Anton P. Nym:
Kids belong in gaming, so long as they have adequate adult supervision. If you don't like their voices on chat, mute 'em; if you're playing the Haloz (as the OP's icon suggests to me) it's dead easy to do already.

-- Steve

Seconded. Though, to be honest, I'm not a huge fan of playing with kids, but that's just because I don't like them in general.

hypothetical fact:
He supports it because his voters support him and they are made up of useless parents whose children play M15 games. Eliminate the children and you eliminate the need for useless parents to vote against R18 games, which eliminates the need for Atkinson to vote against R18 games which he does to stay in office.

Better solution: educate the parents.

While I agree that there are many annoying and immature kids online, I don't think that banning them would help. Kids will just lie about their age. If they're annoying you, then mute them. Besides, not all kids that are online annoy the shit out of everybody above the age of 18.

It's not even the kids that bother me. It's the adults that are supposed to know better then to be annoying, yet, still are that I find irritating.

But, of course kids should be able to play online games. That's kind of a ridiculous proposition.

"Yes, they should be allowed to play anything as long as their parents approve."

Parents are part of the problem as to why there's so much immaturity in people imo.
Parents not teaching their kids how to respect people and the current gaming culture allowing it to thrive are the major issues.

Kids play kiddie games, then they grow up and play more games. If someone does it too early, smack their parents for me.

stompy:

hypothetical fact:

Lucifus:
Even if its things like l4d it depends on a kid. If they are well balanced and not likely to try to act anything out or get disturbed then why not?

Because these kids are the reason I can't have R rated games in Australia.

I'm going to assume you're being serious here, which in return demands me to inform you that, even if there were no children in Australia playing video games, Michael Atkinson would still support the lack of an R18+ rating for video games. It's not the kids.

As for the OP, I see no reason why children, with their parents' consent, should not play video games, online or off. What really irks me is those that automatically insult the kids with high-pitched voices. Even if the child is trying to contribute positively to the team, ridiculing a child purely because they haven't reached puberty is being a dick.

In a perfect world, parents are better informed and Michael Atkinson isn't in politics.

Also, I agree with you where you say that insulting a kid who is trying to contribute just cause he's got a "immature" (as opposed to a mature voice of someone who has hit puberty, don't misquote me) voice is just freakin' stoopid.

Kids will be kids, but I don't think the majority of them are ready to interact with older gamers. Besides, wouldn't they much rather play with someone their age?

Radelaide:
In a perfect world, parents are better informed and Michael Atkinson isn't in politics.

Unfortunately, the latter is a problem that won't go away for some time. However, the former will probably be addressed by the time my generation's got kids, what with the majority of people my age having played, and many knowledgeable about, video games.

ElArabDeMagnifico:
Kids play kiddie games, then they grow up and play more games. If someone does it too early, smack their parents for me.

"too early" meaning one year old and "Kiddie games" meaning a wide array of some of the best titles of all time from mario games to Kingdom hearts ext? if so then I agree, though some gamers seem to obsess too much about 'growing up' and lose their ability to have real fun.