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[mrkgoo]

I dunno, there has to be a line somewhere.

As a kid I had toy soldiers and guns and stuff. Even at 6 and 7 they can distinguish play from reality (not that I had ever encountered a real gun at that age).

But yeah, I think the actual game of Call of Duty should not be played by kids of that age. It's not really "cartoon" violence. and being interactive does make a difference, I feel.

it's weird, I have nothing against some kids playing with guns and playing cops and robbers or whatever... but to have infatuation with weapons enough to have a theme of guns and violence for a birthday party? I think that's something else.

 

[OBias]

I was 7 or 8 years old when I played Doom and Quake for the first time, it's fine.

 

[Paquete_PT]

Yeah, it's not appropriate. 7 is definitely too young to be even watching COD games, let alone play them.

 

[sankt-Antonio]

i don't see any problem with it. little boys love guns and soldiers so it's not crazy that they like CoD. i played loads of military games as a kid. you're overthinking it.

Little boys love what society wants/manipulates them to love.

I guess someone needs o sprinkle just enough military fetish into them to have enough idiots ready to die for the wealthy in nonsense wars or buy their guns.

I was 7 or 8 years old when I played Doom and Quake for the first time, it's fine.

You sure loved peaking at Playboy/Playgirl(?) pages at that age, would you think it would have been a good idea to let you watch hardcore porn at that age? To me its the same kind of content that 7 year old need to be saved from. And Doom/Quake are far away from the depiction of suffering of human beings relative to CoD.

 

[NIN90]

I mean it's one thing for the parents to not care what games their kid plays. Plenty of parents don't and so did mine. But going all the fuck in and throwing a CoD themed birthday party? That's a special kind of crazy.

 

[a Master Ninja]

I was 7 or 8 years old when I played Doom and Quake for the first time, it's fine.

I'd say shooting at a pink pixel cartoon monster is a little different than an (increasingly) realistic human, but I'm no child psychologist.

 

[OBias]

You sure loved peaking at Playboy/Playgirl(?) pages at that age, would you think it would have been a good idea to let you watch hardcore porn at that age? To me its the same kind of content that 7 year old need to be saved from. And Doom/Quake are far away from the depiction of suffering of human beings relative to CoD.

I'd say shooting at a pink pixel cartoon monster is a little different than an (increasingly) realistic human, but I'm no child psychologist.

I was also playing Soldier of Fortune when I was 9, is that much better?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0P2kQFAIuYY&t=37s

 

[Wolf Akela]

I played R18 games such as MGS1 and RE2 when I was like 8.

I had toy guns and toy soliders.

Never touched a real gun in real life, nor do I have any inclination to do so. I suppose if there's some kind of life-or-death situatoin and I just stumbled into one then yeah I'll try, but I wouldn't own one.

I personally wouldn't be bothered unless it glorifies sickening kills in a way (think Mortal Kombat or Manhunt).

 

[Rellik]

I played R18 games such as MGS1 and RE2 when I was like 8.

I had toy guns and toy soliders.

Never touched a real gun in real life, nor do I have any inclination to do so. I suppose if there's some kind of life-or-death situatoin and I just stumbled into one then yeah I'll try, but I wouldn't own one.

I wanted to be a burglar at that age. That's what I said after reading a comic style book on robbing lol.

 

[Spieler Eins]

Step 1: Groom next generation of US gun nuts
Step 2: Hand out guns like candy
Step 3: Act surprised when 35,000 people a year are killed by guns in the US (Germany: 160)

It's okay, I played the low res fantasy violence in Doom as a kid. Please continue your military propaganda parties for kids that barely learned how to read.

 

[VariantX]

No way in hell. There's a thousand other things a 7 year old should be playing.

 

[tkscz]

Step 1: Groom next generation of US gun nuts
Step 2: Hand out guns like candy
Step 3: Act surprised when 35,000 people a year are killed by guns in the US (Germany: 160)

Let me tell you how many people our generation beat to death because of Mortal Kombat, the M rated game most of us played at the age of 7.

 

[RPGam3r]

I was 7 or 8 years old when I played Doom and Quake for the first time, it's fine.

