[subego]

How old should the chilluns be before they can play:

Grand Theft Auto
Call of Duty/Modern Warfare
* of War
Other examples

[subego]

For those who aren't gamers, a quick primer...

Grand Theft Auto: the key here is you play a "bad person". There's copious violence, but it's not particularly gory.
CoD/MW: Violence which tries to more or less accurately model real warfare.
Gears of War: over the top violence with guns. Gory.
God of War: up close and personal over the top violence. Also gory, but more mythological in scope than the grim, gritty future of Gears.

[Athens]

Don't see any problem with any of them for any age.

[subego]

Are you a gamer, or are you going off my descriptions?

[LegendaryPinkOx]

I began playing the original Grand Theft Auto back when I was 12. However, back then it was two dimensional, and the player consisted of a two-toned blob that ran around stealing cars and killing other two-toned blobs.

I turned out just fine.

[subego]

12 seems fine. I could see 7, 8 or 9 being dodgy.

(This is all from my recollection of being a kid)

[Athens]

Originally Posted by subego 

Are you a gamer, or are you going off my descriptions?

I own those games and the battlefield series. The only concern I would have are on games like counter strike with team speak. Its not the game its the more mature players and what goes on over team speak that would bug me a little. Otherwise ya wouldn't have much of a problem with it.

[subego]

Thanks for the answer.

[Athens]

Originally Posted by subego 

Thanks for the answer.

The reason I don't really have a problem with it is because as children violence in games have been common place for a long time. IE Figures. In the civil war period children had civil war models and played make believe war (assumption) kids would play cowboy and Indians with each other, very violent game killing each other but in live action play. Then you had children playing solder after the world wars. Or playing mafia with each other with Toy Tommy guns. As a kid it was GI Joe toys.

Video games is just another evolution of violent imaginary play. I have more against it for being a lazy entertainment vs the above requiring socialization and working out. But the content itself isn't a concern. Many children shows are pretty violent as well. I've never subscribed to the idea that violence games encourage violent behavior. Violent behavior is governed by moral skills so regardless of games or no games a child that developed proper moral skills is not going to be violent vs a child that lacks moral skills and empathy is going to be violent with or with out violent games. Otherwise we would be seeing a lot more violent kids today and we wouldn't have seen violent kids in the 50's for example. Violent kids have emotional, social and possible brain problems as a precursor. Those particular kids might imitate something from a game but they already had problems to begin with.

[andi*pandi]

I somewhat agree about the "moral skills"... however the violence in video games is way more extreme then playing cowboys "bang bang your dead" and get back up again. There is imagery you can't unsee. I want to keep the innocence as long as possible, limit nightmares, etc. I also screen the type of movie/tv they see. I would no more let my kid see <violent gory war movie> than I would let him play Gears of War. My kids are 9 and 4. We have one tv and one Wii. My son has a DS.

In our house, the games are mostly of the mario and lego variety. When you die in Lego Batman your player explodes into tiny lego pieces. He went over to a friend's house, played mario and minecraft... but then got to play Halo. I haven't played that yet, I was slightly annoyed at the other mom, but I got over it. It's more realistic than anything we have. Blowing up aliens is better than people I guess.

Grand Theft Auto: Never. It's a gross concept. I will never buy this game or allow it in the house. Never mind the theft, glorifying violence against women just isn't cool.
Not Always Right | Funny & Stupid Customer Quotes � Search Results � grand theft auto

Call of Duty type war games: 12?
Super gory games: 16? We'll see.

We encourage playing Minecraft, Portal, and other adventure/puzzle-type games with him.

[Paco500]

I have a 10 year old son and my position on all of these is that he can have them when he is old enough to earn his own money and buy them, so realistically 14-15 I would think.

I don't think him playing them would screw him up, but they run contrary to my morals, so basically, my house, my money, my rules kind of thing. By the time he's old enough to make his own dosh I figure he's old enough to start making some lightweight moral choices as well, and they don't have to be on par with mine.

[brassplayersrock²]

So, I guess a guy who is okay with kids playing violent video games, and getting influenced by them; along with him being okay with kids doing sexual assault on each other putting it down to "kids will be kids" should be a parent right?

[LegendaryPinkOx]

Originally Posted by andi*pandi 

We encourage playing Minecraft...

I may only be speaking from personal experience, but don't you think that game is too addicting to be introducing to children. I once stayed up 68 hours straight gathering resources I needed to perfect my mansion.

