You Played Violent Games - Why Can't Your Kids? 501
An anonymous reader writes: "On the Wired site, Clive Thompson has up an article that points out a sobering truth: gamers are getting older. Folks who grew up playing videogames like Doom and Quake are now facing parental decisions with their own kids regarding appropriate content. Thompson cites well known gamer dads like Kotaku's Brian Crecente, discussing some of the approaches folks educated in gaming take with their own offspring: '"Everybody knows, as an adult, that the world is not always a nice place," Crecente told me. "But I don't want him to know that yet. I want him to have a childhood." So he disallows games with "realistic" combat, like World War II titles, or Resistance: Fall of Man, but permits highly cartoony shooting, like Starfox on the Nintendo DS -- since he regards it as essentially as abstract as playing cops and robbers with your fingers as guns.' Where do you think gamer parents should draw the line? If you have kids, what approach are you taking to introducing them to gaming? How old is 'old enough' to start fragging?"
Re:There is no right age (Score:2, Informative)
Exactly. I've got a 7-year-old, a 4-year-old, and a 2-year-old. (And one due in June). They have plenty of fun with the Humongous games (hint: they run really well, and without the CD, under SCUMMVM), but the oldest sometimes likes to run the mouse when we play Descent3 or the older Half-Life games or a couple of other first-person shooters. Heck, I've even let him help me play Aliens vs. Predator, and that's a creepy game.
They don't get nightmares from that stuff. They even pretend to have pet headcrabs. (Go ahead, trolls, do your worst with that straight line.) What's funny is that the AvP game didn't scare the four-year-old, but he got scared by a cartoon of "Peter and the Wolf" that he saw in his music class.
It hasn't instilled a bloodthirsty lust for violence in them, either. They don't get into fights with other kids, and right now the 7-year-old loves Lego Star Wars. If you want a game with cartoon violence, as opposed to the realistic kind, check that one out.
Now, the 2 year old, and the new one coming? They might be different. I'll have to see what works for them and what doesn't. But games themselves are not inherently damaging or anything like that.