Ask Lemmy

I loved video games as a kid. They didn't limit the content. I just wasn't able to play video games during the week and I could only play an hour each day. I think that mindset backfired. Also, it didn't stop me from going over to my friends house to play video games. By the time I could afford my own, they gave up.

"Use your common sense. You know what's appropriate and what's not."

No specific rules on content, although I'm sure a game would have been retroactively banned if our mom saw something gory. The rules were on time spent playing. 30 min per kid per school day, only after schoolwork and chores were done. 60 min per kid on weekend days, again after chores were done.

Minesweeper was not considered a game, for some reason. So we were all hella fast at minesweeper on the highest difficulty.

Born in the 80s, when I started playing video games around 6 they kept me on games adequate to my age until I reached high school.

After that they mostly let me play whichever game I wanted, the only conditions were that I had to get enough sleep (and if I didn't, not to complain that I was tired in the morning) and have good grades.

For the most part they trusted me. It helped that my step-dad played videogames before he met my mom. It probably also helped that I never gave them any concerns. I was a fat nerd who never got into fights or showed any signs of violence. My parents were concerned about me spending too much time indoors and not getting enough physical and social activity, but never concerned with the content.

I also was a smart enough kid that I knew the limits of what I could ask for. I wasn't going to ask them for Leisure Suit Larry or BMX XXX, for example.

There were a couple of exceptions where my mom heard things about specific games through the media. I remember the marketing campaigns for God of War and GTA3 really leaned into the controversy. Although I did end up getting GTA3 eventually.

Ironically, there was only one case where I felt like I was allowed to play a game before I was ready, but it wasn't one I asked for. My step-dad bought Twisted Metal Black. I had played a bit of the Twisted Metal series earlier, but preferred the much more whimsical Vigilante 8. I still remember getting nightmares about getting my head locked into a mask like the one character (I think her name may have been Dollface?). As I am remembering it now I realize it was probably a metaphor about identity, but as a middle schooler I was just freaked out about it.

Didn't really have much in the way of rules on that, though my papa was rather disappointed with me when I had him help me buy my GameCube and didn't realize how violet the games were. Resident evil got a pass, but Mortal Kombat was one I was surprised he was upset about the violence in it lol

I think my parents looked at the PEGI logo, or whatever it was before, and respected it until I was 13 or 14. But I was a sensitive child so I didn't want to watch violent movies or killing zombies.

I don't remember rules about video games. My house was chaotic and unpredictable, and my parents don't understand boundaries. Besides, video games back then were primitive and family friendly. They were seen as just another toy.

I was never much into video games, but my first real interest was for Doom and then for StarCraft. I was also heavy into C&C... I was already an adult and fixed my own rules, deciding on what I wished to spend my time and waste my money.

The first video game I played as a kid was some kind of Pong version, on an Atari console. So, yeah... not much video games for me as a child. With the other kids, we played cards, board games, we played outside too (it's great), we played chess and checkers, we also played doctor, we read a lot too. And there was no real need to set rules or limits (even less so on what we were allowed to read), not even when we played doctor, mind you—not even to tell us what was then obvious but that seems very much forgotten by too many nowadays, to not be a dick, because acting like one would warrant instant karma feedback from all the others players/participants involved... and that was kinda very quickly formative ;)

They were watching it, there were some time restrictions, sometimes, and I didn't want to play bloody games or FPS anyway, so there was never any discussion about getting or not getting them.

But I did get a gameboy at 6, which helped greatly with learning to read, because guess what, if you read slow, the story and progress is slow.

I wouldn't say "weird", but there were rules.