Then again I didn't have anyone around to enforce my bedtime, but even so, I would still have dreams where I was in the Minecraft universe.

[Waragainstsleep]

It depends on the kid. I don't think you can put an age limit on it that should apply to every kid. There are adults who shouldn't be allowed to play some games IMO while there are 8 year olds who could be entirely trusted to play those same games.

Games like the modern versions of GTA didn't really exist when I was a kid though if they had my parents probably wouldn't have known to deny me access if they'd wanted to. Somehow video game violence is considered worse and worse the more realistic it looks. I played no end of games that involved shooting people and blowing things up, I recall a game of The Untouchables movie where if you didn't shoot one guy within one shot and 20 seconds he would shoot his hostage in the head and the hostages brains would splat onto a wall. I remember thinking that was brilliant.
That said, I had very little restriction on violent movies which have always been more realistic than games if less interactive. I watched Robocop when I was 8. My parents rented it and a bunch of us watched it like 7 times in 48 hours. None of us have killed anyone to the best of my knowledge and we are all still free from jail and considered upstanding citizens.

Its probably not a great idea to expose 8 year olds to the language of teamspeak if you'd be annoyed at your kids swearing, but again I don't think I've learned many new swearwords since I was 12 either.

[finboy]

GTA is right out.

My daughter doesn't PLAY Fallout and Dead Rising and the like, but she's acquainted with the content. Same with MW and CofD. When she's 8 or 10 and wants to play them, I'll think about it. The only things she's expressed interest in actually playing at this point (age 4) is Loony Tunes and the Lego series.

To her, killing zombies is just another game. She seems to understand that all of this stuff is just like a movie, and not real.

[andi*pandi]

My 4 year old enjoys watching me play minecraft, and whispers "there's a creeper in your house!" even when there's not. :/

[Jawbone54]

Several games I don't even play myself, including GTA. I'll let my kids play games like CoD only if the heavy violence/swearing can be deactivated, like in Black Ops and GoW3, and even then it won't be until they're 13+, at least.

[ghporter]

This is dating me, but my wife and I were big Wolfenstein fans back in the day, and we kept our son (we hoped) from seeing us play until he was 8 or so. It was not so much the "realism" of the game, as the intensity we felt we had when we played that made us want to reduce his exposure to it.

While there are a lot of things that are hard for young children to fully understand, "cartoon violence" is pretty obviously "cartoon" to most kids older than about 4. This does not mean that they aren't interested in what happens to the characts, but rather that they know they are uneal. When the visuals and the story that ties them together get more and more realistic, that blurs the line between real and unreal, which is part of the problem, I think, with kids' exposure to violence. Another big problem is desensitization. If a child is exposed to extended and intense action, the autonomic effect of the imagery is reduced. I that action involves violence against realistic people, the child can become less sensitive to the fictional effects on the characters involved. Less empathy is a bad thing for children, no matter what.

[Athens]

Originally Posted by brassplayersrock² 

So, I guess a guy who is okay with kids playing violent video games, and getting influenced by them; along with him being okay with kids doing sexual assault on each other putting it down to "kids will be kids" should be a parent right?

You're mentally challenged, I see this now and I feel sorry for you. Troll post reported because your making up stuff, being presumptuous and attempting to defame character. And worse over half the people on that post agreed it was not sexual assault yet you persist on only singling me out. I've never said sexual assault was ok. In the other thread your referring to I said what was described in context with the action and the age group that it was dangerous to label it a sexual assault. Your tiny little brain seems to lack the ability distinguish between stupid and inappropriate child behavior and intentional premeditated sexual motivated crimes. Normal people don't live in your black and white world.

----------------------------------------------------

Back on topic I was looking up research on violence and games and children behavior. The key studies that have looked at it have determined that its not the type of game that caused aggression in boys but the amount of game play period. Boys average up to 13 hours of game play a week and compared to those that averaged less then 5 a week the levels of aggression was far less. It was also determined that it didn't matter if the game was violent or not. Of course a lot of other websites refer to the study with violent games only picking and choosing only parts of the study that fits there agenda. So it appears limiting how many hours of video games is more important then limiting the type of video game.

[subego]

It's kinda sad about GTA.

I mean, I totally understand, and would be uncomfortable myself, but IMO GTA3 is one of the most well designed games ever. If my kid truly liked games, I'd feel bad about denying them such a fantastic example of the art.

