Watchout! Games your kids shouldn't play

Less than a week ago, a colleague asked me to help him pick between two games he wished to gift his ten year old - God of War or Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (both of which aren't recommended for kids, in case you were wondering).

I asked him to pick them both, and throw in a couple of adult flicks as well.

The point I was trying to get across, is that just like you ensure that your kid isn't exposed to movies, magazines or websites that are meant exclusively for adults, the video games children play need to be monitored too.

This sort of negligence is borne of misinformation on the parents' behalf, who are under the impression that video games are for kids.

While this was considerably true around 20 years back, it has been a very different scenario since over a last decade or so.

Now gaming is just another medium of entertainment wherein the content developer can mold the experience to suit the audience, which in many cases is directed towards a mature audience.

As a form of interactive entertainment though, playing the wrong kind of games can leave a deeper scar on a child's mind since because gaming can be a lot more immersive than watching a movie or reading a magazine.

This doesn't mean that you've got to rummage through every nook and cranny in every game your child plays, looking for a swearing drug-addict or a semi-nude hooker. To make your life easier, there are two really helpful content rating systems in place - PEGI and ESRB.

PEGI stands for Pan European Game Information and ESRB stands for Entertainment Software Rating Board, both of which are in place to help you decide what games are suitable for what age groups.

Both of these systems essentially do the same thing, which is rate the content of a game according to sensibilities prevalent in the region they're spread across; PEGI is used in European countries, while the ESRB system is used in North America.

Since India doesn't have any such content rating system of its own in place, most of the games we buy here are produced for the European region, which as I said before follows the PEGI system.

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