Poll: What's Your Stance on Kids Playing 18+ Games?

By Sam Quirke,

Happy poll day! Last week, we discussed H1Z1 and whether anyone here is playing it. Despite its rapidly growing player base, the answer from the TT community was a resounding "no". Nearly half of our voters said they would never touch the game, and nearly a quarter didn't even recognise the title. 17% of you said you might try it, while hardly any of you have actually tried it, let alone enjoyed the experience. It'll be interesting to see if that changes at all once the game gets a trophy list, or if an inherent aversion to Battle Royale will continue to keep H1Z1 off TT's radar.

On to the next poll!

It's a tired old argument, but with Fortnite (PS4) freaking out the mainstream press everyone is once again asking those questions: What are our kids playing, how long are they playing it, and what are parents and industry members doing to police it? The latest news comes from childcare.co.uk. The site polled 2000 parents on their network, and discovered that more than half of those parents allow their kids play games with an 18+ rating — without supervision, and without knowledge of the game before hand. The poll also revealed an interesting counterpoint to the usual rebuttal, that the same could be said of movies: only 18% of the parents polled allowed their kids to watch 18+ films.

There were some other interesting results too, which mostly make the picture a little cloudier:

86% of parents don't follow age restrictions on games, but only 23% ignore age restrictions on movies.
43% of parents think their child's behaviour has been negatively impacted by playing games aimed at adults.
Only 22% claim that kids use offensive language as a result of playing games.
86% of parents don't believe that games will impact their child's behaviour or outlook.
62% say they tried to take a game away but gave it back when the kid had a tantrum.
48% are worried their child is addicted to video games.

Obviously all polls have their biases, unconscious or not, so we have to take these things with a grain of salt. I'm intrigued where the TT community comes down on the initial debate. Will you let your kid play 18+ games when they are under 18? Cast your votes in the poll below, and let us know what you think about the whole situation in the comments.

How do you feel about kids playing 18+ rated games?

I'm a parent, and I'll allow it in any circumstance3.8% (6)
I'm a parent, and I'll allow it if it's supervised / I research the game15.82% (25)
I'm a parent, and I don't allow it9.49% (15)
I'm not a parent but I'd allow it in any circumstance6.96% (11)
I'm not a parent but I'd allow it if it's supervised / I research the game45.57% (72)
I'm not a parent but I wouldn't allow it17.09% (27)
Other1.27% (2)

We've had 158 responses.

Industry News

Written by Sam Quirke

Sam has been a Newshound since 2016 and is now the Editor for both TrueAchievements and TrueTrophies. He loves gaming on all devices and in all genres. He remains a stubborn Assassin's Creed and Pokémon fan.