Who was an "underage" gamer? and the disconnect between us and the past decades

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Tuesday Night Fever

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Vault101 said:
they dont ofen ask for Id
Owyn_Merrilin said:
Because in the US they aren't, and I still get carded every time I buy something M-rated in a Gamestop.
When I was in high school I worked part-time as a cashier for a Best Buy store in New Hampshire. We were required to ID everyone who looked like they were in their 20's or younger who were trying to purchase M-rated games.

If you were old enough to buy the game and had ID to prove it, but there was a child with you, we were required to inform you that the game was M-rated and not appropriate for young players.

If a supervisor caught us failing to ID, or failing to inform individuals with children that the game they were purchasing was M-rated, we'd get a warning. Two warnings in a single month and we would be fired.

Additionally, the company hired "secret shoppers." These were individuals that would come into the store to "test" us on our knowledge of company policy without us knowing we were being tested. If a secret shopper reported to the store management that we failed to ID/inform, that would also get us a warning.
 

Owyn_Merrilin

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Tuesday Night Fever said:
Vault101 said:
they dont ofen ask for Id
Owyn_Merrilin said:
Because in the US they aren't, and I still get carded every time I buy something M-rated in a Gamestop.
When I was in high school I worked part-time as a cashier for a Best Buy store in New Hampshire. We were required to ID everyone who looked like they were in their 20's or younger who were trying to purchase M-rated games.

If you were old enough to buy the game and had ID to prove it, but there was a child with you, we were required to inform you that the game was M-rated and not appropriate for young players.

If a supervisor caught us failing to ID, or failing to inform individuals with children that the game they were purchasing was M-rated, we'd get a warning. Two warnings in a single month and we would be fired.

Additionally, the company hired "secret shoppers." These were individuals that would come into the store to "test" us on our knowledge of company policy without us knowing we were being tested. If a secret shopper reported to the store management that we failed to ID/inform, that would also get us a warning.
I figured it was something like that. It's just bizarre that Gamestop enforces company policy that much more stringently than stores in other countries enforce a law that says they need to do the same thing or suffer the consequences.

Edit: Misread that. Best Buy does it too, or at least did when you were in high school? Interesting. Come to think of it, I can't remember the last time I bought an M-rated game in a Best Buy, if I ever have.
 

Jynthor

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I was killing prostitutes in GTA before... I can't come up with a good phrase. Before... Well, a long time ago.
My parents let me play whatever I wanted and I turned out alright. No murders on my record yet. If I ever get children I'll also let them play whatever they want.

Never could stand parents who didn't allow their kids to play certain games.
Did Arya Stark turn into a murderer just because she saw horrible things happen as a kid? Didn't think so!
 

Tuesday Night Fever

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Owyn_Merrilin said:
I figured it was something like that. It's just bizarre that Gamestop enforces company policy that much more stringently than stores in other countries enforce a law that says they need to do the same thing or suffer the consequences.

Edit: Misread that. Best Buy does it too, or at least did when you were in high school? Interesting. Come to think of it, I can't remember the last time I bought an M-rated game in a Best Buy, if I ever have.
I briefly worked for Best Buy as part-time seasonal a few years back when I came home from college and they still had the same requirements.

Though I understand their reason for doing it, the implementation is freaking awful. For a fun little anecdote... back when Doom III launched I was working the registers that night. I had a kid come up to me with a copy of the game, he looked to be somewhere between 13 and 15. I asked him for ID, and when he couldn't produce any, I had to tell him that I couldn't sell him the game. He was pissed, but acknowledged that I was just doing my job and left to put the game back. Ten minutes or so go by, and the kid comes back to my register. This time he has two DVDs with him: Full Metal Jacket and Platoon. I wasn't required to ID him for these, so I sold the movies to him. He immediately brought the DVDs over to customer service and returned them, then came back to me and commented on how bullshit it was that I could sell him violent movies but not violent games. I agreed with the kid.

