I was talking with a coworker about what games my parents allow me to play, and what they let their kids play. My parents were fine with most things bloody things, like Resident Evil 4, Left 4 Dead and Gears of War, mostly because you were fighting like aliens or zombies. They were fine with military shooters too, and got really interested in the Modern Warfare storylines. The game that they really had a problem with was GTA, of course, but later, when my little sister started playing it, they got invested in GTA 5’s story, so eventually we could just play whatever we really wanted. How bout you all? Did your parents have any weird or strict rules in games or movies?
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.
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.
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.
Nothing over PG (and sometimes it even that) and only allowed to play 1 hour a day at most.
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.)
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…
Hip Hip! Zoombinis!
Man, I wish GOG would bring it back. Original was on quicktime, I’ve tried a couple of times throughout the years to get it working on a modern OS, no dice :(
Shameless gog dreamlist plug if you loved this game too (not mine)
https://www.gog.com/dreamlist/game/zoombinis-logical-journey-2001
Oh man, I remember doing that for NSFW games on newgrounds as a young boi.
I made a PowerPoint presentation to convince them to let me play monster hunter when I was 13.
They let me.
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
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.
RELATABLE, I destroyed my study habits for the same reason, though, I’m much better at studying now.
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.
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 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.
100% agree, my dad watched GoldenEye with me like 15 times as a kid.
We don’t buy games in this house, we pirate them.
One day they will figure out why they can’t connect the Nintendo Switch to the internet and why they have so many game options.
I respect that
Any chance you’d know how to get fitgirl repacks to run on linux?
We did too, but it was because my parents refused to pay full price for a game, so they bought pirate physical copies for dirt cheap and they worked great. Then of course I learned to torrent. Nowadays I only buy games when they’re from indie devs or from small companies.
