April 9, 2007
Every gaming parent eventually faces the dilemma described by Wired columnist Clive Thompson.What games can your child play, and at what age?
Thompson describes switching off Gears of War when his fifteen-month old son entered the room. But the experience left him wondering:
Gamers like me have spent years railing against ill-informed parents and politicians who've blamed games for making kids violent, unimaginative, fat or worse. But now we're in a weird position: We're the first generation that is young enough to have grown up playing games, but old enough to have kids.
So it turns out that, whoops, now we've got to make sober calls about what sort of entertainment is good or bad for our children. And what, precisely, are we deciding? I started making calls to my gamer posse find out.
Thompson checked in with Kotaku's Brian Crecente as well as Wired editor Chris Anderson:
As you'd expect, I found that joystick-wielding parents are much better than Hillary Clinton at parsing the nuances in various types of combat games. Brian Crecente, the editor of game blog Kotaku, takes an approach that most gamer parents described to me: They treat games as they would movies. If they're too adult in content for his 5-year-old son, he won't let his child even watch them being played...
Chris Anderson... suggested a even more intriguing strategy: the "Lego Rule."
The Lego Company, it seems, has a policy of not producing toys that replicate 20th century weapons. "You can have swords, and you can have laser guns in space, but no actual 20th century guns," Anderson says. So his four children can play games like Halo, since it contains only futuristic, fantasy war, where you're killing only green- or blue-blooded aliens. The same goes for Roman swordplay titles. "But it clearly walls off Grand Theft Auto."
Comments
the point is the age guidelines are good enough to help keep content out of the hands of kids,if you are a gamer and played the game and see it as ok for the kid to play fine...but saying one thing and changing your mind 2 min later is...kinda dumb...
They probably couldn't tell the difference. I just wanted to point it out, although I have to disagree with it lookin like an M8
Actually, I think it resembles a M8 much more. Just as the MA5B resembles the FN2000.
But, I don't think the average young child would be able to tell the difference, though.
Is it just me, or does the Battle Rifle in Halo2 bear a striking resemblance to a FAMAS
I'm surprised GamerDad wasn't mentioned either.
So I wonder a bit if this discussion distracts us from the more crucial question of whether the violence matters in the first place. There seem to be plenty of studies indicating that it has little effect, and very few well-designed studies that really prove a link between violent media and much of anything (once you control for pre-existing violent tendencies).
-Geoff
http://www.alinktothefuture.com
The Parents who grew up in the 1950s weren't exposed to the Pop culture of the 1970s. So they had to muddle through the music, movies, and TV exposures with their own children. The Parents of the 1970s could tell you about the culture of the 1950s easily enough because they had prior experience.
The kids growing up in the 1970s and 1980s could tell you a lot about the culture they grew up in. But once they became Parents in the late 1990s, early 2000s, they had little in common with their children because it was new to the Parents. They have common links in general, but no specifics.
There are some Parents who understand this fully. They learn about their own children, examine various aspects of the culture, and make decisions for their own children. It isn't always the same decisions that other Parents make. Each Parent has their own growing up experiences, they own children who are individuals themselves, and their own views of the current culture versus the past culture. And each Parent develops their own style. The Lego Rule works for one Parent, and another Parent might pick up on it and try it too. But it won't work for every Parent. And that's ok.
nightwng2000
NW2K Software
Granted, I would let any potential children of mine play God of War, but the lego rule looks interesting.
No big suprise our legislators can't be arsed to get things right, it would require time *GASP* enjoying themselves, playing a game!
Damn you Lego Batman toys!
How is it really a dilemma? I don't think anyone here would argue that too much gaming is unhealthy, just as to much time in front of the the TV is unhealthy.
I also don't believe that it is a decision of good and bad, but what is appropriate and what isn't appropriate..... I can't really find the right words to explain that statement but for some reason its makes sense in my head, maybe thats just severe lack of sleep talking...I'm gonna stop rambling now.
I guess I have just always had an untested Idea of what is appropriate for younger audiences and where I draw the line.
As for the lego rule.. Halo is a pretty bad example, the human weapons are pretty much 20th century with different wrappers, ok not really they are 20th century.
Feel free to correct me if I'm being an idiot, or if I'm being obtuse or something.