exactly my opinion you shouldnt play multiplayer games like MW2 or battelfield BC2 unless you are 16 or older beacause kiiddies with voicechat are just annoying everyone else
but in general you should know for yourselv what games you can play i for example played the horrorgame THE SUFFERING:TIES THAT BIND when i was 12 years old , it scared the sh*t out of me that RE4+5 where really soft compared to that and i havnt taken any lasting damage from it ( no temporary either) therefore i think you should differ between multiplayer and singleplayer games - but yes the onlyone who cares today about videogame ratings are the salesmen , and if they dont want to sell it to you you just ask the next best 18-years old you see to buy it for you-problem solved
I'll have to disagree from personal experiance - I am 13, and I promise you I prove more mature than other people, including adults I meet on MW2, also, I don't use voice chat for the simple fact I don't like my own voice (it isn't sqeaky but early life I was researching tons of different things and used more vocabulary etc, changing my accent a lot) and because of the raw idiots that would flame you anyway.
If you are mature at say, 12, then it should be fine. Otherwise, you should wait until 15 or 16.
I agree for the most part, however I think it could be lower than 12, if you're mature.
the one thing i hate are those little kids on Mature rated games screaming and crying becuz they died. Thats when an adult has to step in and take the game away!!!
I think ANYONE can agree with you on that, the problem is adults that have these kids are too tolerant or not harsh enough to do it to them, the reason they are such retards is because if things don't go their way - they cry.
That's enviromental influence for ya :P
I'm pretty much the same story as Snipershot325 above me, except I don't play GTA :P
Censorship is waaaaay too powerful right now.
Y'know how it's not legal (in the U.S) for kids to have sex until they're 18 years of age? Their bodies tell them otherwise at around 9-13. This is a good example of censorship interfering with something that is natural. I apply that logic to all forms of censorship.
To me, censorship is forcing ignorance.
That is totally true, now that you think about it, censorship is forcing ignorance.
And yes, 9-13 is the age you can have kids really (but don't kids, don't), the probable reason they make it 18 is because sexual information is often considered mature and that kids still learn through that age (like me, I'm 13
). Also the last one - society, it's obviously frowned upon by society to have sex at such a young age, I remember a 13 year old sleeping with someone twice his age, she got pregnant. They asked the boy on how will he handle it financially, he didn't even know what it was!
I was roughly 9-10 at that time, I think, and I knew what it was xD
Then that's their choice, if they choose to copy what they see then they will learn the hard way, a fight at 11 is, after all, not a big deal.
Games don't manipulate people to do things, people do it on their own free will, just because you're a kid doesn't mean you don't have a concept of right and wrong, swearing is going to be learnt somewhere along life, you can't keep children away from it forever.. and that's where parents come in, they can choose to buy the game or not, and teach their kids about swearing, sex etc at a young age so they understand, hiding them from it just makes them more curious to try it out and see what it's like, swearing is fine as long as it's not day in day out, and you don't integrate it into your daily vocabulary, in my opinion..
Indeed, the swearing part is also true, I believe that aslong as you use it in moderation, and ofcourse use it only to express yourself truely (not with every sentence) then its fine and it well, actually expresses yourself lol.
Also yes, the other stuff you said was right, I was raised to question everything I was told - everything. But a few things that are obvious in life with a little thought etc is this:
Kids are immature because they are brought up as if they are, given more responsibility and teaching on this sort of thing could help change them. Honestly? Why not be immature? You can get away with more things etc, it's fairly obvious why people would like to be immature (not me, however).
Humans always have a concept of right or wrong, I spent hours thinking about morals and I always do what I think is right - that isn't pacifism and ignorance, it's doing what is necessary to make sure the right thing happens, without compromising that exact thing.
Ofcourse, I don't think this should all be taught to young kids, especially the swearing part, it should be introduced as a more "slip it in" thing, if someone swears (say the father, on accident and the first time infront of his kids) then if its rare enough, they will know it's bad and it's being taken in moderation - a good example.
And btw I am against sex at young age, I don't think its sick, or anything like that, simply because you can learn more and develop better personality (as I believe I have, despite the arrogance I just left there :P... jk
) whilst they still can.