[subego]

I'm sure GTA3 is considered a "grampa game" at this point anyway.

[Sealobo]

i played Duke Nukem as a kid and it was pretty violent.

but we dont' have easy access to firearms on this side of the planet so i don't know the potential it could have in me. =P

[Shaddim]

I don't even own a GTA game now, so we sure as hell aren't letting that in our home when the kid comes along. Kim flips out over abuse portrayed towards women in games, and she isn't very fond of it in movies or TV either.

[subego]

You didn't have to kill the hookers.

[Shaddim]

Killing? I was talking about slapping and swearing at them.

[subego]

She can always cleanse the palate by running over a cop in a firetruck.

[SpaceMonkey]

The game I was most addicted to as a kid was Spectre Supreme.

[ort888]

Every child is different. Parents need to decide based on their child's level of maturity and ability to separate fantasy from reality.

Overall I think it's best to avoid these types of games for as long as you can, but you also have to be realistic about the world we live.

Plus, I like all these games, so I understand the appeal. I think humans are just hard wired to want to commit acts of violence. These games can provide an outlet for those feelings.

[MrsLarry]

I don't know how I'd feel about GTA.

FWIW I think the kind of violence in GTA is much different than in war game Battlefield, CoD, etc. Shooting is shooting, but for some reason "Killing bad guys" doesn't seem as horrible as "Killing coke dealers and soliciting hookers". JMHO.

We've always been Nintendo fans, so we'll probably start there with family friendly type stuff.

[Athens]

Konkers Bad Fir Day

[hart]

Since I have an older teen we've all become more acclimated to cultural garbage than people with younger children so I may be a little hardened to it at this point (same for my kids.) On the other hand I've been pretty strong on preserving the space to maintain a childlike outlook so it may seem contradictory that I'm fairly lax about violent games.

My main consideration for movies and games is the level of cruelty (not just violence but deliberate cruelty) and what I consider innappropriate gender-based issues. Nudity in and of itself is not problematic, it's context that creates problems for me in sexual issues. After lots of deliberation sexual issues were why I nixed Fallout: New Vegas for my son a few weeks ago. Sexually tinged cruelty is particularly problematic. Also women as brainless babe accessories grate for me. I don't mind the "babe" factor but the "brainless" and "accessories" parts set off alarms.

The sexual factors are why GTA is out for this house too. It is not OK for my son (or daughters) to be playing at hiring hookers.

Generally I don't find straightforward violence problematic. It's too pervasive as a form of entertainment to go having a hissy over violence in games. Same goes for swearing. Swearing in video games is the LEAST of what kids are exposed to. A day at school, starting at mid-elementary is much more full of bad language than any game.

I just approved Left 4 Dead 2 for my 13-yr-old even with the chain saws which I find a bit over the top. My son just asked me why I don't mind cricket-bat-head-whacking but I don't like chain saws. Well…I guess it's a subtle line Maybe I'm just chainsaw-phobic. But this game is just a big shoot-em-up with very little tie-in to anything real.

I've read a fair amount on the attempt to prove or disprove the harm done by games on growing brains and my assessment at this point is that there isn't solid evidence supporting banning violent games for kids to avoid developmental damage. The mass of studies for and against seem to cancel each other out.

I play games myself and with my kids. I play shooters and violent games but I'm not particularly enthralled or entertained by excessive gore.

(I'll just throw out here that I'm always perplexed why people are so sniffy about video games but all jolly about sports like say boxing in which children actually go out and try to hurt actual people in actual real life.)

[Athens]

Should ask your kid if he plays GTA at his friends house

[subego]

Originally Posted by hart 

My main consideration for movies and games is the level of cruelty (not just violence but deliberate cruelty) and what I consider innappropriate gender-based issues. Nudity in and of itself is not problematic, it's context that creates problems for me in sexual issues. After lots of deliberation sexual issues were why I nixed Fallout: New Vegas for my son a few weeks ago. Sexually tinged cruelty is particularly problematic. Also women as brainless babe accessories grate for me. I don't mind the "babe" factor but the "brainless" and "accessories" parts set off alarms.

Not that I'd have this attitude as a 13-year-old, but as an adult, I like the fact I can lay down a righteous barrage of death upon the more distasteful elements of the Fallout universe.

But I'm the kind of person where my girlfriend had to actually "teach" me how to play GTA. I was stopping at stoplights and stuff.