Ask Lemmy

Computer games and handheld games were allowed, but no video game consoles ever until we were adults.

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.

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.

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...

Nothing over PG (and sometimes it even that) and only allowed to play 1 hour a day at most.

I made a PowerPoint presentation to convince them to let me play monster hunter when I was 13.

They let me.

They tried, but I don't think they did a great job.

I was limited by time and duration. I wasn't allowed to start playing games until like 3pm, and wasn't allowed to play after dinner. (If I went to someone else's house, the rule didn't apply. If someone came to my place, video games were also allowed, but my parents didn't like people coming over). I also had to finish all my homework first. I remember just watching the clock on the weekends waiting for it to tick over to 3pm, then dashing up the stairs to the games.

For some reason, I was allowed to watch as my TV as I wanted. I'm old and tv was limited, and we didn't have all the channels.

What ended up happening is I would lie. I would say I had finished my homework when I hadn't to get that sweet, limited video game time. I would say I was watching TV in the basement but I was playing games with the sound down.

This trashed my school habits. I was doing all my homework the morning it was due. I was a smart kid so everything was still getting done well enough for me to get B's, but this wasn't great. When I got to college I had no study habits or learning stamina.

To this day I kind of find tv and other passive watching unsatisfying. I never watch anything on my own. Only with someone else.

I don't know what would have worked better. The clock based limit felt terrible though. Really hated that. Maybe if they had explained "if you put all your stat points in video games now, when skill ups are cheap, you're going to be underpowered later" it would have landed.

My parents let me play whatever I wanted, even Mortal Kombat and Resident Evil, but first they taught me the difference between fiction and reality and said I could play for a limited amount of hours per day, and only after doing my homework or after studying. Except on weekends, on weekends they let me play for longer, but also made sure I was playing offline too and going outside. It was pretty good.

The funny thing to me is that my dad would sometimes say it frustrated him that I liked video games because he thought they were "for boys" and yet he was the one who bought my (jailbroken) console and (pirated physical copies of) games until I turned 18 lol

No rules, except that they weren't paying for anything, so I play a bunch of free-to-play games and (maybe) learned the ways of Captain Jack Sparrow 🏴‍☠️ 😉

I mean, my parents didn't even care if I shoplifted as long as I don't get caught. (I don't shoplift, but if I did, my parent would be more worried like "did they see you take it" more than the morality/legality implications.)

We don't buy games in this house, we pirate them.

I remember my mother briefly being resistant to getting me a violent game at some point. She was not that motivated to moderate what games I bought though. And eventually she didn't seem to mind anything I was playing.

In my opinon; if you let your kids watch rambo, you better allow them to play rambo.

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.

I grew up with a gameboy advance sp that was a gift from my grandmother and we got a family Wii when I was about 12. I don’t think my mom knew much about the ratings but we weren’t allowed to play much besides mario kart and Wii sports. I started playing more when I moved out at 18.

I am the parent, I make the rules.

Play good stuff. Mostly not simple addiction trigger games.

Growing up I had no limit since my parents although caring didn't follow the game development as I did.

When I was maybe 10, I wanted Mortal Kombat on the Sega Genesis more than anything. My mother, who is an attorney, said it was too violent. So in order to convince her, I built a strong argument and plied her with it non-stop. I would argue that I was a smart kid and all that crap about video games making you violent was garbage. The argument that finally won me my beloved MK was that she had let me watch RoboCop the year before, and I hadn't gotten messed up by that. After that I was pretty much allowed to play or watch whatever.

It's the earliest I can remember really forming a coherent argument with supporting facts and whatnot, and advocating for what I want. It's a skill that would serve me quite well going forward. Well played, Mom.

Only one hour a day initially. And my mom hated any games with guns, so no games with guns. Creating an absolute bloodbath in Age of Empires was completely okidoki tho. At some point I wanted to buy GTA 3. My mom obviously said no (and fairly so, I was like 12 or something). But my dad, in an absolute chad move, said "oh I know that game, it's fine". I tended to play at the houses of friends who had less strict rules. I remember playing GTA Vice City on the original Xbox some time before I was allowed to buy GTA myself.

I didn't really have a whole lot of restrictions. My first home console was the Wii, and ofc there weren't a lot of mature titles to worry about there. When I got a little older I got an Xbox 360 and really wanted to get Call of Duty, which my mother was a little hesitant about but eventually relented.

The real thing my mother cared about was online interactions. I was not allowed to be friends with people or talk to people I didn't know. (Eventually I started doing it anyway, and she didn't appreciate it when she found out)

None. My folks didn’t have any rules about games. Then again my parents really didn’t do rules.

My parents simply didn't buy any games beyond roller coaster tycoon 2, myst 3 exile, and MS combat flight sim WW2. So it didn't really matter what the content was in any other games because that was it.

I ended up pirating whatever I wanted and my parents didn't seem to care, I think it was more about being opposed to spending money on games. We didn't have any consoles whatsoever.

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.

I don't remember my parents having many, if any, rules for games, probably because I was the final child by that point. They didn't really have to worry too much about me getting into games too mature for me ( probably the worst I could remember when I was still little would have been Turok on n64 ), so I was fine either way.

