I Just Had a Video Game Debate With my Parents

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

eh my mom stays out of it mostly, as a kid she tried to keep mature things away from me like crazy, and my dad handled the video game aspect mostly, they knew i knew what was real and what wasn't and i never ever showed any aggressive behavior or anything so i got to play just about anything mostly (except for sex games obviously), my dad was huge into gun and sports games back in the day so i had a ton of time playing those, then i'd play mortal kombat and resident evil with my uncle during the weekdays =] and now that im older they depend on me mostly for what games my brothers can and cannot get, and they are just like me when i was that age so for the most part i give a thumbs up on most stuff. unless its my youngest brother. (which he is fucking weird as it is..last week, as a fucking 4 year old he watched minority report, start to finish, and asked questions about the plot periodically throughout the movie, so im keeping a bit of a closer eye on him)

 

[k-ossuburb]

Lol, gaming is the least of my parents worries. I was smoking at 16 and not just the legal stuff either. They paid for my trip to Amsterdam on my 18th birthday, knowing full well I'm going to spend the entire week there stoned and drunk off my ass and drinking heavily (I didn't bother with the hookers but even if I did my parents would probably be more concerned with how many jokes they could make about it), sometimes I wish I still got stoned every now and again, but alcohol is so much easier to come by, tastes better and does the exact same thing.

When I turned 21, I went off to travel America for half a year, they knew full-well about how dangerous such a thing could be and that the people I'd be staying with were people I only knew over the internet and yet the only thing they were concerned with was that I give them a call every once in a while, gave them some of my money for their account in case something went wrong and that I was fully insured.

To be honest, I think the only thing they ever get concerned with is that if I'm going to do something that might be a little dangerous that I make sure I've planned it all out in case something goes wrong. They know for a fact that I'm way too lazy to go off killing people just because I saw it in a game once, I've thought it through and every time I wonder how people manage to commit murder all I can think of is just how much bloody effort that must take. Screw that, it's so much easier to do it sitting down and only using my thumbs. Also, violence is something I just never saw the point of as a kid, whenever someone picked on me for some asinine reason like my hair or whatever, I'd think about punching them in the face, but that leads to them punching me in the face, so I'd punch them back and so-on and so-forth. How does that solve anything? The easier thing to do is just laugh and walk off, saving me some time I could then use to do something a lot more entertaining than getting into a pointless fight over nothing.

Hell, when I was a little kid they didn't care when I watched Predator, Terminator, Alien, Hellrasier or whatever other 18 certificate films. Some of the prudish out there might consider this bad parenting, but you'd be wrong, I know the difference between what's right and what's wrong and I know the difference between fantasy and reality. If anything, they trust me a hell of a lot and I'm intelligent enough to reward that trust by not taking the piss and doing something stupid. I'd actually argue that parents who are overbearing and constantly try to shelter their kids from reality are the ones doing the real harm, how the hell are you going to learn anything about life if you don't experience any of it first hand?

 

[_Cake_]

HAHA when I was 16 I remember showing my mom how in GTA:Vice City you could run down hookers to get your money back all to the tune of The Buggles - "Video Killed the Radio Star" XD My parents knew I was a good kid so they had nothing to worry about.

Your parents sorta sound like they where just attacking you. If you aren't violent or getting in fights why punish you. Your 16 that's a year and a few months till your an adult. To be honest I think a 16 year olds should be able to watch/read/play whatever they want, it can't physically hurt them.

 

[scorptatious]

I had this kind of discussion with my parents before. My dad told me this law was just an example of the government trying to control everything. I guess in a way I kind of agree with him. Other than complete ignorance, I really don't see any logical reason why our government would try to place restrictions on games when we already have the ESRB rating the games.

 

[some1stolemyusername]

Censorship was not a major issue with games when i was growing up, and my parents were not overly concerned with what games we played (compared to the movies available in the 80s, games were tame). Me and my wife however are at odds over games with regards to our kids. Consoles are not an issue in our house, as I think they are useless PoS compared to PC's (yes, Master Chief can suck blue balls). Further, I am predominantly an action game player (CoD, L4D, Half-life, etc, I play most titles) and so graphic violence is evident.

I do not allow my kids to play (eldest 9yo) graphic games, but was not overly concerned with him watching over my shoulder. Currently they are pokemon fanboi's, and does enjoy playing StarCraft 2 on the odd occasion. My wife is adamant that they are not to be in the same room if i am playing these games, and constantly petitioned for me to not play at all until they are in bed.

Our attempts to discuss what our children at exposed to have led to small arguments in the past, but we have reached a compromise over the matter, whereby i limit exposure, and our kids are not limited to playing The Wiggles explore fairy island-esque games until they are 18yo's (e.g. allowing them to play SC2).

 

[dickseverywhere]

my parents are and were pretty cool about gaming, thought they wouldn't buy me tomb raider when i was like 11 which i was pretty pissed off about at the time, now they bought my 13 year old brother modern warfare 2 and don't really care if my other bro who's 8 plays it with us lol.
going nuts over starcraft at 16 is pretty crazy, theres plenty of mainstream media you'd have access to which is way worse.

 

[Buizel91]

I play games, lots, but my parents call it silly.
Gotta be the worst thing I've heard about games from my parents xD
That it's silly

[sub]tis a silly place[/sub]

Same scenario, but different reaction. My mom use to say "it's a waste of money" but I tend to ignore that. Still she's quite impressed over the reality of certain games. She asked me if I watched a movie, while I was playing Red Dead Redemption.