Can we stop equating these situations/games? The content is not the same, we all know this.

 

[The Albatross]

CoD at age 7 is too young.. although my 6-year-old nephew is also really obsessed with things that he's never seen.

I think CoD levels (multiplayer, or the challenge levels) is fine for an 11 or 12 year old... The action in the game is violent, but it's stupid comic violence, and the enemies are inhuman meat shields that appear out of closets like a wack-a-mole game. But the narrative surrounding that, even as bad as the narrative is, just has elements and themes in it that's too mature for adolescents. It's not comic Command and Conquer bad guys, there's a deeper psychological aspect to the narrative -- as poorly done as they are -- which is not appropriate for kids.

I used to have the point of view that "I played Mortal Kombat in 2nd grade," and "I played Doom in 4th grade" or what have you, but the content around these games is very different today than it was then.

THis all being said, let's not feed into the myth that playing violent videogames makes someone violent, it's simply not born out with any psychological or sociological evidence.

 

[JigglesBunny]

Seven year old kids have no place seeing shit like this.

The parent's encouragement tells me that they most likely haven't looked into the content all that much.

 

[daviyoung]

It would be fine if the culture the kid is growing up in isn't focussed on fetishising guns and the military.

Seven year old kids have no place seeing shit like this.

But that is also a good argument. Holy shit respect the ratings, people!

 

[xRaizen]

Let me tell you how many people our generation beat to death because of Mortal Kombat, the M rated game most of us played at the age of 7.

This

 

[Arozay]

Did they throw red jelly at people and then yell war quotes at them?

 

[Spieler Eins]

Let me tell you how many people our generation beat to death because of Mortal Kombat, the M rated game most of us played at the age of 7.

+

Or maybe you're right. There is absolutely no correlation between the US' disturbing gun culture and kids having military themed parties straight after kindergarten. Normalizing guns at 7 years old has nothing to do with the rate of US gun ownership and some people finding this Starship Troopers satire-tier story in the OP normal. There's no connection because you played Mortal Kombat.

 

[mrklaw]

Not read all 11 pages but I’m sure there are plenty of 'I watched the exorcist aged 4 and I grew up just fine' posts.

I'm guessing (hoping) most of you watched/played age-inappropriate stuff illicitly? There is a huge difference at least to me between a sort of 'coming of age' doing things you aren’t supposed to with your friends and without your parents knowing, gs being sat down by your parents to watch 'Emmanuel on the moon'

 

[halfbeast]

Spoiler

(she's bi)

 

[Zaraki_Kenpachi]

Yep. Kid can play these games if legally allowed to, or smart enough for me not to notice.

Yeah, it's not appropriate.

I don't think you understand how the game ratings work... The rating doesn't make it illegal for them to play the game. It's also not illegal for kids to see rated R movies.

 

[tkscz]

+

Or maybe you're right. There is absolutely no correlation between the US' disturbing gun culture and kids having military themed parties straight after kindergarten. Normalizing guns at 7 years old has nothing to do with the rate of US gun ownership and some people finding this Starship Troopers parody-tier story in the OP normal. There's no connection because you played Mortal Kombat.

My comment says we, not I. Our generation played games like Mortal Kombat, a game not meant for children, based on fist fighting someone to the death. Something to remember for even back then, US media fantasizes violence through first fighting, fighting with weapons, or even your point, fighting with guns, but, there has been nothing proving that our generation playing games like Mortal Kombat has caused a rise in first fights, extreme violence, or killing, even though all of these themes were in a popular game that many, MANY children loved. So to your point, many children will play shooters like Call of Duty, Metal of Honor, GTA, but the majority of them still won't use guns as they get older. So yes, unless you can show me proof or studies, no correlation.

 

[BibiMaghoo]

I would allow that for multiplayer only, certainly not for the campaign. There is little in the way of graphic content in multi for the games I have played, but the campaigns can be brutal.

I was 7 or 8 years old when I played Doom and Quake for the first time, it's fine.

This is not comparable. There are highly graphical and visceral cutscenes involving people having their throats slashed among others. Gibs from old games are not even close.