It's the people that continue to buy the games for kids that are taking the themes in a negative way (being violent, swearing, etc.) that keep this limit where it is
They need to be open-minded (as kids are, :P.. well usually) and try and turn it into a good way,
/thread tbh
I played God of War when it first came out when I was 12. So I think it depends on the kid. I personally could handle the blood, gore, and nudity even at that age. I don't think parents should be so uppity about what kids see or play. My parents certainly weren't, obviously. Thinking back on it, it would have been terrible if I had missed out on games like that. Those are the types of games that really got me into gaming. So I say it's not ESRB that needs to change, it's the parents that need to stop going by what ESRB says, they just need to evaluate the capacities of their children. By the way, kids know what blood is. They've gotten paper cuts before. I say blood should never be a deciding factor in whether a kid can play a game or not, rather it should be the kind of violence that made the person bleed.
For some people, but some people do feel sickened when they see gore made in any way, ofcourse harsh enough. Say... An operation, they're by no means gory, it's just blood and some organs, some people really do feel sick to the mere thought of it.
Oh, and I played the God of War equivilent (Dante's Inferno, it's for Xbox - I'm no fanboi btw! :P ) and from what I see on God of War vids on YouTube (it looked really good, and actually got me to buy Dante) I think the nudity is worse in Dante's Inferno, it is actually a more depressing game than an influence in my opinion.
It actually made me feel depressed for a couple hours after playing it, it is such a dark and (sometimes) over-the-top disgusting game.
Also, I played GTA and I now find it terrible as an influence to others (such as my 7 year old nephew) which is one of the reasons why I don't like playing it, unnecessary swearing and such (GTA: SA), there wasn't any need for it.
Especially as putting the gang members as the winners, that is THE worst influence ever.
I'm not saying all gangs are bad, the stereotypical and usual gang is bad in most cases, but barely any people know of a good one.
would it be better to seperate the ratings. Like saying this is rated "M" in violience but is rated "E" in language and in Sexual themes its rated "T". that way you know exactly whats in the game so a parent doesnt blindly buy Gears of War and wonder where their kid learned f*** and other things.
Yep, I thought the same thing years ago, it's annoying to have 1 scene of nudity up the whole thing to an 18 (such as the first season of Stargate SG-1), making the whole thing seem more mature to both parent and child.
Then again, Stargate doesn't usually attract young kids due to the politics involved and the astronomy and mythology (which I take an interest into all of them :P ).
I'd have to say at least fifteen or sixteen, though it would be best if you were the required age. It does kinda depend on the game sometimes, but not that often. Also, game developers make mature rated games because it's the people over eighteen who have jobs and thus the money needed to buy the games. Also, when game developers make a game that's rated M for Mature, they intend for the game to be played by adults.
The part about the adults buying it because its 18+ is correct, if you look at the announcement on YouTube of Age of Empires Online, the new Cartoon Style has driven many AoE fans from wanting to play it, it appeals more to kids (like me, I don't like it more, but for an MMO it is necessary as Cartoon Style graphics will still look nice after many years) than to adults, despite not a lot of kids play RTS's.
To all you adults who are sick of MW2 children yelling - join an RTS community :P
RTS = less action + more thinking = less kids = adult community = more maturity + friendlier (usually) impressions.
Also it requires more "skill" because it isn't just reaction, you need to maintain your cool otherwise you'll mess up, you need to have a keyboard (thus a PC) to use all hotkeys which will speed up a lot of things - thus (again) is what gives the advantage.
A very competitive player in some RTS games will need at / around / over 300 APM (actions per minute) to be. Well, competitive. Actions I
think are:
Making a unit(s) move somewhere
Creating a unit
Attacking an enemy
Making a unit do something (build something, use an ability, etc)
And maybe selecting something
So you got to do any mixture of those things 5 times in a second - effectively.
To be honest, we're missing the point lol.
Bad behaviour is not only influenced, but left alone. People who kill in cold blood aren't put to death or anything, just a few years in a jail (which is more than what they took from the victim, probably) in which "lower" crimes (robbery, vandalism, etc) are left nearly untouched and thus people can easily get away with it. They need to step up the punishments for these crimes IRL, and it will also help influence the behaviour influenced by kids.
I would answer to more but it is tiring, I got a headache and ofcourse a wall of text will end up killing you, not that you read it, I guess :P
- H