Anyway, some time goes by, a bunch more customers pass through my register. Then the kid comes back, this time with a Best Buy bag, a copy of Doom III, and a receipt for it. Turns out he'd found some other customer to purchase the game for him over at customer service. Clever kid.
 

Owyn_Merrilin

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Tuesday Night Fever said:
Owyn_Merrilin said:
I figured it was something like that. It's just bizarre that Gamestop enforces company policy that much more stringently than stores in other countries enforce a law that says they need to do the same thing or suffer the consequences.

Edit: Misread that. Best Buy does it too, or at least did when you were in high school? Interesting. Come to think of it, I can't remember the last time I bought an M-rated game in a Best Buy, if I ever have.
I briefly worked for Best Buy as part-time seasonal a few years back when I came home from college and they still had the same requirements.

Though I understand their reason for doing it, the implementation is freaking awful. For a fun little anecdote... back when Doom III launched I was working the registers that night. I had a kid come up to me with a copy of the game, he looked to be somewhere between 13 and 15. I asked him for ID, and when he couldn't produce any, I had to tell him that I couldn't sell him the game. He was pissed, but acknowledged that I was just doing my job and left to put the game back. Ten minutes or so go by, and the kid comes back to my register. This time he has two DVDs with him: Full Metal Jacket and Platoon. I wasn't required to ID him for these, so I sold the movies to him. He immediately brought the DVDs over to customer service and returned them, then came back to me and commented on how bullshit it was that I could sell him violent movies but not violent games. I agreed with the kid.

Anyway, some time goes by, a bunch more customers pass through my register. Then the kid comes back, this time with a Best Buy bag, a copy of Doom III, and a receipt for it. Turns out he'd found some other customer to purchase the game for him over at customer service. Clever kid.
That's a very good point. I don't think I've ever been carded for an R-rated movie. Heck, I went to see Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter in a theater last month, and they didn't card me. The one place that you would expect to be strict about enforcing the ratings. Videogames, on the other hand? Independent record shops and thrift shops seem to be the only places that /don't/ card me.
 

ParanoidEngineer

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By underage gamer, do you mean the little kids who scream over microphones and then get banned/get a clip of them yelling put on Youtube for people to laugh, or the underage gamer like I used to be where my parents basically said "Right, you're a mature person, so you can play games which are three years too old for you, as long as we approve them first."
 

Tuesday Night Fever

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Owyn_Merrilin said:
That's a very good point. I don't think I've ever been carded for an R-rated movie. Heck, I went to see Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter in a theater last month, and they didn't card me. The one place that you would expect to be strict about enforcing the ratings. Videogames, on the other hand? Independent record shops and thrift shops seem to be the only places that /don't/ card me.
Movie theaters in my area never asked for ID, though they were supposed to. I certainly wasn't supposed to have been able to get into Starship Troopers (violence -and- nudity!) when I was nine years old, and yet I still have the ticket stub to prove it since I always keep them.

I had a friend in high school who worked for a local movie theater and he always insisted that he never asked for ID because there was no real repercussions. If he didn't ask for ID and got caught it was just a slap on the wrist, as opposed to Best Buy where they kept the fear of being fired constantly looming over our heads (and frequently proving to everyone that it wasn't an empty threat).
 

Daveman

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My parents were very good. They were the last amongst my friends to let their child have a GTA game. I had to wait until I was friggin' 13.

First adulty game interaction I had was my friends brother playing alien vs predator when I was 10.

Though at that age I was doing much more damaging things like lighting my airfix planes on fire with deodorant and chucking them out of the window. Hell, we went clay pigeon shooting for my friend's 11th birthday. Though that was in Scotland...
 

rangerman351

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I agree crepesack, I played a bunch of games "underage." And yes, I don't criticize parents for letting their kids play certain games, but its when they never taught their kids to not cuss out loud that bothers me. Like when some brat is telling me about his latest romp with someone's mother then, I blame the parents.
 