 

[eXistor]

It's fine that they play it and like it, it's absolutely not fine that his parents support this and throw him a CoD-themed birthday, essentially saying "this is all right for kids to like". I played Mortal Kombat as a kid, but I did so secretly without my mother knowing; she really didn't approve of it. What kind of a message would it send if my mom was like "sure go and rip out that guys' spinal cord, it's fun!".

It's the fact that the parents are just not doing their job where it goes wrong; you can't reward and glorify these types of games for little children: it sends the wrong message.

 

[MAX PAYMENT]

There seem to be a lot of arguments against guns.

What is wrong with guns?

 

[30yearsofhurt]

https://youtu.be/-6LTivNkvZM?t=6m15s

 

[Zaraki_Kenpachi]

My comment says we, not I. Our generation played games like Mortal Kombat, a game not meant for children, based on fist fighting someone to the death. Something to remember for even back then, US media fantasizes violence through first fighting, fighting with weapons, or even your point, fighting with guns, but, there has been nothing proving that our generation playing games like Mortal Kombat has caused a rise in first fights, extreme violence, or killing, even though all of these themes were in a popular game that many, MANY children loved. So to your point, many children will play shooters like Call of Duty, Metal of Honor, GTA, but the majority of them still won't use guns as they get older. So yes, unless you can show me proof or studies, no correlation.

It's kind of interesting too that for how superior her claims German upbringing is and how fucked up the US is, his country still had to ban guns. So apparently even with their highly superior culture and upbringing, they as a society are afraid everyone would shoot each other still. You would think if it was all how they were raised and how superior their upbringing is that they would be able to trust their citizens with guns. They can't even show blood in Germany.

 

[Spieler Eins]

My comment says we, not I. Our generation played games like Mortal Kombat, a game not meant for children, based on fist fighting someone to the death. Something to remember for even back then, US media fantasizes violence through first fighting, fighting with weapons, or even your point, fighting with guns, but, there has been nothing proving that our generation playing games like Mortal Kombat has caused a rise in first fights, extreme violence, or killing, even though all of these themes were in a popular game that many, MANY children loved. So to your point, many children will play shooters like Call of Duty, Metal of Honor, GTA, but the majority of them still won't use guns as they get older. So yes, unless you can show me proof or studies, no correlation.

Mortal Kombat is clear fantasy violence, Call of Duty is realistic looking military glorification. Secondly, people repeating your argument sure like to ignore the part where the parents are supporting this behaviour with gun themed parties - it's not only about the game. And proof? The state of the US speaks for itself.

It's kind of interesting too that for how superior her claims German upbringing is and how fucked up the US is, his country still had to ban guns. So apparently even with their highly superior culture and upbringing, they as a society are afraid everyone would shoot each other still. You would think if it was all how they were raised and how superior their upbringing is that they would be able to trust their citizens with guns. They can't even show blood in Germany.

How is that a desirable goal for society?

 

[Wrestlemania]

It's kind of interesting too that for how superior her claims German upbringing is and how fucked up the US is, his country still had to ban guns. So apparently even with their highly superior culture and upbringing, they as a society are afraid everyone would shoot each other still. You would think if it was all how they were raised and how superior their upbringing is that they would be able to trust their citizens with guns. They can't even show blood in Germany.

The superior part is being able to have a ban actually go through without half of the country losing their fucking minds.

 

[Zaraki_Kenpachi]

The superior part is being able to have a ban actually go through without half of the country losing their fucking minds.

Not really, it's specifically referred to upbringing and fetishising of guns in the US.

 

[Master Yoshi]

Regardless of how everyone in this thread handled exposure to violent media growing up, every one of you has to admit there's a huge difference in the level of realism videogames can achieve today vs. 15-25 years ago. Desensitizing youth to extreme violence is dangerous, and I have no doubts it can and will influence future tragedies, whether it be one person being killed or multiple.

Of course #notallchildren are destined to become serial killers because they got to play GTA or Call of Duty, but the point is that at a young age, kids are still developing their sense of morality and the ability to empathize.

