People not taking ratings seriously

Yeah. We should ban kids from video games. They can be annoying as hell. And they have way better reflexes than I do, so they kick my ass way too often.

In my honest opinion I don't think its the media's fault for what teens do with the information they get from games and television.
It should be the parents' job to teach them what to do with it, they should be creating the teens state of mind and teach him what is good and what is wrong.

As a 30 year old and parent, I disagree

Bad troll is bad

yes and no... violent media on its own is neither good nor bad, but when used in a responsible and BALANCED way, is not just fine, but beneficial (hardens people up, stops them from being so easily offended and upset by things that happen in life)

You're so silly. "Traumatized by sex and violence" :P

This thread is a fucking joke...

Preteens are not 13-16, those are teens...

I'm willing to share all my coupons with someone who'd actually use them.

Feel free to add me if you like any of them.

I've played GTA when I was 8 years old

wassup

I say we ban the kids so the rest of us can play in peace. Thankfully it's not as bad as xbox live on pc but still ...

A 16 year old is definitely not a preteen. And I have yet to meet a preteen or teen who was traumatized by a video game.
I remember overhearing some 11 year olds talk about which girls at my school were sexy and who they wanted to fuck. I don't think games were the cause of that. Violence from games has never traumatized me; violence in real life did.

A child's growth is only his parent's responsibility. Any child should be firstly protected by his parents. The society is the way it is, and the only ones who can shield a child from all the dangers are again his parents. News are bad for children, because they show wars! Let's ban news! Oh, what the hell, let's ban wars! No. Not gonna happen. Family is in control, family is responsible. Just turn off the TV for once, do something yourself! There is surely more harm from home violence and school bullying than from any video game ever made, so ratings are the last problem to solve. The primary problems come from families that abandon or even threaten their children. If there is something that should be done by the society and not by every individual in person (like, want to change the World, start with yourself), then it should be implementation of parental education and not the yapping around some stupid games.

As a child at age 7-8 years old, I was already playing violent games. But even to a child, it's obvious that a game is just a game and not reality. I remember talking excitedly about games, and what I'd do if I could do those things, but always forgot about it moments later. Parents are responsible for making sure a child understands this, and if the child understands then there is absolutely nothing wrong. It's just silly entertainment, nothing from a game ever "traumatized" me.

It's the parent's job to regulate what the children are exposed to. If they have no problems with it, then you shouldnt care about it.

There's not much the distributors can do. If parents buy the games for their kids, they obviously think the kid is able to handle it. However, there are other ways children may acquire these games, if you know what I mean, arrrgh.

I have also played M rated games since I was 11 or so, then again, you can't compare a game/movie to real life and your feelings obviously differ when you see violence IRL and in a game.

GameStop is SUPPOSED to make sure you're old enough to buy a game. And last time I bought a game at Wal-Mart that was rated M, they required my ID for swiping, even though I am obviously not a teenager. (numerous gray patches in my beard even though I'm only 29). Now, I've seen a number of GameStops require parents to purchase a game for their kid, but that's about all they can do to enforce it. If a parent is willing to buy the game, that's their choice. You can't really hold that against the company when the company does what it's supposed to - only sell said games to people 17 years or older.

preteens are considers between the ages of 10-12, you know before the suffix teen is added to the age, and by old fashioned do you mean middle ages where the wars and pestilence would leave corpses on the side of roads, or do you mean the early half of the nineteenth century where you could still be married and work in a sweat house at 12. or could you mean 1980's where the rise of poverty in the america's increased child sex slaves. i get it i know what you mean but its really on an individual bases that we should judge cases and not just slap on the whit knight costume when you think something is wrong.

I actually don't care what kids play/watch and whether it is appropriate or not for their age. I could say (as others pointed it out previously) that it's mainly the parents responsibility to look after what their children are doing, but actually remembering when I was a kid nothing, especially not my parents could stop me from watching/playing/reading something I wanted to. So why bother.

Also, I don't think anything can be more traumatizing to anyone above the age of 10 than the stuff that can be seen on the news every day.

Imo a 13 yo boy is mature enough to play/watch things that involves violence, the parents just need to make sure to teach their kids that violence in r/l is wrong so they don't end up like Chuck Norris.

i have been playing games like gta since i was 7 im almost 17 now and i turned out to be a normal member of society, as long as the parents can teach the kids the difference between life and a game and as long as they are mentaly mature enough a video game with a bit of red pixels representing blood should not affect them at all

Tapper on the Commodore 64 turned me into an alcoholic sociopath with a leather fixation.

Every time I hear a jaunty tune I find myself needing to don lederhosen, chug a stein of beer, and hurl the empty glass at someone.

Online interactions not rated... ;)

And why would they? They're going to play these games anyway, and have fun i say. I've yet to see someone traumatized by a video game. And if that genuinely does happen, such a person would be traumatized even by the news panel on TV, so what's the difference?

I played all sorts of video games since i was 9-ish (So that's 14 years of gaming for me, holy shit), and i was never bothered by violence in them.