I was talking with a coworker about what games my parents allow me to play, and what they let their kids play. My parents were fine with most things bloody things, like Resident Evil 4, Left 4 Dead and Gears of War, mostly because you were fighting like aliens or zombies. They were fine with military shooters too, and got really interested in the Modern Warfare storylines. The game that they really had a problem with was GTA, of course, but later, when my little sister started playing it, they got invested in GTA 5’s story, so eventually we could just play whatever we really wanted. How bout you all? Did your parents have any weird or strict rules in games or movies?
None, before my mom saw me play Soldier of Fortune and shoot a dudes’ ball off. After that she bought me an “educational, age appropriate game”, The Logical Journey of the Zoombini. I wasn’t supposed to play violent games, and instead play this game I was supposed to get bored of because it’s educational, and go play outside.
Jokes on her, I loved that game, and played it a ton.
Of course I ignored the rule of violent games and just learned to alt+tab as a reflex if I heard someone open my door. Useful skill in other parts of life as well…
Hip Hip! Zoombinis!
Man, I wish GOG would bring it back. Original was on quicktime, I’ve tried a couple of times throughout the years to get it working on a modern OS, no dice :(
Shameless gog dreamlist plug if you loved this game too (not mine)
https://www.gog.com/dreamlist/game/zoombinis-logical-journey-2001
Well there you go, you got it.
Oh man, I remember doing that for NSFW games on newgrounds as a young boi.
We don’t buy games in this house, we pirate them.
I respect that
Any chance you’d know how to get fitgirl repacks to run on linux?
One day they will figure out why they can’t connect the Nintendo Switch to the internet and why they have so many game options.
We did too, but it was because my parents refused to pay full price for a game, so they bought pirate physical copies for dirt cheap and they worked great. Then of course I learned to torrent. Nowadays I only buy games when they’re from indie devs or from small companies.
They tried, but I don’t think they did a great job.
I was limited by time and duration. I wasn’t allowed to start playing games until like 3pm, and wasn’t allowed to play after dinner. (If I went to someone else’s house, the rule didn’t apply. If someone came to my place, video games were also allowed, but my parents didn’t like people coming over). I also had to finish all my homework first. I remember just watching the clock on the weekends waiting for it to tick over to 3pm, then dashing up the stairs to the games.
For some reason, I was allowed to watch as my TV as I wanted. I’m old and tv was limited, and we didn’t have all the channels.
What ended up happening is I would lie. I would say I had finished my homework when I hadn’t to get that sweet, limited video game time. I would say I was watching TV in the basement but I was playing games with the sound down.
This trashed my school habits. I was doing all my homework the morning it was due. I was a smart kid so everything was still getting done well enough for me to get B’s, but this wasn’t great. When I got to college I had no study habits or learning stamina.
To this day I kind of find tv and other passive watching unsatisfying. I never watch anything on my own. Only with someone else.
I don’t know what would have worked better. The clock based limit felt terrible though. Really hated that. Maybe if they had explained “if you put all your stat points in video games now, when skill ups are cheap, you’re going to be underpowered later” it would have landed.
RELATABLE, I destroyed my study habits for the same reason, though, I’m much better at studying now.
I remember my mother briefly being resistant to getting me a violent game at some point. She was not that motivated to moderate what games I bought though. And eventually she didn’t seem to mind anything I was playing.
In my opinon; if you let your kids watch rambo, you better allow them to play rambo.
100% agree, my dad watched GoldenEye with me like 15 times as a kid.
I made a PowerPoint presentation to convince them to let me play monster hunter when I was 13.
They let me.
My parents let me play whatever I wanted, even Mortal Kombat and Resident Evil, but first they taught me the difference between fiction and reality and said I could play for a limited amount of hours per day, and only after doing my homework or after studying. Except on weekends, on weekends they let me play for longer, but also made sure I was playing offline too and going outside. It was pretty good.
The funny thing to me is that my dad would sometimes say it frustrated him that I liked video games because he thought they were “for boys” and yet he was the one who bought my (jailbroken) console and (pirated physical copies of) games until I turned 18 lol
None. My folks didn’t have any rules about games. Then again my parents really didn’t do rules.
My parents only had a few important ones, like don’t touch the guns, (they kept them out of reach usually.) And don’t mess with the cattle or play in the road.
My parents weren’t very restrictive. But one time, to get me to stop asking for a new game, my Dad said I couldn’t get any new ones until I beat the last game I got.
I think about that a lot still. I think it would have been a good rule, outside of some edge cases like games that were endless or too easy.
But it was off the cuff, he didn’t remember saying it. By the time I finished some game and brought it up, I think he said something like “well don’t you have other games you never finished?”
I had a very similar situation with my parents but it was involving computers. I wanted a computer quite badly, and for whatever reason my parents thought it was only to play video games. So they bought me a laptop-shaped educational toy with a bunch of inane mini games and said I could beat all of them, they’d buy me a real laptop. I beat them all and they went back on their promise. Crushed. Just say no, folks, don’t make your kids jump through hoops for nothing. Unless I guess you want them to get a taste of working adult life early?
When I was maybe 10, I wanted Mortal Kombat on the Sega Genesis more than anything. My mother, who is an attorney, said it was too violent. So in order to convince her, I built a strong argument and plied her with it non-stop. I would argue that I was a smart kid and all that crap about video games making you violent was garbage. The argument that finally won me my beloved MK was that she had let me watch RoboCop the year before, and I hadn’t gotten messed up by that. After that I was pretty much allowed to play or watch whatever.
It’s the earliest I can remember really forming a coherent argument with supporting facts and whatnot, and advocating for what I want. It’s a skill that would serve me quite well going forward. Well played, Mom.
My parents were pretty opposed to violent media. As a younger child, I wasn’t really allowed to play anything that had explicit violence. Once instance I remember is when I was about 8 and we got a new PC that came bundled with Age of Empires 2. I was initially allowed to play it, but my dad took the CD away when he saw how much warfare it involved. Generally, they usually kept to the official age recommendations on the boxes. They relaxed their rules significantly from when I was around 12 though. That was also when I got my own PC and a Steam Account and they didn’t really check what I bought on there. Even got my mom to buy me GTA San Andreas (which has a 16+ recommendation here) when I was around 14. They never really approved necessarily, especially my dad, but they let me make my own decisions when they felt I was old enough.
The only thing it could get an m rating for and still be allowed was government approved violence, like if it was a war game or sports fighting.
I remember when Super Smash Bros. Melee came out, I had to convince my parents to let me get it on the basis that the first game was rated E, so this sequel clearly should’ve also been E instead of T. Didn’t actually take much convincing, they were fine with it.
I never asked to play any M rated games, because there were never any that interested me to begin with. I think they definitely would’ve said no.
None, really. I’d play Mortal Kombat with my much older sibling as a child and also grew up playing games like Diablo and GTA (the old ones). I really liked Carmageddon and Postal, too. TBH what I enjoyed the most about GTA was stealing cars and driving around in them. XD Or blocking traffic with a bunch of cars.
Yeah my sister liked the cars and story in GTA, she never really went in killing sprees whenever she did play it, cuz driving around and falling off buildings was more fun for her.
I personally never really liked GTA, except GTA4 because of the physics and story.
i don’t recall ever having any.
Parents, Rules or Video games?
lol
Rules on video games.
As long as I was above the age limit on the box, I was fine. Some games rated 12 got an exemption if my older sibling was consulted.
