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…
None. My folks didn’t have any rules about games. Then again my parents really didn’t do rules.
<13 it was pg 13 or less, not that I really cared about anything else tbh.
By about 13-15 it was anything except porn (ex. doom eternal was allowed) this is also when I was allowed unrestricted Internet, so I was being sent photos of decapitated heads on discord anyways lol
at 16 I got a debit card and no rules
1H a day. After homework
None
I generally wasn’t allowed to play video games because they were a waste of time. Eventually I was allowed to play dexterity-based games like DDR and Guitar Hero, but not often.
Most of the games I’ve played were after I moved out, and I never really got into them.
I was playing mortal Kombat when I was 9-10. They didn’t do due diligence, and if I thought they’d have a problem with it, I would just lie about it. I’m still playing mortal Kombat but compared to everyone else in the world, I suck ass now. Same with call of duty. From 19- 28 or so, I was awesome. Quit playing when they announced advanced warfare because it was getting too corny and the maps kept getting worse and worse for making plans, and all about chaos and random encounters. Got MW2 with my PS5 for nostalgia, and I again found that I wasn’t as good as I used to be. Oh and all the stupid skins like santa running around in a warzone was fucking stupid. They should’ve left that to fortnight. These days I mostly play racing sims (thankfully I’m still really good at GT7) and RPGs which is funny that as I got older I wound up playing more family friendly stuff.
I had rules until I started getting an allowance and could guy my own games. That was around the time of GameCast.
Rules
- Nothing M rated
- Only 1 new game per year, so choose wisely
- We could rent from blockbuster, but I couldn’t rent the same game more than once, so I better finish that game in 3days, 5 days if they were feeling generous that week.
- I was allowed to borrow games between friends, but since I had like 4 games to trade, they never wanted to let me borrow their games.
My parents were reasonable. They were a bit wary of me wanting M-rated games as a kid, although they’d at least take the content warnings into account. The only game I remember them having a problem with was a Mortal Kombat game, though that was more from my 4-year-old brother wanting them to buy it for him. They were perfectly fine with buying me Halo CE when I was 7. Oh, also, my grandmother bought me Conker’s Bad Fur Day because she thought the squirrel on the cover was cute.
It was my sister who was strict about whatever media I’d consume. When we got an Xbox for Christmas, she turned on all the parental controls in the name of “protecting” her little brothers. She thought I was “too young” to play GTA when I was 10, even though she’s barely a year older than me. This domineering of hers extended to the TV as well, at least for a day, until my dad wanted to watch King of the Hill and the screen blacked out.
Surprisingly there weren’t any rules around video games, it was everything else they had a problem with. TV shows, music, movies, Pokemon cards, too much time on the internet… Everything was “satanic”, and yet I could game all day and no problems there. Maybe my taste in games was just never seen as an issue to them, or it was too much work to audit the content of them.
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.
Nothing over PG (and sometimes it even that) and only allowed to play 1 hour a day at most.
Not exactly rules on content (though they were in charge of buying me games until I was old enough that it no longer mattered, so they stuck to family friendly games for the most part.)
However they initially refused to buy me another console other than the NES that I was gifted when I was very little. Some years later, my older brother took pity on me and got me a Genesis (they did not appreciate it.) The only other time I was bought a console was my mom got me a Nintendo 64 as a pity gift for a lot of terrible things that happened to me that year.
I remember them saying they didn’t want to have to buy another console every year, with new games, etc. In hindsight, they were definitely predicting the future market haha.
We had no consoles, I saved all my money to buy a Gameboy color and Pokémon crystal.
Which mother then said I had to key my twin use as well
Annoyed as fuck over that. They could have bought their own damnit
Mother looked at the games I bought for the color but I only really played crystal, donkey kong, that sort of thing.
The computer was edutainment games only, but me and twin liked Oregon trail 2 and Amazon trail and the like.
Once the internet arrived they didn’t realize I found a place to download like rpg maker games.
As kids we had a dos 286 pc with some basic vga games. Nearly all of them were educational so my parents let us play those whenever. We got a used SNES for xmas the year the n64 came out, and we played that as much as we could. My parents didn’t know then and still struggle now with computers, so they let me do as I pleased with the PC, within reason.
As a teen I bought my own computer and my own PC games. My parents probably would not have approved of me playing half life, doom, quake, UT, and other graphic games, but I played the hell out of those. I also had stuff like myst that were pretty low key but fun. My PC was my own personal machine, so I did with it what I wanted, when I wanted.
The usual concern with most older gen gamers was having parents telling us video games would rot our brains. As they stared at the TV for hours most nights… Video games sharpen your motor skills, reflex times, logic and reasoning skills, among other things. I find quite the opposite to be true and would advocate that video games are actually very, very good for you in many ways, unlike most television shows. I highly encourage gaming over watching. Our family game night is usually played on a console rather than a table.
