At what age were you allowed to play ‘M’-rated video games? / LJWorld.com

Asked at Lawrence High School on December 21, 2009

Browse the archives

“Six years old.”

— Greg Calik, junior,

“Pretty much since the age I was able to play video games. I thought they were cool, and so did my dad.”

— Karrera Radford, sophomore,

“Eighth grade.”

— Henry Vaeono, junior,

“I played ‘Resident Evil’ in seventh grade. When I became a teenager, I was allowed to (play).”

— Jessica Llull, senior,

“Around 9 years old. My parents thought it would be OK if they were in the room.”

— Dominique Shaffer, junior,

“I was probably 14 or 15.”

— Jake Henley, junior,

The family that plays together ...

Delicious
Digg
Tumblr
Wordpress
Reddit
Copy and paste the link:

coolmom 3 years, 5 months ago

um, they didnt have 'M' rated video games when i was a kid.

diplomacy205 3 years, 5 months ago

I have yet to play an M rated game.

Andini 3 years, 5 months ago

What's the big deal? Doesn't M stand for Mild?

RETICENT_IRREVERENT 3 years, 5 months ago

Mel Briscoe 3 years, 5 months ago

who was this blog started by-- one of my kids? the video game rating system has only been around for about a decade and for the majority of us who post on this site, we were well into the "mature" age range at that time in history. geesh...

Mel Briscoe 3 years, 5 months ago

autie, when i was a little kid all they really had was pong. lol and how racy could that get?

i was in my early teens when the video game craze hit the arcades and about 15 when atari's first game console came out (and no, i didn't own one, that was like buying a PS3 back then and my family didn't have the cheddar).

i don't allow my 11 year old to play M games. i know most 11 year olds do though but mine? nope.

CWGOKU 3 years, 5 months ago

Welcome back Andini.......... we have missed you!

rando1965 3 years, 5 months ago

WAS PLAYING ATARI AT THAT AGE MABY WITH THE VIOLENCE THESE DAYS IN THE GAMES IS WHY TACO BELL GOT ROBBED THIS MORNING AND DIDN'T EVEN MAKE THE NEWS. NOT IN LAWRENCE IT'S THE BEST TOWN TO LIVE IN CRIME FREE.

Ricky_Vaughn 3 years, 5 months ago

I've been gaming since NES...they did not have ratings back then... Even if there had been, I've been watching Rated R movies since I was 6 and I haven't robbed any Taco Bells rando...

Pywacket 3 years, 5 months ago

I'll try to substitute the idea of age-equivalent games from my own childhood.

International games of intrigue (spying on friends' big sisters & their (boy)friends; spying on parents' conversations, then imitating choice overheard terms while pretending to drag on cigarettes; using binoculars to spy on neighbors and laughing fit to kill if they did anything hilarious such as sitting down to dinner): 6

Cops & robbers (with cap guns, ropes to tie "the bad guys" to their chairs, and related implements of police and criminal warfare): 5 or 6? Seems we had cap guns & holsters practically in the crib! (In the old sense of the word "crib.")

Tree climbing, off-road bicycle stunts, playing with fire, swamp navigation, jumping off roofs, breaking into vacant houses (and other adventure/exploration activities): 8 or 9--oh, wait, does that question say "At what age were you ALLOWED"? Well, I guess I still haven't received proper permission. But we sure enjoyed doing those things behind our parents' backs.

Spin the Bottle: early teens.. Had we tried to play this at 11 or 12, our parents probably would not have raised an eyebrow, but the fact of the matter is that boys have cooties until they are about 14 or so.

Games of Terrorism, including writing naughty things on the sidewalks of crabby neighbors, turning on the outdoor faucets of same, festooning the trees and gardens of crabby neighbors with offensive literature (mostly pages torn from Mad Magazine), uprooting "For Sale" signs in the vicinity and relocating all of them to the front yard of (you guessed it) Crabby Neighbor; spending hours making annoying and untraceable phone calls to random People With Funny Names in the phone book, stealing younger brothers' green army men and melting them over the burn barrel into grotesque deformities; attaching dozens of emptied cicada shells to the front and back door screens of favorite aunt (who had the misfortune of living nearby) in hopes she would be too afraid to leave the house: about 8--although certain of these activities persisted for several years.

Doctor: as early as we could sneak behind the garage with the neighbor boys. (Just kidding--we never actually played this. But we thought the idea of it was gigglingly hilarious.)

Mel~ The question obviously was tailored to the kids this time, not to the online responders. Improvise! Besides, the games we had beat the games THEY have all to hell and back, so let them have their little OTS moment in the sun! ;-)