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You Played Violent Games - Why Can't Your Kids?

Posted by Zonk on from the time-to-sit-your-kid-down-to-have-the-frags-and-camping-talk dept.

An anonymous reader writes: "On the Wired site, Clive Thompson has up an article that points out a sobering truth: gamers are getting older. Folks who grew up playing videogames like Doom and Quake are now facing parental decisions with their own kids regarding appropriate content. Thompson cites well known gamer dads like Kotaku's Brian Crecente, discussing some of the approaches folks educated in gaming take with their own offspring: '"Everybody knows, as an adult, that the world is not always a nice place," Crecente told me. "But I don't want him to know that yet. I want him to have a childhood." So he disallows games with "realistic" combat, like World War II titles, or Resistance: Fall of Man, but permits highly cartoony shooting, like Starfox on the Nintendo DS -- since he regards it as essentially as abstract as playing cops and robbers with your fingers as guns.' Where do you think gamer parents should draw the line? If you have kids, what approach are you taking to introducing them to gaming? How old is 'old enough' to start fragging?"

6 of 501 comments (clear)

  1. You Played Violent Games - Why Can't Your Kids? by Chaffar · · Score: 5, Funny
    ...because they'll probably whup my ass.


    Seriously, I've been taunted by too many 10-year-old's in LAN cafés, I don't want to have one in my friggin' house 24/7.

  2. Hmm... by Dogtanian · · Score: 4, Funny

    "Gamers are getting older"? That's not news, time runs forwards. It'd be more surprising if gamers were getting younger, and I'm damned if I want to go through puberty again.... backwards.

    --
    "Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
  3. Re: You Played Violent Games - Why Can't Your Kids by Marsala · · Score: 4, Funny

    Maybe.

    But it could also be your one shot to get onto the roster for an eleet clan.

    "Put daddy in the match, or else you're going to time-out. One. TWO...."

  4. Re:My vision on things by sherms · · Score: 5, Funny

    Pleading innocent here. Pong was it for me :)

  5. Re:My vision on things by BakaHoushi · · Score: 4, Funny

    You're forgetting, though, the most important part of being a parent:

    Banning your kids from doing anything you thought was fun as a child.

    Listen, I was living on high with a pad of my own, 100k surplus to spend on whatever I wanted, and then I got tied down with those little shits... why should *I* be the only one to suffer for it?!

    (ED: BakaHoushi is a 20 year old jobless college student. Any resemblance to actual fact in the above post is unintentional and completely coincidental.)

  6. Re:There is no right age by BakaHoushi · · Score: 5, Funny

    So, what you're saying, if I understand this right, is... that every child is different. That some kids mature slower, some faster, and some kids can handle what some can't. That there is no "magic number," no age where they magically learn to tell wrong from right, and to separate fantasy from reality. That some kids might even be more inherently drawn to violence than others, and that parents need to know their children and be able to identify what they know and what they can handle...

    Sorry. I don't buy it. I demand you give me a list of ages and what's appropriate, universally. Also, if you have any pills that will make kids sit down and shut up and get smarter, I'd appreciate it.