Video games and children (for parents only)

[Yegolev]

My dad would see me playing an RPG and say something like "What's this sissy crap? Play something violent!"

The puzzle starts coming together.

[schild]

If you had been playing Final Fantasy 6 instead of some CRPG pussy shit you'd have been able to counter with, "Kefka just poisoned a river to purposefully kill a bunch of women and children. Dad, have you ever poisoned a river? Who's the pussy now?"

[Stormwaltz]

Jeremiah is only two and half. He hasn't played any games because (IRONY!) he's still too violent. He's prone to throwing things that are controller sized, and whacks random buttons on keyboards to hear the noise. He did watch me play CoV with great interest, though. Kids dig splashy particle effects.

My father was one of the early adopters of the Atari 2600, and I seem to recall he played fairly often for a guy who left for work before the sun rose and got back after 7PM. He was the first person I saw flip the score in Asteroids. When Pac-Man came out, he got it a copy before the official release and mailed it to us from wherever he was at the time.

[Bunk]

My father drove me nuts in my early video game days. We had the mighty Intellevision when I was around eight or nine I guess. There were no restrictions on what I played, since "adult" games didn't exists on those consoles.

Dad drove me nuts, because he'd pick just one game, and play it endlessly. I of course had zero attention span, so I'd jump to a new game every 15 minutes. Not him though, he'd sit there and roll the score in Astrosmash, or play six hour marathons of Night Stalker.

Years later, in the Windows 95 days, I made the mistake of showing my dad the updated Leisure Suite Larry. He installed it on his work PC, since I was the only one with a PC at home, and he'd stay for hours after work playing that silly game. I think it really pissed off my mom.

So that was the lesson kids, be carefull and monitor what games your parents play.  At least that's how it used to be.

[trias_e]

I've got a similar story. 

My dad became obsessed in beating Link to the Past without dying.  And he wouldn't cheat by turning off the power either.  And he wasn't that good at that game.  He took over my SNES for a good year thanks to that stupid challenege.

After that, he played Warcraft 3, 1v7 AIs every Sunday.  He still does today.  Freaky OCD parents.

[murdoc]

My parents were mostly anti-videogame, pro-gooutside. We had an Apple ][c with 'Where in the World is Carmen Sandiago?', 'Zaxxon', a Conan platformer and two text games, 'Forbidden Castle' and 'Voodoo Island'. Strict time limits were put on just those few games. When we finally got a PC I resorted to hidden directories and rental PC games to fill up the HD with games I could play while they were at work.

My first console was a PS1. I had to go over to a friends house to play Atari or Colecovision.

[WindupAtheist]

If you had been playing Final Fantasy 6 instead of some CRPG pussy shit you'd have been able to counter with, "Kefka just poisoned a river to purposefully kill a bunch of women and children. Dad, have you ever poisoned a river? Who's the pussy now?"

Except FF2/FF3 were the games most likely to draw a "What the hell, is that for girls?" response.  Ultima was just some esoteric computer thing I did that didn't look fun to him, but Final Fantasy had squat little doe-eyed characters riding chickens while cute kiddy music played.

What?  I was an SNES kid.  Of course I played FF2/FF3 and so forth.  I told dad to go back to his mindless shooting games and not strain himself on anything more intelligent.  But then I got older, graphics became more advanced, and it became clear that the fruitiness of Final Fantasy wasn't an adaptation to the limited capabilites of the SNES, but something that was only going to increase exponentially as technology improved.  (It also became clear that watching cutscenes and grinding through shitty RPG combat was more mindless than any shooter.)  Grudgingly, I took up my dad's position.

Even if he wasn't right then, he's right now.



What the hell, is that for girls?!

[Yegolev]

Time for the song!

[schild]

He just linked a picture from the DS game.

[CmdrSlack]

He just linked a picture from the DS game.

The PS2 version looks even yet still girlier.

[shiznitz]

My kids are 5,3,1 1/2. About 3 we let them play some edu-tainment games on a PC so they can learn mouse/keyboard dyanmics. My oldest likes a Tonka Monster Truck game in which he can simplistically design a track (place obstacles) and then drive over them.

My wife does not want any of them watching my MMO sessions due to the violence but sometimes they do. I don't own a console and don't plan on getting one since I exclusively play MMOs right now and getting a console would open a can of worms with the oldest.  Like me when I was a kid, he is getting his console exposure at his friends' house. That is kind of passing the buck, but since I want him to have some exposure to it and my wife needs to do the playdate thing, I am ok with it.

