All of this is wrong. The rating panel is not directly connected to the studios, it is run by the ESA, an industry group. Also, Lego games are popular with everybody. They are some of the best-selling titles on the market. Finally, Mature-rated games have never dominated the market and pretending otherwise is proof that you’re misinformed.
All that said, PlanetSide 2 is rated for 13 and up (PlanetSide 2 - ESRB). If your kid is as mature as he sounds, you should let him play.
I don’t know any gamer who looks at the ratings (except in Australia, where they’re legally enforceable). Until very, very recently we didn’t have an R18 rating for computer games, which meant games had to be suitable for a 15 year old or no-one got to play them.
The practical effect was that a lot of stuff got released with an MA15+ rating on it when it may not, strictly speaking, have been entirely appropriate.
The other side of this was stupid stuff like Fallout 3 being refused classification (ie banned) because one of the drugs you cold use to heal yourself was morphine. They changed it to “Med-X” and suddenly everything was cool and the game got an MA15+ rating and release.
“… and remember, kid, always obey authority without question.”
What kind of bullshit is that? Don’t explain your reasoning to a child, just hand down inscrutable commands from on high?
Even leaving aside how terrible this would be for society, it seems like more work for the parent, not giving the kid the tools to make a reasonable guess at what the rules are for novel stuations
I have to agree with this, wholeheartedly.
I will admit that once or twice, I’ve resorted to, “because I’m the mom, and there’s more going on here than you understand right now. You’re going to have to trust me, and we’ll talk about it again when you’re older. I know you hate to hear that. I hated to hear it from my mom, too. But this is a mom’s decision to make.” Because I use it so rarely, it is met with wide eyes and compliance, rather than further argument. I also reserve those times for safety, not video games.
One time in particular I can recall using it was when my kid wanted to spend the night at a friend’s, and I knew the parents were going through an ugly time in their marriage and alcohol was involved, and I knew there was a gun in the house. Another time, my kids wanted to go swimming with an uncle who was a known child molester. I wasn’t about to explain such adult matters to a 5 year old, and I didn’t have another child friendly reason to give, but neither was I going to give those adults supervision over my kids.
But yeah, as a general parenting strategy, it sucks.
OP, whether I agree with your decision about Planetside or not (and having never played the game, I can’t really say) - I love the way you talk about it with your son. You sound like a great parent who is establishing boundaries for their kid in a constructive and positive way.
My son is 9 and I know it breaks my heart when we won’t let him do or see the things his friends are allowed to. You are doing a great job.
Ok, I understand that your not letting your son play a 16+ FPS, that’s perfectly normal for a father to do. Yet, you should let him play it because it seems as if everyone at school is talking about it, When I was a kid my two bestfriends were always playing dungeon Keeper except me because I didn’t have a PC, but it was either 2 things, I felt they didn’t know me because I didn’t play the game OR there was nothing enjoyable to talk about with them.
My second point is, this is just the dawn of computers. Our children are at the start of the thousands if not tens of thousands of years to come of the digital age. The generation that we are in is the launch pad for the young computer scientists and the next generation game developers. We should infact not be restricting of having time-limits and particular things they are aloud to do on the computer but letting them find there own way of what to become when they grow up from the events that they have now…
Heres an example, (hypothetically) say if your son is playing Planetside 2 he sees a car in the game, and he thinks “oh that looks really cool! what if I draw a better version then that?” and on the other side of town, his friend is playing it and thinks “This game is wicked! I want to make something like it…But only planes…and its set in space…near the moon!”. In 10 years time his friend becomes a game developer and hires YOUR Son to be the project Digital Artist and he gets paid $30 an hour just for drawing pieces of concept art inspired by games he played as a child. Im not trying to be offensive here but, what if you stopped letting him play games, what would he work as when hes older? What I’m trying to say here, is give hints on working in the Game industry, rather then just playing them non-scencicly. A really easy way to get into the game industry is to make youtube videos. The most famous person on Youtube is someone called “Pewdiepie”(your son may of heard of him) he makes roughly $130k A MONTH just by doing youtube videos on games and commentating over them and that’s completely free to do. Also The Gaming Industry makes almost double the film industry does. Your son could start making his own game due the HUGE amount of resources out there. Do this right now: Search up on Google “IndieDB” and click on the first result. All of these people are young Game developers creating there own game, All because they received inspiration from the games they had as kids. Remember, It all starts with a spark, then comes the explosion…Dont put out the spark…
Last thing I’m not sure if you have ever heard of the game Destiny? its a game coming out soon, I’m one of the Digital Artists there, and I got alot of my inspiration and support from my mum, because she wanted me to be some sort of artist, but I liked computers and video games, I wanted be involved something in that. And there I go. I merged my mothers desire with mine and I’m making $27 an hour just by playing video games, picking out objects, landscapes, vehicles, weapons, and characters and trying to make them better by drawing them with my style and I get paid for drawing doodles 
Since the thread has been bumped, the OP might like to consider a more child-friendly MMO. I saw an advert recently for Disney Infinity.
Not an MMO.
If your concern is that it will encourage violence, be honest and tell him that, it’s a fair concern. Whenever you decide he can play just be sure to point out that should you hear tell of him being involved, even peripherally, in any kind of violence, with his siblings, friends or schoolmates, all video game play will instantly come to an end. And stand by that.