I do remember on weekends, though, my dad specifically trying to get me, someone who doesn't like to eat breakfast in general, to eat before I'd play games. That was around middle school when that would happen.

My parents said NO GAMES WITH BLOOD IN THEM!

But when it comes to anime, it’s cartoons, so anything goes. My first anime movie was Ninja Scroll. I was like “Ooo ninjas!” And my dad said “just a cartoon? Okay”

My parents weren't very restrictive. But one time, to get me to stop asking for a new game, my Dad said I couldn't get any new ones until I beat the last game I got.

I think about that a lot still. I think it would have been a good rule, outside of some edge cases like games that were endless or too easy.

But it was off the cuff, he didn't remember saying it. By the time I finished some game and brought it up, I think he said something like "well don't you have other games you never finished?"

The only rule was I had to get them myself (unless it was a special occasion) and not to disturb the house while gaming.

Most of my PC games were from the win95 and MS-DOS era. But I do remember getting half-life 1 and eventually 2, and all the crazy mods that came out for those.

I remember playing the leisure suit larry games and not understanding any of the jokes haha.

As long as I was above the age limit on the box, I was fine. Some games rated 12 got an exemption if my older sibling was consulted.

My parents were pretty opposed to violent media. As a younger child, I wasn't really allowed to play anything that had explicit violence. Once instance I remember is when I was about 8 and we got a new PC that came bundled with Age of Empires 2. I was initially allowed to play it, but my dad took the CD away when he saw how much warfare it involved. Generally, they usually kept to the official age recommendations on the boxes. They relaxed their rules significantly from when I was around 12 though. That was also when I got my own PC and a Steam Account and they didn't really check what I bought on there. Even got my mom to buy me GTA San Andreas (which has a 16+ recommendation here) when I was around 14. They never really approved necessarily, especially my dad, but they let me make my own decisions when they felt I was old enough.

One hour of Gameboy every other day. We had Tetris (of course), Super Mario Land 1 (the Egypt themed one) and 2 (the one with the big coins), Star Trek TNG, and Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle. Maybe one or two others that I don't recall. No other video game systems.

Movies, we weren't allowed anything past PG until our late teens, and my mom was constantly trying to shove G-rated stuff down our necks. We saw Babe, Toy Story, and It Takes Two in the theater; I was 14 and way too old for that shit. We got Shirley Temple videos in our Easter baskets every year (we did not like Shirley Temple).

Basically we were way too sheltered. It was awful for my social life!

I remember when Super Smash Bros. Melee came out, I had to convince my parents to let me get it on the basis that the first game was rated E, so this sequel clearly should've also been E instead of T. Didn't actually take much convincing, they were fine with it.

I never asked to play any M rated games, because there were never any that interested me to begin with. I think they definitely would've said no.

None, really. I'd play Mortal Kombat with my much older sibling as a child and also grew up playing games like Diablo and GTA (the old ones). I really liked Carmageddon and Postal, too. TBH what I enjoyed the most about GTA was stealing cars and driving around in them. XD Or blocking traffic with a bunch of cars.

i don't recall ever having any.

I loved video games as a kid. They didn't limit the content. I just wasn't able to play video games during the week and I could only play an hour each day. I think that mindset backfired. Also, it didn't stop me from going over to my friends house to play video games. By the time I could afford my own, they gave up.

"Use your common sense. You know what's appropriate and what's not."

No specific rules on content, although I'm sure a game would have been retroactively banned if our mom saw something gory. The rules were on time spent playing. 30 min per kid per school day, only after schoolwork and chores were done. 60 min per kid on weekend days, again after chores were done.

Minesweeper was not considered a game, for some reason. So we were all hella fast at minesweeper on the highest difficulty.

The living room TV was for the Atari, the bedroom TV was for the Sega

Living room hours were from homework done till dinner

Bedroom hours were from after dinner cleanup till 9pm

Swapping the systems, or playing them outside of hours without permission was 1 week no games.

Weekends were negotiable, with bonus for sleepovers

Born in the 80s, when I started playing video games around 6 they kept me on games adequate to my age until I reached high school.

After that they mostly let me play whichever game I wanted, the only conditions were that I had to get enough sleep (and if I didn't, not to complain that I was tired in the morning) and have good grades.

For the most part they trusted me. It helped that my step-dad played videogames before he met my mom. It probably also helped that I never gave them any concerns. I was a fat nerd who never got into fights or showed any signs of violence. My parents were concerned about me spending too much time indoors and not getting enough physical and social activity, but never concerned with the content.

I also was a smart enough kid that I knew the limits of what I could ask for. I wasn't going to ask them for Leisure Suit Larry or BMX XXX, for example.

There were a couple of exceptions where my mom heard things about specific games through the media. I remember the marketing campaigns for God of War and GTA3 really leaned into the controversy. Although I did end up getting GTA3 eventually.

Ironically, there was only one case where I felt like I was allowed to play a game before I was ready, but it wasn't one I asked for. My step-dad bought Twisted Metal Black. I had played a bit of the Twisted Metal series earlier, but preferred the much more whimsical Vigilante 8. I still remember getting nightmares about getting my head locked into a mask like the one character (I think her name may have been Dollface?). As I am remembering it now I realize it was probably a metaphor about identity, but as a middle schooler I was just freaked out about it.