RicoADF

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My first gaming machine was the PSX (although I had played Doom and C&C1 at friends places previously) when I was 7. As my parents are switched on they got me V-Rally and Oddworld: Abes Odysee, which while still having some violance was rated M here in Australia, so no age restriction just that the parent judges that their child is mature enough to play/watch. Granted my parents don't nor have they ever played video games, but since our video games follow the same rating system as movies etc (even the exact same logos), they had an idea based off TV/movies etc.
That's not to say I didn't get some games before I had hit the recommended date, I got C&C Red Alert Retaliation when I was about 12ish (rough guess), but I was also watching movies rated that as well, they having decided I was mature enough to do so.
I have no issue with parents bending the age if they consider their child is ready, after all the restrictions (atleast in Australia) that prevent MA15+ games from being sold to kids are so that its upto the parents to decide if the child is ready, and prevent them from getting it behind the parents back. My issue is when parents get the games without even looking at the box and noticing the logo that is clearly (and in Australia colour coded) rated with the same ratings as movies, which they should know by now, and yet they cry fowl when they see the violence and demand game companies be punished for their failure at being a parent.
 

someonehairy-ish

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I played the first Halo game at a friend's house when I was about 6. I don't think I was older than 10 before I played the first Half Life.
It didn't do me any harm.

*twitch*

[sub]I could be wrong about those ages though. My judgement of the passage of time is somewhat awry. I'm 18 now, so adjust them to whatever makes sense for when the games were released.[/sub]
 

Mr. GameBrain

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Its not about age, its about maturity.

I played loads of violent stuff as a kid. It was cool, but I knew it wasn't real. Thats the important part.
To make sure the kid knows that a video game is a video game, fantasy, entertainment, not a HOW TO GUIDE.

Their regular behaviour should have been correctly guided by this point by their parents. They should know what words are bad, and why they shouldn't be said.


EDIT: Ultimately, even with good parenting, some kids are just little buggers by nature.
Hell, my older brother (who is 23, 2 years older than me btw), had the same upbringing but is my Polar opposite.
I am a very humble gamer, he screams at the top of his lungs in rage all the time.
I can be patient, and figure out puzzles on my own, he runs to me for help on it, ALL THE TIME.
 

Darren716

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I played quite a few M rated games in my childhood starting at around age 10 or so with Halo 2 but the reason I wasn't that annoying little brat on XBL was because of two reasons 1. i knew my parents would beat my ass if they ever heard me swear at that age and 2. I didn't even have XBL till 2010 when I got my 360 slim and didn't need to run an Ethernet wire up to my room.
 

Darren716

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someonehairy-ish said:
I played the first Halo game at a friend's house when I was about 6. I don't think I was older than 10 before I played the first Half Life.
It didn't do me any harm.

*twitch*

[sub]I could be wrong about those ages though. My judgement of the passage of time is somewhat awry. I'm 18 now, so adjust them to whatever makes sense for when the games were released.[/sub]
Yeah you would have had to of been at least 7 to play the first halo seeing as it just had its 10th year anniversary.
 

someonehairy-ish

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Darren716 said:
someonehairy-ish said:
I played the first Halo game at a friend's house when I was about 6. I don't think I was older than 10 before I played the first Half Life.
It didn't do me any harm.

*twitch*

[sub]I could be wrong about those ages though. My judgement of the passage of time is somewhat awry. I'm 18 now, so adjust them to whatever makes sense for when the games were released.[/sub]
Yeah you would have had to of been at least 7 to play the first halo seeing as it just had its 10th year anniversary.
Ah ok. I wasn't far off anyhoo.
 

nomzy

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Well I was playing runescape when I was 11 and then WoW when I was 12.
I also had an xbox and played Halo when I was 9 or 10. I also played GTA 3 and Vice City when was around 11-12.
Yeah I started young, but I don't think it affected me negatively.
 

Pjotr84

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I surely was an underage gamer. Played all kinds of 16+/18+ games when I was growing up. My parents never really commented on what I played, too. Guess they trusted me being able to distinguish between games and reality.

Rawne1980 said:
My daughter wanted Rage (she's 14) I said no. She asked why, I said it's not a very good game and got her Fallout New Vegas instead ... she enjoyed it.
This is just awesome.