I also agree that playing online with voice chat is a good way to teach your child hate speech and opens a whole new door to cyber bullying both against and from your child.

 

[True Fire]

It really depends on the kid. I was playing GTA at literally age 9, and I turned out fine. But I know other kids who were into Call of Duty and now spend their time posting violent and disturbing memes on Facebook

 

[ToysAndMoreClub]

I think some of us are forgetting how we were exposed to certain adult movies.

When I was little, I loved watching movies like Terminator, Alien/Aliens, Robocop, etc., and while yes, those movies are for adults, I actually watched them over and over on local broadcasts on TV.

What does that mean?

That most of the gore and violence had been edited out, like Robocop shooting between the woman's legs or the xenomorph coming out of the man's chest, or Sarah Connor's and Kyle Reese's "sex" scene.

So when most of us remember being exposed early to adult-oriented movies, it was mostly a watered-down version of them.

As far as kids go, my daughter has asked me for a Roblox-themed birthday party for her 12th birthday and I am fine with that. Heck, I've bought a couple of Splattershot guns so they can play a Splatoon minigame outside splatting each other. Kids want to grow up fast but we as adults should make sure that they do get to enjoy their childhood instead of helping accelerate their ascension to adulthood.

 

[zelas]

Let me tell you how many people our generation beat to death because of Mortal Kombat, the M rated game most of us played at the age of 7.

Seriously. Add CoD to any thread and the haters will come running from all over. Those old games are still graphic even without the use of modern graphics.

 

[Hephaestus]

When I was around that age, i was out hunting with family members. Cleaning bucks and rabbits. Hell one of my earliest memories was helping my grandfather behead chickens with an axe on a stump. This was a fairly common upbringing for the majority of children in the community.

No matter how realistic looking COD gets its still will never compare to the real life.

Also Im still very confused at people saying video games are normalizing guns, do people not realize that schools use to have gun racks? Guns use to be way way more normalized than today.

If you ever get invited to his 8th birthday, get him a gun cleaning kit and tell him to ask his parents for a gun for christmas. See what they will do.

Thats an awesome idea, I had one at that age, taught me alot about proper maintenance and care of my tools.

 

[Shifty]

Well my first reaction is "that's fucked up man", but then I step back and remember that I was regularly playing Quake and Duke Nukem 3D round a mate's house at a young age.

I'm still leaning toward inappropriate though. CoD is rooted in reality- there's a scene in Black Ops where you graphically open a korean soldier's windpipe with your knife.
I may have been blowing blocky dudes into meaty chunks with rockets as a kid, but that's frankly cartoony in comparison to depictions of close-up anatomically-accurate gore.

Not read all 11 pages but I'm sure there are plenty of 'I watched the exorcist aged 4 and I grew up just fine' posts.

I'm guessing (hoping) most of you watched/played age-inappropriate stuff illicitly? There is a huge difference at least to me between a sort of 'coming of age' doing things you aren't supposed to with your friends and without your parents knowing, gs being sat down by your parents to watch 'Emmanuel on the moon'

This is a damn good point, and in my case is accurate. No matter how much I begged, having my own copy of Duke, Quake, Goldeneye or Perfect Dark was out of the question because they were 18-rated and that was that.

 

[Council Pop]

People saying it's 'natural' for young boys to be drawn to violence and military fetishism- no it isn't. In fact, it's the opposite of natural- it's conditioning. In contemporary western culture, boys are conditioned to find violence and aggression normal, acceptable and desirable.

I mean, obviously 7 is far too young to be playing COD full stop, but it's less about age appropriateness, and more about teaching kids that violence is not something to be celebrated. From when I was about 9, my parents knew that I was playing violent games at friend's houses, but because my parents were so anti-violence and anti-war (I wasn't allowed stuff like toy guns or military stuff, parents were politically aware and left wing, grandparents in WW2, great grandparent in WW1 etc, so war was something realistic for me), I understood that the violence was problematic.

