Ask GD – Left 4 Dead and Kids
Even though I’ve written a lot about this one, let me spotlight a new question about it:
I’m a parent of a 14 year old and a seven year old. They’re both boys (if that is applicable – I’m not being sexist) and my oldest wants to play Left 4 Dead. I know it’s M, and I know my youngest isn’t going to be even near it, but is it suitable for my 14 year old? I’m not too keen on violence and blood, but I would rather have him kill zombies than innocent children.
And, if I do get him L4D, is it illegal? Sorry I’m new to these M and AO games? – Krazy Koala
Taking your questions backwards.
1. It’s in no way illegal. Not at all. Many stores won’t sell these games to kids though, as a policy.
2. It’s best/easiest to try and translate game content into movie content. Is Left4Dead appropriate? Would you let your kids watch a violent and scary horror movie? Would that bother you – upset them?
L4D has one advantage over most games, and its a reason to be careful, it’s multiplayer oriented. Meaning you have to work together with people or the AI to win – at all. The game is mainly about saving your partners in a world that’s out to kill everyone with zombie creatures. Most games aren’t social like that. This also opens your kids to some of the jerks out there. Not predators – that’s way overblown – but the people who cuss or try to ruin the game. The good news is that those kids aren’t tolerated very much by most players.
Check YouTube for videos of content btw. This works for most big name games.
-GamerDad
August 16th, 2009 at 11:23 am
Out of curiosity, do any games even let you kill innocent children?
August 16th, 2009 at 11:41 am
I can’t think of one offhand except maybe Bioshock and some early PC RPGs like maybe Planescape Torment, Fallout, etc., (they liked being edgy back then.)
August 16th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Well I havent seen this myself, but maybe GTA 4 has it. As in there is a family with a child out walking in the park and you can go by and kill them.
August 16th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
Hmmm… I played GTA 4 and I never, ever, saw a single child model in the game at all. Are you sure about this? Some sort of weird “easter egg” (wow, I hate calling it that) that the ESRB never saw? If you have proof, please let me know. I’d love to pursue that angle.
Also, maybe I’ll check, can you “kill” children in The Sims 3? I really haven’t tried to kill anyone in a Sims game since the first one and I only did that for a humorous article (removing the ladder from the pool was my favorite).
August 16th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
Yeah they’re pretty wary of putting in children you can harm — that would probably be an insta-ban in fascist-run countries like Australia and Germany. Even Bioshock made a big deal about it, but in reality the Little Sisters aren’t quite 100% human.
August 16th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Well I don’t know in GTA 4 if there are children I was guessing. Though alot of my friends and I have it so we could look into it. There might be a child Easter Egg. With the pc version i bet there is a mod where you can get kids in it. Also I have Sims 3, so I might go experiment and see if I can kill a child in game. Just to see if you can because that would be pretty weird if you could kill a child. GamerDad if you can kill a child in Sims 3 please say so because I want to try that out.
August 17th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
Rockstar isn’t stupid – provocative, yes, but not stupid, so I’ll relegate the “child” to rumor and myth (or a mod, maybe). I don’t think I’ll have time soon to try and kill a child in Sims 3, but to be honest, I’d be very surprised if the game allowed it. EA is too careful and everybody in gaming seems to get the limitation (as they are) now. Besides, all the major scandals of the past few years weren’t really bad taste on the part of the devs, but exploits, orphaned code, or mainstream media misunderstanding the game.
That’s probably how the GTA4 kid thing started. To most people, being able to kill a kid in that game sounds plausible. The only reason it raised a red flag with me is because I know the Rockstar people and while they LOVE pushing buttons – they’d be very unlikely to “go there.”
Thanks, btw, to ROLFCopter. I can’t believe I missed his “killing innocent children” line at the end of the question. Shows what people assume about the hobby, doesn’t it? Most people don’t realize that the ONLY reason you get money when you kill a hooker in a GTA game is because ANYONE you kill usually drops money when they die in that game. Yet people assume Rockstar intentionally set out to have you pay,kill,get money back in some misogynistic trifecta. The hooker thing really is just them adding the ability to buy a hooker as a sort of developmentally impaired joke that, admittedly, fit the game’s “do realistic things bad people do” aesthetic.
Also there is a molester I believe, I think, but he’s there to be killed. If I’m remembering it right I think I used a cheat and a rocket launcher to kill that guy. That’s how I roll!
August 19th, 2009 at 8:57 am
The game Prey has spirits of posessed children that you can kill. I believe they pulled back from having you kill the actual child NPC models.
August 19th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
No problem, it was the first thing I noticed, actually. It does show what kind of assumptions people make, but hey, that’s why you’re here, right?
In fact, I should thank you, GamerDad; reading your website has helped my parents several times with deciding what games they will allow me to play, and now they know to research a game instead of just saying “no, it’s rated M.” I remember we found the site a few years back, when I asked to buy Halo so I could play online with my friends. Good times…anyway, thank you, GamerDad, I appreciate your work very much and will continue reading in the years to come.
August 19th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
Yea probably for GTA 4 on the 360 and PS3 there is no children in it that you could kill. Though in Saints Row 2 there are a few cheats so it looks like you are killing children. There is a cheat that makes you a giant so that might do it for you. If that is not good enough there is another cheat that shrinks all the pedestrians. So with those two combined or just shrunk pedestrians it might just seem like you are killing children. And same with Sims 3 they probably wouldn’t have it so you could kill them. Though I would wonder what would happen if a baby or toddler was put into a pool what would happen.
September 11th, 2009 at 8:01 pm
A kid shouldnt be playing this kind of game. Period. You take shotguns and blow heads off in a spattering display of blood and chunks of brains. Im quite disturbed at how MANY parents will let their kids play games with this much violence in them.
Also most kids dont like the social ability to take consequence for their actions. Example earlier i was in a public match and there was a kid on my team. Many times he would run off alone, even after being told to stop doing so. He was request to be healed because he “already used his med kit” BECAUSE he wouldnt stop running off alone.
Parents do yourself and the rest of the adult gaming community a favor and get your kids something else to play.
October 19th, 2009 at 7:25 pm
You can kill in Fable….It was an accident….but 🙁 I did it none the less….HE WAS SOO YOUNG….