blackrave:

Shinigami214:
GUYS - Pause the rage for just one second - and read this below before we keep raging at parents who let their kids play COD online.

Shinigami214:

If the writer who penned this news piece based his information on the news report included in the OP, the article is misleading.

The news report never mentions Call of Duty or any other game specifically, but simply referred to online games in general (i.e. "experts warn ... if you let your child play online games through xbox, playstation, or the computer")

Meaning that the focus on COD that everyone is raging about in the thread is not only unwarranted, but unfounded. It might have been the game he was complaining about, but we don't know for sure.

If unintentional, the slip is indicative of shoddy journalism, imho. If intentional, its unethical sensationalism to drive up traffic to the website.

Well, you can hear in the background that they are playing some shooter (CoD or Halo, if I have to guess), most of the shooters are not children appropriate.
I wouldn't allow my nephew play DeusEx games until he is at least 15y old, despite the fact that I consider DeusEx games a must-have for every gamer (yes even Invisible War)

That's an assumption.

Assumptions are not facts, but speculation, and speculation has no place in news unless its clearly presented as speculation.

How exactly are they being exposed to x-rated content on Xbox Live. Not that I don't believe the statement, I just want to know how I can get in on it myself.
As others have said, this is a mature game. 8 to 11 year olds should not be playing CoD. At least wait until they are teenagers. This also points to the weird hypocrisy we have where copious amounts of violence is fine but naughty words and the sight of a boobie during the Superbowl is a tragedy.

blackrave:
Recently I saw interesting scene in store, some kid (11-12 years old) went to his mom with the box of COD:MW3. Mother said "No". I was pleasantly surprised- finally someone adequately evaluates content of the game... and then she said her reason: "I already bought you GTA last week".
Something died in me that moment and I decided that when I'll become rich enough I will make a game with only purpose to punish parents who don't pay attention to ratings.
I'll call it "Rainbow parrot tea party" and cover of it will be happy, jolly and utterly innocent.
But it will be AO/R rated rapegorefest with elements of pedonecrozoophilia and infused with satanic rituals.
If everything goes as planned 10% of developers will go insane during development process, at least one will commit suicide after game is released and remaining developers will have nightmares for the rest of their lives.
Hopefully after playing this game kids will kill their braindead parents in their sleep.
Maybe after that parents will realize that rating is not only a decoration of the box, but actually means something.
(Yes, I'm that evil)

P.S. Hopefully by the time I have means of creating such game, parents will become smarter.

I was always allowed to play games above my age rating, and I came out just fine. The problem here isn't that the kids are playing violent games when they're too young, it's that they're not being taught to handle it properly. I'm nineteen now and I STILL have reservations about swearing around family, and y'know, stabbing people is just out of order.

Also. Captcha - 'ear candy'.

I sense an ironic connection.

Honestly, I don't have kinds. If I did, I have a pretty easy idea how to deal with such things.

The obvious solution is not to let an 8 year old play CoD games, but sometimes the game is just too ubiquitous to avoid, and the kid is going to play either at my house or elsewhere. I'd rather the kid be honest about it.

I would set the Xbox on his profile to play voice through headphones only, then only give him the headset when he's playing with his real world friends in a party.

That way I know whose mother to call when I hear my kid say "slob on my knob if you don't like it, fag." ...and I'd take away the headset when I hear crap like that.

Yeah, it's armchair parenting since I don't have a kid, but it doesn't seem that difficult.

Parent: Dear god! How can they do this!? Wont someone think of the CHILDREN!?

^ (Bought Xbox, Xbox headset and mature videogames for child. Never took any interest in the child or content of the games they were playing, and only now knows because they watched a slant on some news network)

Hookah:
What the bloody hell is an 'internet safety expert'?

And how do I get a hack job as one. I can spout shit to close-minded parents trying to shift the blame for their failures.

As was stated in a post above, I'm pretty sure it's someone hired to tell people that it's not their fault that children are exposed to this sort of thing. It seems like an easy job, but I wouldn't do it purely from a moral stance. xD

Shinigami214:

That's an assumption.

