Ask GamerDad 3/21/08
Posted on March 22nd, 2008 by
Another week = more questions! I’m actually getting enough lately to form “theme columns” – this isn’t one of those. It’s sort of a grab bag this week. Questions like “Are there any M-games for a 9-year old to play” and “Is God of War okay for an 11-year old?” and “Is 9 too young for Smash Bros?” All that, and a bit more, at Ask GamerDad!
March 23rd, 2008 at 6:14 am
When you got your last “Why is Smash Brothers rated T?” question, I was going to post how unfair it seemed since they rated Street Fighter 2 (on VC) as E or E10+ or whatever. Then I looked it up, and sure enough, T for Teen. WTF? I guess in retrospect the game came out when I was actually 11 or 12, but I would have been OK with, say, an 8-year-old playing it. I went back and checked, and basically every game in the “Fighting” genre got a T and a “Violence” descriptor. Not sure I would agree with that, especially when that puts it on par with say Tekken, which has near photo-realistic people (and, granted, robots and pandas) beating the tar out of each other. I think they made an “E10+” to have a finer gradation between E and T for a reason.
March 23rd, 2008 at 5:28 pm
I confess, I did the same thing. I’ve been playing it and I was prepared to dump that question until I noticed that T. E-10+ is more appropriate.
March 23rd, 2008 at 6:06 pm
Yep, I agree – we played this afternoon for a while (older son got it from the Bunny), and it still feels very E-10+ to me.
March 24th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
I’m surprised by that T rating for Super Smash Bros. as well. Saturday morning cartoons are just as violent as the Smash Bros. series.
Admittedly, I’ve been playing Rainbow Six Vegas 2 with my 8 year old (he’s actually really good, he cut his teeth on Halo when he was 4. He seems well adjusted and hasn’t blown up his school yet.)
I realize that puts me on the extreme end of the “games for kids” spectrum. 🙂
March 25th, 2008 at 12:06 am
I was playing Brawl with a 2 year old girl and a 6 year old girl yesterday 🙂
March 25th, 2008 at 11:47 am
Bob, we accept everyone here so long as they know what they’re doing and Rainbow has a lot of positives – good story, tactics, rescuing hostages, The only thing that’d bother me as a parent is the torture sounds. Pretty intense I thought.
But I’m sure that’s totally superceded by the “I’m playing a COOL game with DADDY!”
… and that’s the real reason you’re letting an 8-year old play Rainbow Six Vegas 2, isn’t it? 😉
March 25th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
I do wish these games would come with a language filter option though. I could live without my son hearing “shoot the f*cker” every 2 minutes in terrorist hunt.
March 25th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
Maybe if you have concerns about the content of games designed for people over 17 you should play one of the THOUSANDS of age-appropriate games with him?
[edit: I removed the rest because it detracted from my point and was misinterpreted by others]
March 26th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
Well, since you don’t know my son…
March 26th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
Yep,
we don’t know your son.
I guess Mike is gonna be the guy we have around here who likes to unload on people. Just re-read what I wrote up there Bob. I don’t agree with Rainbow for that age but that’s none of my business.
That said, we here at GamerDad do have differing opinions on this stuff. Mine weighs an awful lot more but we’re also parents and have strong feelings about parenting.
March 26th, 2008 at 9:00 pm
OK, I laid in a bit heavy, but …
… my point is basically that if you take your 8 year old to a strip club don’t complain about seeing boobies, and if you don’t want your 8 year old seeing boobies you shouldn’t take him to a strip club … and finally that it is in the very nature of kids to tell other kids about the cool new things that they are doing.
Unloading, not really – it was only when you objected to the content in the game that I saw some cognitive dissonance.
And, while I readily admit to not knowing your son and also that every kid is different (even both of mine are very different and would handle more mature content very differently from one another) … if your kid is playing M rated games full of blood, gore, and swearing and *not* raving & sharing all of that stuff with his 8-year old friends regardless of their parents’ wishes … then he is unlike 99.99% of kids I have dealt with in all of the groups I have led/taught/managed/interacted with through the years.
And I guess that is my only issue – I really don’t care what you do with your kid – playing M-games, watching porn, smoking weed, whatever. As GamerDad says it is none of my business. However, when he starts bringing age-inappropriate stuff to other kids, then it *is* the concern of a wider audience – it is called choices and consequences. Once your kid starts bringing content intended for adults to kids who have barely stopped wetting the bed, then your parental decisions are of concern to others. That was what I was saying with the examples I cited – if those other kids had kept their over-17-content to themselves, no issue.
March 27th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Don’t worry, I take everything lightly. I’m one of those people that look for the most favorable way to interpret what someone says, rather than the most unfavorable.
That said, I believe the behaviors you cite (violence towards others, offensive language during normal conversations) are learned from the parents, not something they learn from TV.
I do see your clarified point, Mike, but I’m not sure I can agree with it. Taken to an extreme, you are basically saying that if parent A doesn’t want kid A to see or hear something, then parent B must not let kid B hear it either, or kid B may share it with kid A. That just isn’t practical.
My thoughts on “mature” media are this: kids are going to be exposed, I’d rather be there guiding them and shaping them, rather than them being exposed by friends outside of my control. That isn’t to say that I’m going to run out and have my children watch pr0n when they turn 9, but we certainly don’t shy away from questions and my son has an idea already of “where babies come from.”
I don’t feel that violence or language alone makes something “mature.” Quite the opposite. Most of our mature media is, in fact, quite immature. The things I keep from my son (more like he doesn’t seek it out, and I don’t present it) are books, films, and games with content more accurately described as mature themes. Think Clockwork Orange or Schindler’s List not the Terminator or Die Hard.
March 27th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Regarding complaining about the language.. I don’t really want to hear it either. Especially, in RS6V2, where you hear the SAME sound bite multiple times in the same 10 minute mission. Developers, please, if you’re going to give NPCs dialog, I beg you, give them MORE.
March 27th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
I very strongly agree with almost everything you just said, Bob! 😀
Including the ‘parenting to meet someone else’s standards’ bit. I am not suggesting that anyone parent differently because of potential disapproval from others – not at all. One of the reasons I have enjoyed working with GamerDad for the past several years (despite the fact that he so quickly skewered me 😉 ) is that his point has always been that involved and informed parenting is almost always good parenting.
We have watched R movies with our kids – but like you say, it is stuff like Flags of Our Fathers rather than Saw IV. I can’t wait to share The Witcher with my older son – but I will wait, as it is mature and deep with complexity, and he is quite fine with playing E, E-10 and T games right now.
I have personally always tried to have my kids get the most out of what is high quality and targeted at their age before moving on to ‘older’ stuff. That is a personal choice, not a judgment … but I do also find kids want to push it as much as they can, and as someone said on the GamerDad forums, getting them to play Animal Crossing while they are interested is a very good thing, because soon enough they will be thinking they are too old and cool for it …
And thanks for taking my stuff in the spirit in which it was intended rather than seeing it as a personal attack! And have fun gaming with your son – because sharing cool experiences with your kids, whatever they may be, is the best thing in life!
March 27th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
No worries, Mike. I find all the discussion here to be rewarding and there isn’t enough informed and unbiased discussion going on about media consumption these days. It’s why I appreciate Andrew and all the GamerDad contributers so much. Even when they disagree with me. 🙂