their parents will be an anchor and help them know right from wrong and how to discern good from evil; I think most parents underestimate their children thinking they won't understand, but they'd be surprised. I personally know parents that allow their kids to watch movies and play video games that aren't particularly for their age, but they have been raised with good discipline, knowing what's fantasy and make believe. Granted, I'm not saying they're watching Hostel or playing Manhunt, but I'm sure you're smart enough to know what I'm trying to say.