A poll for parents: video games

The Game Room
1

A norwegian newspaper (a fluffy discussion piece on their internett publication) recently claimed that a poll on this website revealed that american parents find sex more offensive than violence in video games for their children.

No, whether or not this is a true poll result (I was unable to find the poll on the actual website), this is an often repeated factoid. So, I decided to recreate the poll here.

As a parent, what would you find most inapropriate in a video game for your child?

  1. A graphic depiction of a severed head?
  2. Repeated use of “the F-word”?
  3. A man and a woman having consensual sex?
  4. Two men kissing?

Please include the reason for your choice, and what age your child would have to reach for such content to no longer be inapropriate.

2

Probably all of the above. I’m no shrinking violet, but I don’t want my eventual kids exposed to gratuitous sex or vaiolence. I don’t particularly mind either some violence or hints of sex (it’s life), but I’m not real comfortable with games which are gruesome for the sake of gruesome. I played Manhunt for a game review and it positively made me sick.

I think the key here is that people may not want porn around. In most games, the violence is pretty sedate in a way. The emphasis is on strategy and figuring out tactics and using the right tools. In other words, actually killing the [Nazis, Commies, Guerrillas, Demons, Aliens, Cyborgs, Mutants] is almost secondary. Thats not true for all games, though. Some ratchet the violence up until it’s virtually a fetish, sort of like some of the “torture-porn” flicks that were going around. The violence is sadistic and intended as the main entree’, not as a ganish.

While a mature, honest look at a developing relationship might be an interesting game or part of one, I doubt most game developers can get beyond teh b00b13z! That is, they are likely to toss in random sex in a grotesque and sickening fashion.

Edited to add - I don’t think there’s a specific formal age. When they pay for their own games and don’t live in ym house it’s no longer my problem, although I would look oddly if even my grown child (hypothetically) were looking at some of this creepiness.

3

Echoing Smiling Bandit, my gut answer is “all of 'em”. My kid is nine and if the game isn’t labeled some version of “E”, he doesn’t play it. He does have one “T” game which is some automotive demolition derby type and the “violence” is auto on auto so I’m not too worried. But I made that choice.

If you demand an answer, I guess I’d have the most issue with the “consentual sex”, assuming it’s at least fairly explicit. Minimum age? 14? 15?

I think part of it is just that we’ve been raised where video games have always used violence in some ways or means. Donkey Kong throwing barrels, ghosts chasing Pac-Man, space ships blowing up aliens and getting fired upon by robots, stick-man adventurers getting nibbled at by giant rats or stabbed by goblins or incinerated by dragons, side-scrollers of street toughs fighting through swarms of ninjas and hoodlems, etc etc. Games where you don’t have that sort of conflict definately exist but they’re in the minority. The only difference is the quality of the graphics these days and therefore how explicit the violence is.

4

When you say “a man and a woman having consensual sex” what do you mean? As far as I’m aware NO mainstream videogame has ever shown the actual sex act, although God of War and Grand Theft Auto have implied it with sound effects while the action occurs offscreen.

As for me I absolutely would let my ten-year-old son play a game with a severed head before I would let him play a game with explicit language and sex. However, this is not because I think violence is okay and sex is teh evil. It’s because I know what IS an imitatable act and what ISN’T. My son could chop the heads off videogame characters for 8 hours a day, but he’s never going to chop anybody’s head off in real life – he’s a peaceful, sensitive kid with a good conscience.

On the other hand, I can easily see my son getting the idea that because a game character says “fuck” all the time that it’s cool to say “fuck”. Or that casual sex is cool and if you get the opportunity you should go for it. The violence is so over the top that he knows its pretend. But the sex and language are close enough to real life to actually have some influence.

Right now he knows that all “M”-rated games are off limits. We’ll reassess when he’s older. We’ll probably allow some when he’s 13, and most of them when he’s 15.

5

In the original poll (posted on a site where informed parents review games for less-informed parents), it turns out that more people are offended by two men kissing than by a severed head.

Here’s an article showing the poll results. Also, the site’s founder’s blog reaction (short vers.: WTF?)

The article’s making the rounds in progressive gamer communities as a disgusting depiction of where one American generation’s priorities lie: hatred before peace.

6

All of the above. None of them are acceptable for young children, period. I don’t find any of them particulatrly offensive, just inappropriate. My kids are 9, 6 and 3. I think that maybe 12, depending on the child, could possibly be a time when those sorts of things are [del]introduced in an appropriate context[/del] are bombarding them constantly.

7

When my son was a wee lad the TV constantly pushed for parents to talk to their kids about violent video games. So after my wife bitched enough ,i brought the subject up to my son. He looked disgusted and said" dad. they are just pixels on a tv screen. They are not real" . I should have known better.

8

I am sorry that was my son. I can not assume that your children have been brought up so badly that they are one video game away from rape and mass murder. I assumed too much.

9

I’m neither a kid nor a parent but I am totally amazed that parents would rather have their kid be exposed to “the f word” 17% more than they’d want them exposed to 2 guys kissing.