The wife is very concerned I will pass on my "bad habit" of MMOs but I tell her it is inevitable that a child in this decade is going to play video games one way or another so we should be open. My parents severely limited my TV viewing and it seriously backfired once I left the cocoon. My view is that as long as they are doing more than just video games, it is fine to have them around.

[Xanthippe]

When my son was about 6 months old, I bought an N64.  He loved to watch Mario.  I mean, he was absolutely fascinated with it.

He started to play Super Mario 64 and Diddy Kong Racing at around 2 (on his own, I mean - without me helping him).  Also that Star Wars pod racing game.

When he was 4, he refused to wear underwear.  He wanted to continue wearing diapers (pullups).  I finally told him that big boys who wear underwear get to play Nintendo almost as much as they want, but little boys in diapers don't get to play much at all.  He decided to forego the diapers as a result. 

He's now 11.  Restrictions:  No M games.  He can play T games that I've previewed.  No FPS.  I don't know when I'll allow him to play M games - 13? 15? I don't know yet.

As long as he is responsible, considerate, studious and cooperative, he can play videoo games whenever he wants.  If he cops an attitude or slacks off on his responsibilities, then the games go away for a bit.  I've always had that rule about it - it works better than an arbitrary time limit.

My daughter is 8.  She likes video games too, but she's more into the Club Penguin social web 2.0 crap stuff.  She was uninterested completely in video games when she was little - it's just been the past 3 years or so that she likes them.  She likes the Sims type stuff, Zoo Tycoon and so on.

[Morat20]

My kid started playing a Gameboy (mostly Pokemon) as soon as he was old enough to read it. He struggled with "Hey, You, Pikachu" for N64 (the concept of "holding down the button WHILE you talk" was tricky) at 4. Mostly we steered him to games that didn't require reading until he was 6 or so, then started letting him play kid-friendly games.

All the Pokemons in the world, for instance. He got a GBA when he was 6 or 7.

He has a Gamecube (his own), a DS, and owns both Guitar Hero 1 and 2 for our PS2. He's found of Tony Hawk games, SSX games, and virtually any Spongebob or Pokemon game ever made.

About all we don't allow is realistically violent games like Resident Evil, GTA, etc. We're fine with cartoony fighting games, but not particularly gory ones. We don't allow thrillers, because he's still (at 10) a bit easy to trigger the occasional nightmare with.

He's just now started to get to watch R-rated movies regularly, and mostly because he and I "hide" it from his Mom. (She knows the score, and I choose the movies carefully.). I'm trying to get him into RPGs like KOTOR or Baldur's Gate, but they're still a bit boring for him in terms of actual game play. He needs a shorter risk-reward cycle.

When we go to D&B's, I'll let him play any of the shooter games except the really realistic or scary ones (for kids, that is). No House of the Dead, for instance. But that's relatively new, and he'll turn 11 this year.

Frankly, games were really good for his hand-eye coordination and motor skills development, but it's really just a matter of watching the content and knowing what's appropriate for him.

[Calantus]

My brother is 7 years younger than me so he basically got right into gaming as it was what big brother was doing. He was ~6 when I bought Diablo. My mum told me he couldn't play it, and to my juvanile mind this meant he couldn't play it so I let him watch me instead. When mum figured out he had been watching for a while she said he might as well be able to play. Since then he's played whatever I played from Diablo to Soldier of Fortune and the GTAs. We're both non-violent people because we were taught all our lives basic morals and empathy. I think as long as you instill those you should be fine showing them whatever as soon as they're old enough to actually have absorbed the lessons.

Also I think if anything games made me less likely to be a criminal or thug. Before CS online I used to think I could do anything I wanted because I was awesome (I was young teens ya know) but CS taught me that nomatter how good you are some random scrub can kill you with a stray bullet and I get annoyed enough when the penalty is waiting up to 5 minutes to respawn. Perma-death in a "game" where you'll be outnumbered, outgeared, and the opponents have more experience? Fuck that.

[MrHat]

Also I think if anything games made me less likely to be a criminal or thug. Before CS online I used to think I could do anything I wanted because I was awesome (I was young teens ya know) but CS taught me that nomatter how good you are some random scrub can kill you with a stray bullet and I get annoyed enough when the penalty is waiting up to 5 minutes to respawn. Perma-death in a "game" where you'll be outnumbered, outgeared, and the opponents have more experience? Fuck that.

Heh.