Assumptions are not facts, but speculation, and speculation has no place in news unless its clearly presented as speculation.

It is deduction, not assumption
You can clearly hear shooting in the background.
I don't know what exactly this game was, but there is high possibility that it was inappropriate for kids.
One thing that confuses me is 4 controllers, so maybe it isn't CoD or Halo, so if anyone else have bigger experience with X360 (I'm PC gamer), he/she could speculate what game it could be (maybe side scroller).

Protip: It's not just the M rated games. I've heard some pretty bad shit racing in NFS online.

Kopikatsu:

Tanis:
Seeing as how the WORST players I've met online sound like 8 year old...

Maybe parents should parent their kids before bitching about others'.

This is pretty much the truth.

Also...isn't CoD (and other multiplayer games where people would have mics) rated M? I mean...why would you have your 8 year old kids playing that in the first place?

Not saying that because a game is rated M, that gives people free reign to spew verbal abuse on whoever draws their ire, but it's kind of...yeah.

Exactly, I was expecting this to turn into a witch hunt, when it didn't I was surprised, this report was still biased in favor of the little angel 8 year olds out there. I guess it's a good thing if parents are more aware of what their kids are playing, it means the responsible gamers may not have to deal with as many racists little bastards since the parents will be watching them to make sure they are safe.

Welcome to the internet, where everyone and their mother swears at complete strangers, population: Most of the modern world.

blackrave:

Shinigami214:

That's an assumption.

Assumptions are not facts, but speculation, and speculation has no place in news unless its clearly presented as speculation.

It is deduction, not assumption
You can clearly hear shooting in the background.
I don't know what exactly this game was, but there is high possibility that it was inappropriate for kids.
One thing that confuses me is 4 controllers, so maybe it isn't CoD or Halo, so if anyone else have bigger experience with X360 (I'm PC gamer), he/she could speculate what game it could be (maybe side scroller).

Quibbling over the definitions of assumptions and deductions is besides the point.

My original point was that the escapist article is misleading because it claims that the original ABC report said that the parent in question was playing Call of Duty with his children, when in fact the original report said no such thing.

Shinigami214:

Realitycrash:

Nicolaus99:

All the above, seconded. Interesting that no mention of this is made in the news piece.

That said, online voice chat really IS a cesspool. The vileness of people online is why my Xbox Live account was dead after one month. I don't want to spend my free time with people like that.

Same.
One of the top reasons I stopped playing Halo 2 online.

The original news report doesn't mention COD specifically - for some reason the escapist writer did

Can you mention a few games an 8-year old can play on Xbox-Live and NOT be subjected to this kind of trashtalk?

Uh how about kicking the kid off the Xbox? They shouldn't be playing CoD to begin with.

Uh how about kicking the kid off the Xbox? They shouldn't be playing CoD to begin with.

Soooooo... you let your 8 year old play an M-rated game but don't want him hearing other players say "fuck"?
Well you're an idiot. Nuff said.

Vault101:
I feel kind of left out....

...I never get abused over mic....:( mabye that because Im on PSN and no one uses a mic (or Im not playing the right games)

Do you re-animate your avatar yourself? Seems like it's different all the time :P

THEN DONT BUY YOUR FUCKING 8 YEAR OLD A 18+ GAME
FUCK SAKE you stupid people
you dont buy him a porno to keep him occupied or sit him down next to an 18+ film, so how are video games supposed to be any different.
God damn terrible parents

good ol hypocritically America

This news story takes a very balanced approach to gaming. It's refreshing to see something other than the Faux News "All Games are Evil" crap.

But can't you just mute all of the other players? That seems like a pretty simple solution to me.

Realitycrash:

Shinigami214:

Realitycrash:

Same.
One of the top reasons I stopped playing Halo 2 online.

The original news report doesn't mention COD specifically - for some reason the escapist writer did

Can you mention a few games an 8-year old can play on Xbox-Live and NOT be subjected to this kind of trashtalk?

I don't know, and that's besides the point.