I realize that you can’t shield your kids from foul language in the real world but that’s no excuse to pay for it to be brought in your home. Do a lot of homophobic parents swear in front of their kids or something?

Does this mean parents would rather let their kids watch The Wire or The Sopranos instead of Will & Grace? Wow.

10

I’m not a parent, but I wouldn’t let my kids play a game w/ repeated usage of the F word, or the act of two people (of any gender) have consensual sex. More so if it was shown, if the sex was implied, I wouldn’t be as put off (ie: they go behind a door or something and music is played), or if its subtle thats fine. But if its graphic I wouldn’t let them play that game.

The Kissing thing doesn’t bother me, and violence isn’t that bad either, because both of those are easily explainable in my head and I can just sit down and talk to them about the violence.
The sex thing and the F-word thing… I believe I’d have a more difficult time with.

Then again, my Parents never regulated my videogames but they never knew about anything bad in them. But most of my games were only violent. And i never played GTA (grand theft auto- w/ the F-bombs) around them. So they never heard it. Sex- well i’ve yet to play a game with graphic sex in it. If its implied, once again, i didn’t play it around them. So they never knew. Closest I think was the Nude patch for “The Sims”, and that I played again when they weren’t there.
Two dudes kissing? Not even on my radar, but I don’t recall seeing that in a game. But I doubt they’d make a fuss on that.

11

Mass Effect does, to an extent (carefulyl concealed nudity, but it’s clear what they’re doing).

12

This reminds me of a discussion I had on gamefaqs one time, where a kid was talking about the show he was watching on television. His mom came in exactly as the man and woman on screen started making out and looking like they were about to seal the deal. His mom shouted “what are you watching?!” at him, and he said “it’s okay. I’ve seen this one before. He’s about to kill her.”

She said “oh, alright then” and walked away. I’m positive my own mother would have responded the same way, ten years ago. I’m positive my wife would respond the same way in 10 years with our own son. What the fuck is going on here?

13

My son’s not even 2 yet, so video games aren’t yet in the picture, but he’s already figured out many of the buttons on the TV remote and that the mouse will make the monitor image move around. In a few years I may get a Wii (or whatever the equivalent is then) so we can play it together.

Anyway, from least to most acceptable, I’d say 2, 1, 3, 4.
While swearing isn’t a gateway to meth and terrorism, it is the most easily copied. As for the severed head, how graphic is it? While I’d rather hold off on gratuitous violence and gore, a severed head in and of itself doesn’t seem that problematic: I knew what a guillotine was for from a very young age, and the neighborhood street we shop on takes its name from the severed heads that were put on display there.

Consensual sex? Again, it depends how graphic it is: Lancaster and Kerr on the beach in From Here to Eternity? No problem, though my son would probably want to fast forward it to get back to the game. Ron Jeremy and Jenna Jameson on the kitchen counter in Give a Dog a Bone? Definitely not.

A kiss between two men wouldn’t even ping my parenting radar.

14

No children, so can’t speak as a parent. As a gamer, I’m having a hard time making anything out of this at all.

Decapitation is one of the more grisly things that can happen in a video game, but as gore goes, it’s not especially extreme. Standard horror movie fare. Can your kid handle standard horror movie fare? Many can, just as many can’t. A blanket thumbs up/thumbs down isn’t at all called for here.

Obscenities? This depends purely on what kind of game it is. If it’s illegal underground high-stakes brawling, fine. If it’s an organized crime tale, fine, just make it sound natural and don’t go overboard. If it’s a puzzle or party game…eh, no thanks. I’ve only ever encountered one game where it seemed uncalled for, though, and it was only one word (and rated M, so that’s hardly the worst of it). I don’t go for that at all. Otherwise, if you don’t like hearing inner-city gangsters or hardened Marines cussing, don’t buy games about inner-city gangsters or hardened Marines. Sheesh, it’s not like they’re that many.

Sex, consensual or otherwise? Listen, when there’s nudity in a video game (and that means full body and complete visibility from multiple angles; I really don’t give a crap about barely visible breasts), maybe I’ll start worrying. As it is, this is pretty much the very definition of a nothing issue. Hey, guess what, I don’t want kids getting their hands on a game that teaches them how to manufacture high explosives, defraud insurance companies of millions of dollars, or dump tons of pollutants into our oceans, either! :rolleyes:

Two men kissing? Two men kissing?? What the hell is this? Look…if some amazingly fly-by-night video game company somehow got the deranged idea to incorporate this in a game (assuming that it’s possible to even conceptualize a game where such an event would occur at all), rest assured that the overwhelming majority of kids who actually have an interest in video games would shun it on general principle. I don’t mean to burst anyone’s brain cells, but homosexual references are very few younguns’ idea of a good time. No, really. Yes, even now. Ask them sometime.

Sigh…I really don’t see why this poll had to be so danged specific. Whatever happened to “gratuitious violence”, “suggestiveness”, “alcohol abuse”, “bullying”, those sort of things? Seemed to work just fine when I was a kid.