Ask Lemmy

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.

None

I must say, great thread for a gamer that is now a parent.

In my childhood I could play anything, but graphics were not good enough to leave much marks.

Now my 11 year old worked his way up from GTA San Andreas to playing GTA5 and RDR2. He was watching the cut scenes anyway on YouTube (crappy moderation for violence there). Trying to avoid sex as much as possible, worried about GTA6 (we'll probably play it together). Anyway, the greatest shock for him was the choice in GTA4 (kill your friend or the rich guy).

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.

I grew up with gaming on a DOS PC, Atari, and original NES. My parents didn't regulate my use, but refused to spend money on consoles or the games themselves. I supported my gaming interests with summer jobs, skipping lunch and saving the lunch money instead. Both of my parents were also addicts, so I could usually steal 5-10$ once in a while when they were high without being noticed. Not sure when the ESRB rating system rolled out, but it's something I paid attention to when buying games for myself, and eventually my kids.

When I had my own stepchildren, they were free to game as much as they wanted when chores and homework were done, and adhered to a 10 pm lights out to get 8 hrs of sleep. As my stepson grew more interested in mature titles, I often played those titles to see what the content was like before deciding if I would allow him to play it. His bio mom was clueless about games, and tended to be more restrictive than me. I played OG halo before deciding it was a game he could play as a 14 year old. I played some of the GTA games before deciding he had to be 16 before we would let him play those. (My issue was picking up a prostitute and then being able to beat her after to get the $ back.) I started playing WOW because my stepson wanted to play. After some exploring I thought it was a safe title for him. Gaming was something that brought us closer together, and I spent so much time gaming with him. If I had the chance to give birth to my own kids, I would wish for a biological son like my stepson.

<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

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.

My mom was really against cursing and of course anything sexual, but the rest was pretty much fair game.

An exception would be Manhunt, but I even got to play MGS3 as a kid (which ended up being my favorite game of all time.)

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.

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...

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.

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

They let me.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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?"

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.

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

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)

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 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.

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.

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.

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”

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.

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

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.

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.