ESRB ratings when you were a kid.

[Ando85]

When you were a kid did your parents monitor what type of games you played?

For me my mother didn't care whatsoever about violence and language. However, if there was anything sexual she would have a problem with it. I recall when I bought Parasite Eve I was looking at the back on the ride home and my mother noticed the "sexual content" warning on the ESRB list. She didn't not let me play the game, but she did seem iffy about it.

I notice this with a lot of parents, that a lot could care less about blood and guts, but sexuality is taboo.

 

[sanquin]

My parents only had problems with 1 game I played, ever. GTA2. They thought it was just randomly shooting everything in sight. (I still played it of course.) Other than that I could pretty much play whatever I wanted.

(And gee, look at that, I'm not doing any school shootings or anything like that. )

 

[Sassafrass]

Nah, not at all. I remember when I was 12 and my parents bought me GTA: SA.

The guy behind the counter said "Now, you do realise this game has drug references, sexual references and a lot of violence and isn't really suitable for a 12 year old?"

My mums reply? "He sees worse on the TV every night, he'll be fine." So my parents paid for it and the rest was history. This was pretty much how every game purchase went til I could buy 18's myself.

 

[Marter]

I was bought the first GTA when I was, what, 11? 12? 13? Somewhere around there.

After that point, while my parents wouldn't necessarily buy me the games, I was allowed to play them. If I could figure out a way to convince the store to let me buy it (some stores don't check, for example), I was allowed to play it.

For instance, when I bought Fallout 3, I was actually asked if I was 17. I said yes, despite being 15 at the time. No ID was asked for, and I walked away with the game.

 

[Eclipse Dragon]

No they didn't care.
I have three older siblings.
If they were worried about me seeing such material, there was no way they could stop it from happening.

 

[krazykidd]

Not really . Except for Conker's bad fur day . That's the only game he refused to buy me , i can't remember when that came out but it was somewhere in the early double digits . And it had nothing to do with the esbr rating . My dad was a gamer , it was the acttual content that he didn't want me playing , because it was crass and immature.

Iv'e been playing games since i was 2 . And my parents took the time to explai that gsmes were just games and not to do/try any of that in real life . Iv'e had no problems , i didn't get influenced by videogames because i knew the difference . That's what we call parenting .

 

[LooK iTz Jinjo]

My parents were cunts about it. All through my childhood I was never allowed games with any kind of strong or realistic violence, sexual content etc, now I never minded that much because with the exception of GoldenEye and Perfect Dark, all my favourite games from the SNES to the PS2 were pretty harmless, stuff like Zelda, Banjo-Kazooie, Mario, Crash Bandicoot, Kingdom Hearts and surprisingly I was actually allowed Final Fantasy.

But then when the 360 came out and online multiplayer caught on I wanted to play all those fancy shooters with my friends (at the time it was Halo 2 and Gears of War) yet even as a 16-17 year old (remember these games are rated 15+ in Australia) my parents would make a big deal about it, complain that it was evil (they're not even religious) and a bunch of other shit, until basically I only played when I was home alone.

 

[False Nobility]

My parents were kinda cool about this. They would look into what the game was really about, and then let me get even an M-rated game. But only if it wasn't pointless gore or overkill. No Mortal Kombat. Stuff like Metal Gear was okay with them, which was mature for story-telling purposes.

T rated games were always fine.

 

[BeeGeenie]

Back in MY day we didn't have ESRB ratings. We played our Super Mario, and we liked it! By the time the ESRB came out, I was buying my own games.

Also we walked 5 miles to school in canvas shoes, uphill both ways in the snow.
*grumble grumble kids today get off my lawn grumble*

 

[Comocat]

My parents didnt want me to play mortal kombat because they felt it was too violent. That's the only example I can think of. I don't really think my life is worse because of it.

When I was in college my bro decided to show my mom GTA III. He grabbed a hooker and put her in his car, then after beat her to death to get his money back. My mom wasnt thrilled.

 

[Chester Rabbit]

When I first got a Super Nintendo my mom tried her hardest to make sure Mortal Kombat or Ninja Turtles never made it into my hands. (Turns out she didn't have anything to worry about, at least with Mortal Kombat 1 heh)

But, sadly for her, it was all for not. All her hard work to keep violent content from me. Forcing my dad to tape over Conan The Destroyer, making sure my young mind was never tarnished by a splash of blood from an uppercut was all undone in one fowl swoop when my friend across the street got Mortal Kombat 2 from his brother. And from there to Killer instinct to MK3, King of the Monsters Street Fighter, Black Thorn ect.

And you know what, the blood wasn?t even that big of a deal to me none of it really seemed to make much more of an impact than jumping on a Kremlins head in DK. (I was 6 at the time)

18 years later though and here I am drawing grotesque monstrosities due to my inspiration from growing up with games like Resident Evil. Guess my moms? philosophy was once you drop the ball best to just let it bounce?

She sure as hell didn?t make any kind of deal really once she learned I had played those games or saw me bring home a game whos? core gameplay mechanic was punching a guy in the face (Maximum Carnage?) I guess she just accepted that one way or another I would be exposed to this kind of content in games seeing how most of them revolved around violence one way or another

My Dad on the other hand...He was more of a mischievous kid than me and would try and sneak this kind of stuff past her in my very early Nintendo days lol.

 

[Chemical Alia]

There wasn't yet an ESRB when I was young enough that my mom and might have cared about the ratings. They let me play Wolfenstein 3d when I was 11, and that was rated "PC-13".

 

[aguspal]

My parent always knew that I was mature enough to play whatever the fuck I wanted, and that resulted in me playing GTA games while 8 years old or something.


And I am perfectly fine. Screw the ESRB years old BS, its about begin mature, not older!

Thinking about it, I should be really thankfull that my parents where like that... Imagine the lots of great game I would have missed otherwise... Also, Left 4 dead is 18+ (for some unknow reason? It dosnt have any kind of sex scenes or anything, I always wondered why it is 18+?), I wouldt be able to play one of my favorite games ever RIGHT NOW (I am 16), damn.


But its not that way so I am happy

 

[scorptatious]

My parents wouldn't allow me to even touch GTA as a kid. Which sort of made me want to play it even more.

Now I buy my own games, and for some reason that desire to play GTA was gone.

 

[deathzero021]

when i was a kid rating were almost nonexistent. most games on the NES and Genesis could be played by everybody so it wasn't really anything to notice.

as i got older and games started having M ratings and such, it didn't matter by that time. my mom didn't care if i played an M rated game at 13, i was always far more mature than anyone else in my family so she never worried about it.

 

[dimensional]

Didnt exist and they largely werent bothered by what I played anyway especially as at the early age they bought all my games (on C64) on account of me having no spending power later on when I could afford stuff I was a teenager anyway so it didnt matter.

 

[ManimalR]

My parent didn't care up to a certain point. They were at bit iffy about 18 rated games when I was quite young, but they never actually stopped me playing or buying anything, and by the time I was ~14, they new I had already seen worse things, so they didn't care. What they usually said was if I was frightened or disturbed by a game it was my own fault for playing it

 

[Froggy Slayer]

Short answer, my parents didn't really care about the violence content, and were more worried about games with ratings of 15 and above being too difficult for me. Weird, I know.