Hey, remember Video Game ratings?

[colours]

You can probably recall two ways video games were rated, depending on where you lived:

For Europeans, it's the PEGI system:

Spoiler:

For North America, it was the ESRB:

Spoiler:

and for people who live in neither country, idk the equivalent but you get the idea (hopefully)!

Think back to your early days of video gaming. Have Video Game ratings ever mattered to you when purchasing a game? What was your first truly "mature" game that you've played, and did your parent/guardian care that you were playing it?

 

[Tsutarja]

I grew up in a household where the older sibling was 10 years older, so being around my brother meant there were Rated M games in the house when I was a child. My mom would have been furious if she found out I was playing those games, but looking back now, I really don't think I would have even been bothered by violence or anything. I was honestly glad when I turned 17 because I could "finally" play Rated M games.

Also, when I was 7/8 years old, I always watched my brother play the GTA games on his PS2. Of course I didn't have an understanding on what was really going on at the time, but I was entertained and wanted to try it out myself.

 

[Fleurdelis]

my parents literally threw the ratings out of the window when buying games for me. My very first video game had like a 16+ rating when I was around 3-4 years old lmao.
They didn't really matter to me unless I had to bring a parent along to get a game when I was too young to get them on my own.

 

[Firebolt]

Probably should preface by saying that Australia uses yet another rating system.

My uncle used to live with us for a bit, and he'd always let me play his GTA games (MA15+) on the PS2. After we moved out (and my grandparents moved in/came back to live with my uncle), I used to still play GTA whenever I went to their house. I was about...ten years old(?) when I'd finally shocked my mum with a phrase that I probably should not have known as a ten-year old, and I got a stern talking to and honestly haven't even touched the franchise since.

There was also another case when I was 14 and wanted to buy Tekken 5 from my local EB Games store. The game had an M rating on it, and so the cashier wouldn't sell it to me without an ID card showing that I was at least 15 years old. That always confused me as I never thought you needed to have an ID for M-rated content, especially since MA15+ exists and that is when the Classification Board begins to make it a legal requirement to show ID.

Of course, I perfectly understand now where my mother was coming from. Even now when I have my own younger siblings, I'm often painfully reminded how quickly they can pick things up, and therefore I try my best to monitor what they watch on YouTube and stuff to make sure that they're viewing age-appropriate content and don't have their own case where they get into trouble for calling someone an a-hole.

 

[Fairy]

My parents never put limits on what games I could play. Early on I remember playing that South Park racing game, Conker's Bad Fur Day, Resident Evil, Doom... My folks just didn't really care I guess lmao.

 

[Sorviknight]

When I was a little kid I didn't even know what ratings were. I'd just buy games that could be potentially interesting. I did play some violent games as a child that I'd rather not do with my parents around though.

 

[Sydian]

well they matter to me everyday because i sell games aha. so i do have to check ids when teens/young adults buy m rated games. and i have to tell parents 'hey there's killing and drugs and sex in this game' and parents will still buy it for them anyway...usually it's the sex part that gets them though like?????? the killing is okay but you draw the line at sex??? alright.

anyway yeah like as a kid, i obviously cared about the rating system and so did my mom. i could rent t rated games as a kid, but mom wouldn't let me own one until i was a teen lmfao? my first t rated game i got to own was super smash bros melee and bitch i thought t rated games were soooooo badass. like fuck melee is rated t?!!!!!??? twilight pIRNCeSsS Is RaTeD t!?!!?!! BitcH I"m A teen!!!!!!!!! HELL YEAh!!!!!!!!!!

also for the life of me as a kid couldn't figure out what made the squirrel game m rated. now i know. still wanna play it. lol

 

[colours]

my story of purchasing an M-rated game can be summed up as such: nothing made me feel more powerful than playing Devil May Cry while not even being 17-18.

 

[Sheep]

I had absolutely zero interest in mature games as a kid, so idk how my parents would've even reacted if I asked for or was seen playing one. @_@ Was all Pokémon, Kirby, and etc for me lol. Nowadays I'm still not into M-rated games and wouldn't buy them, and the 'highest' rated games I've played were rated T (Fire Emblem, Bravely Default and the like). None of the well-known rated M games have ever interested me whatsoever.

 

[Noblejanobii]

Not really but that's because I usually play games by Nintendo that are mostly aimed at children. XD

 

[Sylphiel]

I don't remember if the ratings mattered much to my parents when I was younger...although I wasn't interested in a lot of the mature games then, so it didn't really matter. There is a game or two I remember playing when younger that didn't have ratings back then, but have an M rating now, so maybe they didn't care as much as I would have thought.

And then by now I don't tend to check ratings, so I've had several times when I've been like "huh, this is a little bit more than I was expecting-- oh yep, there's that M rating, okay cool", and then I go back to playing.

 

[Pyrax]

Up until I was 18 all I played was Pokémon, MarioKart and Professor Layton, so I guess my teenage self never thought about it tbh. My parents cared more about how much money I spent on games than age ratings lol

 

[DigitalMewtwo]

You can probably recall two ways video games were rated, depending on where you lived:

For Europeans, it's the PEGI system:

Spoiler:

For North America, it was the ESRB:

Spoiler:

and for people who live in neither country, idk the equivalent but you get the idea (hopefully)!

Think back to your early days of video gaming. Have Video Game ratings ever mattered to you when purchasing a game? What was your first truly "mature" game that you've played, and did your parent/guardian care that you were playing it?

Not too much. Mortal Kombat 3 for the Game Boy... I was in my early teens or so at the time. Not too much, since they knew I wouldn't act out any parts of the game.

 

[Cid]

Think back to your early days of video gaming. Have Video Game ratings ever mattered to you when purchasing a game? What was your first truly "mature" game that you've played, and did your parent/guardian care that you were playing it?

Not at all. I was way too young when I got exposed to the worlds of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and San Andreas. We were a weird bunch back then-- me, my older brother, my childhood best friend, two girls we were also friends with, and their older brother. That last guy was definitely a bad influence on the more impressionable kids of our party, played a huge part in how violent some of the video games we played were.

Nevertheless, I think we all grew up okay. I look back at those memories of biking to the nearest computer shop to play GTA pretty fondly.