My mum did that with the Force Unleashed.

her exact words "Oooh great! ANOTHER Starwars movie" XD

She also said it about Reach, but i forgot what she said =\

 

[ethaninja]

Tell her about games such as Soldier of Fortune and Carmageddon. Maybe she'll have a stroke and you can bring all the games you want into your house

But on a serious note: Have you ever considered smuggling?

 

[shadow741]

I remember when I was playing Modern Warfare 2 when my mum was in the room, playing "No Russian". While playing, I talked to my mum how this level cause a major uproar due to killing civilians and how I feel how its all a load of crap.

My mum simply replied "...But it's only a game."

Your mom needs a medal for the most reasonable mom ever
OT: They got mad over Starcraft, that is rated TEEN and you're sixTEEN?! They need their head checked.

 

[dickseverywhere]

my parents are and were pretty cool about gaming, though they wouldn't buy me tomb raider when i was like 11 which i was pretty pissed off about at the time, now they bought my 13 year old brother modern warfare 2 and don't really care if my other bro who's 8 plays it with us lol.
going nuts over starcraft at 16 is pretty crazy, theres plenty of mainstream media you'd have access to which is way worse.

 

[Gardenia]

I have never discussed videogame censorship with them, but I have discussed censorship in general. We arrived at the conclusion that censorship is bad in general. It's parent's responibility to shield their kids from things they don't want them to see.

 

[ANImaniac89]

I started playing video games around the age of 6 or 7, my first console was an SNES given to me for a Birthday gift along with 20 different games plus the packed in Mario All-Stars and a year of Nintendo Power. I grew up on Nintendo and at ever generation change the first console I would buy would be whatever Nintendo put out. I tell you this to know the gaming has been a core part of my childhood, some of my best memory are from weekends spend doing nothing but playing the SNES with my Stepbrother and Stepfather.

The debate about violent video games has never really come up in my house, My mother and step father knew of the rating systems and knew how to use them, they did allowed violent games (within reason) and they judged these by me and my step brothers maturity levels. we were allowed to play games like Mortal Kombat and other such fair but nothing with any pornographic or satanic tones.

The only time I can remember have a game withheld was when GTA III and Vice City first came out which was when I was a teenager and the matter was quickly resolved when they rented the game and found that the news stories had largely overhyped the levels of violence and depravity in these titles.

Now I am in my 20's and I still game and my younger brothers are following in my gamer footsteps with pretty much the same rules.

 

[NickCooley]

My parents have never had a problem with me gaming. My mum loves horror stories and used to sit and watch me playing survival horrors like Silent Hill and Resident Evil, plus she's great at puzzles and helped me out whenever I was stumped. When Code Veronica came out on the Dreamcast she bought it out of the blue for me so she could watch it. She knows I'm not going to go flip out and murder people. The only caveat was when I was younger I could only watch 18 rated movies if she was with me too.

 

[binvjoh]

My dad introduced me to gaming when I was 2. I've never had any rules regarding certain games or play-time.

 

[Claptrap]

Mum plays point and click games, Dad plays half life and borderlands sometimes.

Yeah i never really had a problem, Infact i remember sitting on my dads lap when i was...7? watching him play civ 2

 

[mrx19869]

when i was younger my parents did research on games, I was allowed to have most games, but they did sit me down and discuss that a video game is not real life and the things done in a video game should be only done there.

Today i have gotten my Mom to play GTA and she enjoyed crashing the car into other cars and walls. They approve of video games, as long as I don't spend the entire day playing them.

Plus when I was younger my parents would actually unplug my computer from the wall if I was refusing to get off. Then they would kick me outside and tell me to play and not come back in for at least an hour. Which sucked cause there are no kids my age in my community. I tried to play with this one kid who was younger than me once, he turned out to be a selfish, stuck up, brat. So we got into this argument after his younger brother threw a rock at me and I pushed him. They started to chase me down the street with there bikes at which point the "road rash'ed" his bike, kicking the bike out from under himself..They left me alone after that point.

 

[Beech]

I used to watch my dad play Duke Nukem 3D and played Mortal Kombat against him (I was 5 or 6). That said, neither of my parents are really big on gaming, but they've never tried to stop me from playing videogames either. Of which I'm grateful to them - it's pretty easy to disapprove of something just because you don't understand the appeal of it.

 

[WorldCritic]

My parents were always ok with me playing anything but M rated games. When I was 14 I talked to my mom about playing them and she was convinced that playing an M rated game would change me in some way for the worse. I explained to her that an M rated game was like an R rated movie and I had seen plenty of those. After hearing that she reluctantly let me buy my first M rated game, Metal Gear Solid, I love that game. As for my dad even when I explained it to him he refused to let me play M rated games at his house. I ended up bugging him about it so much that he finally decided that he would watch me play 30 minutes of any M rated game and he would judge if it was really that bad. I go out and get a copy of Halo 2 and play it with him watching. After 30 minutes he gets up and says, "alright you can play M rated games." That was a good day.

 

[Emilox The Great]

they don't really mind.
they were cautious about it in the beginning. but they know i wont do a crazy slaughterfest, or something.
not everyone has been openminded about it though.
like my last teacher he teased me about it and he made everyone else in the school tease me because of it, and that is why he is among the top people i wish would die in a horrible way.


heh i hate my life...