Hello all,
I'm not actually a parent however, I am an adult who plays a lot of video games. I have been irriated lately by some of the bad press that some video games have been getting regarding their content and how that content might influence children. What has been irritating me is not necessarily the opinions that some people in the media have of video games but, the misinformation that these people are basing their opinions on.
I am all for parents monitoring and regulating what kinds of video games their children play. I think there are definitely some video games out there that are not meant for children below a certain age. To help with this I'd like to give any parents on this forum a few tips and tools for regulating what video games their children play.
First off, all video games have a rating given to them by the Entertainment Software Rating Board. These ratings are very similar to movie ratings in that they denote what age range a game is appropriate for. A list of these ratings and their explainations can be found here: http://www.esrb.org/ratings/ratings_guide.jsp[/URL]
These ratings are located on the front of every video game box in the bottom left corner. They are also on the back the every box.
Second, another wonderful tool I ran into on the web is a website: www.whattheyplay.com[/URL]
It is a website designed for parents to use so they can find out what kind of content is in a particular game. The website has reviews for many video games, both written by the people who run the website, as well as parents who visit it. These reviews can give you a good idea of what kind of content is in a specific game regarding violence, language, sex etc. Just like some parents might think certain R rated movies might be acceptable for their children to watch while other aren't, this is also the case with video games. This website will help you make an informed decision.
Last I want to make sure that any parent with children who play video games knows that all current video game consoles (Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and Nintendo Wii), come with parenting controls. You can use these controls to restrict what games you children can play on the console. I will admit to a certain lack of specific knowledge regarding these controls. I know you can use them to block any video game from being played on the console that is above a certain rating but, I don't know if you can make exceptions to that rule i.e. "don't play any games rated M except for game X that game is allowed." Regardless it is a function of all of the current video game consoles that I am guessing many parents don't know about. Instructions for how to set the parental controls for each console can be found on that console's respective website. Note: some of the websites can be harder to navigate than others. I would post links to those instructions but some of them are very long and would cause this already log post to be even longer
.
I hope the information I have given here will be useful to at least some of you so you may make informed decisions about what video games your children are playing.
Thank you for your time,
Adultgamer
p.s. I will be cross posting this to both the parental products forum as well as the general forum.
I'm not actually a parent however, I am an adult who plays a lot of video games. I have been irriated lately by some of the bad press that some video games have been getting regarding their content and how that content might influence children. What has been irritating me is not necessarily the opinions that some people in the media have of video games but, the misinformation that these people are basing their opinions on.
I am all for parents monitoring and regulating what kinds of video games their children play. I think there are definitely some video games out there that are not meant for children below a certain age. To help with this I'd like to give any parents on this forum a few tips and tools for regulating what video games their children play.
First off, all video games have a rating given to them by the Entertainment Software Rating Board. These ratings are very similar to movie ratings in that they denote what age range a game is appropriate for. A list of these ratings and their explainations can be found here: http://www.esrb.org/ratings/ratings_guide.jsp[/URL]
These ratings are located on the front of every video game box in the bottom left corner. They are also on the back the every box.
Second, another wonderful tool I ran into on the web is a website: www.whattheyplay.com[/URL]
It is a website designed for parents to use so they can find out what kind of content is in a particular game. The website has reviews for many video games, both written by the people who run the website, as well as parents who visit it. These reviews can give you a good idea of what kind of content is in a specific game regarding violence, language, sex etc. Just like some parents might think certain R rated movies might be acceptable for their children to watch while other aren't, this is also the case with video games. This website will help you make an informed decision.
Last I want to make sure that any parent with children who play video games knows that all current video game consoles (Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and Nintendo Wii), come with parenting controls. You can use these controls to restrict what games you children can play on the console. I will admit to a certain lack of specific knowledge regarding these controls. I know you can use them to block any video game from being played on the console that is above a certain rating but, I don't know if you can make exceptions to that rule i.e. "don't play any games rated M except for game X that game is allowed." Regardless it is a function of all of the current video game consoles that I am guessing many parents don't know about. Instructions for how to set the parental controls for each console can be found on that console's respective website. Note: some of the websites can be harder to navigate than others. I would post links to those instructions but some of them are very long and would cause this already log post to be even longer
.I hope the information I have given here will be useful to at least some of you so you may make informed decisions about what video games your children are playing.
Thank you for your time,
Adultgamer
p.s. I will be cross posting this to both the parental products forum as well as the general forum.