I mean, lots of the games I play now are violent (though not military based at all), but it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth a lot of the time (I think about the death animations in The Last of Us for example, which were gratuitous), and it's interesting that we're finally at a stage now where we're asking why the main way we interact with games is through violence. I think in some games the violence is becoming less realistic and more stylised, too (just look at Hitman last year).

I'm not against violence per se, but in video games it's A) massively overused and B) usually used to push a right wing agenda.

 

[cyba89]

It's kind of interesting too that for how superior her claims German upbringing is and how fucked up the US is, his country still had to ban guns. So apparently even with their highly superior culture and upbringing, they as a society are afraid everyone would shoot each other still. You would think if it was all how they were raised and how superior their upbringing is that they would be able to trust their citizens with guns. They can't even show blood in Germany.

Your post is really reaching (and also factually wrong)

 

[tkscz]

Mortal Kombat is clear fantasy violence, Call of Duty is realistic looking military glorification. Secondly, people repeating your argument sure like to ignore the part where the parents are supporting this behaviour with gun themed parties - it's not only about the game. And proof? The state of the US speaks for itself.

Call of Duty may be more realistic than Mortal Kombat, but it's not that realistic and kids can tell the difference. Hell, at this point, GTA is more realistic than CoD and a tone of kids play that as well. As for your proof, that's not proof. Studies were done to prove that games like CoD and GTA did not provoke gun violence. The state of the US has been this way before games like CoD were even near this level of popularity.

As for parents approval of this party, as a parent, you can approve of themes based around guns, without approving of the use of guns. Simply put, inform your kid that this is all fantasy and that guns are not fun and games and the military is nothing like what you see in the game. If parents inform their children, then they can have all the CoD parties they want and still not want to carry guns everywhere. And on the other hand, a kid could have never touched CoD and still be a gun toting loon because their parents were.

 

[Daffy Duck]

Yeah that's too young to be obsessed with CoD, because he's probably been playing for what a couple of years, so that would be like 5 or so.

Way to young.

 

[Mass_Pincup]

I find this kind of attitude really weird. I want to do the best for my kids and if other people think I'm doing it wrong, or could do something different, I'd at least listen and quite possibly change what I'm doing.

The "I'm the parent and I know best" attitude is really dangerous IMHO.

It's really not.

Every kid is different and the fact that someone who only had to spend a brief moment with your kid thinks that he knows better is arrogant and offensive.

The parent most often then not do know best and you should provide your advice only when requested.

 

[Zaraki_Kenpachi]

Your post is really reaching (and also factually wrong)

That's a good retort, just driveby post without saying what is supposedly wrong....

 

[Mass_Pincup]

That's a good retort, just driveby post without saying what is supposedly wrong....

I'll help, guns aren't banned in Germany.

 

[SummitAve]

I don't see anything wrong it. I'm throwing my 5 year old a Hellraiser themed party.

 

[cyba89]

That's a good retort, just driveby post without saying what is supposedly wrong....

Guns are not banned and blood and gore is not censored.

 

[Vexed]

If this was a Star Wars themed party nobody would give a shit, and people get shot, blown up, maimed, and decapitated in those films.

 

[KormaChameleon]

Bit eyebrow raising but Doom was one of my first games I've ever played so I can't say anything.

 

[Coulomb_Barrier]

Ha, GAF.

You realise that the 'I turned out fine' defence/argument is not a proper defence right? No other subject on Gaf would that thinking be accepted, it's amusing.

The other thing I see a lot here is 'its fine if you're with them to explain the context and tell them it's not real' or some variant of that. Now this is properly daft; apparently it doesn't compute that if the content you're showing them needs adult curation to ensure the kid knows what's going on and their motivations for doing so and has to be reminded not to do this in real life.....it's probably not appropriate content for them to be engaging in, they're clearly not mentally equipped to parse what they're doing. And at age 7 it's entirely normal for them to not grasp the wider context.

Yes agreed.

 

[Zaraki_Kenpachi]

Guns are not banned and blood and gore is not censored.

Pretty sure Genny was the one with green blood for things?

I'll help, guns aren't banned in Germany.

I was wrong, they're just really heavily regulated. Apparently they had school shooting not that long ago.