Am I the only one here annoyed that the writer grossly (intentionally or otherwise) mis-represented a news story?

Has anyone bothered to tell said parents or news station that buying an M rated game for your kid is the same as buying him an R rated movie?

Buy your kid an M rated game and risk exposure to adult language/ scenarios? Who would've thought?

Usually me and my friends are cool with kids playing MW3 till they start running their mouths, then all bets are off. We actually had a kid's parent try and lecture us, needless to say their feelings were hurt as well.

Tanis:
Seeing as how the WORST players I've met online sound like 8 year old...

Maybe parents should parent their kids before bitching about others'.

Isn't that, well, exactly what this report is saying?

I'm not going to complain when a news story tells the truth. There are some horrible things being said online, and if a parent thinks there kid is mature enough to handle a violent games themes, might as well also be aware of bullying. Parents don't understand gameing quite often. That's why we have obvious marketing, countless parent friendly tools and a transperent ESRB. But the actions of other players is less predictable, and we can't expect parents to extrapolate a rich and complex community from there experience with Pong. This report is completely fair, and a benifit to us. Surely we all agree that manipulating pixels on a screen is not as harmfully as real people verbally abusing you.

Sometimes the Media gets gaming right. Bound to happen once in a while.

I thought the cyber bullying label was reserved for things like a sustained and targeted online attack that drove kids to suicide as opposed to some dirty words.

also:
"8, 9, 10 year olds are being exposed to this sort of thing"

yeah, when the sounds coming out of their mouths hit their ears on the way to the mike.

donssword:
"M" rated game. Also includes: ESRB warning, content may change online.

End of discussion.

I'm right in your corner with this I mean It's 18 for a reason and any parent who let's junior play cod etc has absolutely no right to bitch and moan when little Timmy goes online and hears naughty word.

Thyunda:

I was always allowed to play games above my age rating, and I came out just fine. The problem here isn't that the kids are playing violent games when they're too young, it's that they're not being taught to handle it properly. I'm nineteen now and I STILL have reservations about swearing around family, and y'know, stabbing people is just out of order.

Also. Captcha - 'ear candy'.

I sense an ironic connection.

I was a teen before the ESRB was an industry-wide thing with big symbols on everything. I was playing stuff like Doom and Mortal Kombat and the like before they decided it was detrimental. I was graduating the year od Columbine, when shit allegedly got "real."

I don't know, I knew things weren't real on TV by the time I was five, well before my first game console. This always seemed obvious to me, but then, my parents paid attention.

gphjr14:
Buy your kid an M rated game and risk exposure to adult language/ scenarios? Who would've thought?

Usually me and my friends are cool with kids playing MW3 till they start running their mouths, then all bets are off. We actually had a kid's parent try and lecture us, needless to say their feelings were hurt as well.

same here with me n my freinds we r cool with them as long as they don't "give it the big en" even to the point where if there cool we"ll help them out etc I just hate 8 n 9yo running there pre pubeesent mouths at a group of 27-30yos lol

Oh wow! This is very interesting. Yes. Very interesting indeed.
How is that other thing with water going? Have we determined if it's wet yet?

Look at all these knee-jerk reactions.

First of all, the original article never mentions COD by name. It's entirely possible that someone's gonna talk trash on a game that is totally appropriate for your kid's age.

Second of all, no one is blaming Microsoft or the entire games industry in general. They're just saying "be aware of what your kid does online". I thought it was pretty sound and reasonable advice.

Third of all, you're gamers. Of course this news is old to you. But what about someone who does not play games, and doesn't have the slightest clue as to what an ex bawks is? Does the fact that it's obvious to you make the advice any less sound? Does it mean they shouldn't even mention it? No. The government spends a shit ton of money on anti-smoking PSAs and yet people die of lung cancer all the time.

Grimh:
Oh wow! This is very interesting. Yes. Very interesting indeed.
How is that other thing with water going? Have we determined if it's wet yet?

I found this hilarious. You seem to have a knack for comic timing in text, it seems. (:

Fail at parenting?
Blame the vidya gaems!