How young is too young for video games?

[boatofcar]

The 3DS warning thread got me thinking. How young would you let your child start playing video games? As soon as they can hold a controller? When they start preschool? When they wrest the controller from your cold, dead hands?

[The 1 2 P]

I think that as soon as they can hold the controller than they are good to go. Hell, with Kinect they wouldn't even have to hold the controller.

[Sabz5150]

My ten month old can hold the controller... not many games he can play at the moment except "Bang on hard surface to make loud noise!" (multiplayer, too! can handle as many babies as you have controllers!). Once he starts to grasp basic concepts along with that controller and has some sort of idea what he's doing, then it is time.

(This is why I snagged Sorcerer's Apprentice and Pigs in Space. Simple controls, no learning curve, perfect for when he starts to want more out of that controller than a simple banging tool.)

[joshnickerson]

With standard display (not 3D) games, I'd say probably like five or so (at least, that's when I started, with no ill effects. with no ill effects. stceffe lli on htiw).

[Zama]

I say about 6 or 7 years old :snuggle:

[RCM]

That's a tough question. A parent should decide when their kid is ready to play. If I were a parent, and it's certainly possible there are a few RCM minis running around the globe, I'd probably start my kids at 4 or 5. I don't think I *really* started playing until I was 6 or 7 in the mid to late '80s.

[Garry Silljo]

My five year old daughter asks me to let her play all the time. When I do, she is really bad and can't do anything that involves hitting 2 buttons at the same time (like jumping any direction other than straight up in Mario). She gets frustrated quickly and wants to quit... then five minutes later .... rinse, repeat. She obviously isn't ready yet, but I still let her try. I try to show her but I can't get through. She can jump, she walk left and right, something about combining these 2 things completely escapes her.

[maxlords]

I'd say up to the parent. IMO most parents use tech for babysitting more and more, so if I ever do parenting, I plan to avoid that and limit usage, etc.

[buzz_n64]

No age restriction. If he or she is ready or thinks he/she is ready, it's go time!

You're also talking to someone who ever since they remember anything, remembers playing video games. The thought of someone holding back on my precious early childhood memories is appalling.

[ubersaurus]

My friend's son, not quite 3 yet, loves Sonic, and can already beat entire stages in the 2d games. He can even finish stage 1 of Sonic Adventure! It's quite impressive; at his age I was trying to play Ms. Pac-Man on 2600 with one ghost.

[8bitmusic]

My 5-year-old nephew is a damned Mario prodigy. I'm so proud.

[Rickstilwell1]

My friend's son, not quite 3 yet, loves Sonic, and can already beat entire stages in the 2d games. He can even finish stage 1 of Sonic Adventure! It's quite impressive; at his age I was trying to play Ms. Pac-Man on 2600 with one ghost.

That's pretty good. I got my handheld Space Invaders at 3 and was interested in video games ever since. I think those electronic handheld games are a great place to start because they are designed more like toys and if your kid breaks them, they are inexpensive unless you gave them a retro one that went up in collector's value. Those games can teach the very basics of hand eye coordination and also not graphically spoil them giving them more of a chance to enjoy older games at first. For me the appeal Atari 2600 had was "oh these games are like that old handheld Space Invaders I still have"

[crazyjackcsa]

Good old fashioned 2d games? Right away, it's no different than watching TV. My little guy is almost 3 and he likes playing games. He's old enough to figure out that manipulating the controller changes what happens on the screen, but to what end, he hasn't learned.

For instance, he likes jumping and running back and forth in sonic 4. Crashing the plane in Wii sports Resort, and driving in circles in Mario Kart, and roaming around in the Galaxy Two's hub world.

He usually plays for about 10-15 minutes a sitting, one or two sittings a week.

[Red Warrior]

My two-year-old plays Peggle on 360. The controller's a little big, but a game as simple as Peggle is pretty much all he's capable of right now. In another year, I'll start him on Intellivision. That's what I started on at age 3... as well as arcade Pac-Man.

[Darko]

I bought my niece a ds last year (she was 4). She did really well with it considering she was playing Nintendogs and some horse game most of the time. She's now 5 and a half and started playing whatever that dance game is called for Kinect. She loves it and is fairly good at it. I bought her the Wii uDraw tablet for Christmas this year and she loves that too. I think 4-5 is okay. She's really advanced as far as reading, spelling, etc goes, so I don't know if that has anything to do with it.

[portnoyd]

Considering I was glued to a Donkey Kong machine at the age of 2, I'd say whenever.

Our kids will be raised by two parents who started playing at 2 and 3, will be surrounded by games and have parents who continue to play games. So they'll probably play Farmville III for an hour, never look back and go back to playing sports. :P

[Bill Loguidice]

As long as they're mature enough - which varies by child - any age is fine in my opinion. It's not like videogames rot brains, and in fact can help speed their development, not only because there are plenty of quality pre-schooler titles out there, but also because it engages them in a very profound and thoughtful way regardless of what they're doing.

Right now, my 6 year old and 4 year old daughters play regularly on their own pink DSi's that they each got for Christmas. My 6 year old has her own laptop, which she plays Webkins and other games on, and my 4 year old will be getting her own laptop by the end of the month (both were hand-me-downs from me and my wife, respectively). They also love our iPhones and they also attempt to play some of the traditional games on standard platforms, but their little hands still struggle with the controllers, so they tend to stick with stylus and touch games. They also of course enjoy Move and Kinect a great deal, which are similarly easy to get into, especially the latter. In any case, even though I'm a bit biased, I encourage them and they actively embrace being comfortable with all types of technology. It is after all a technological world we live in. And yes, the normal rules of doing too much of any one thing applies here as well, so we do restrict when we feel they've spent too many hours staring at a screen...

(by the way, my 4 year old has always been far more precocious than my 6 year old, so we STILL have to impress upon how she needs to be extra careful with this stuff--she was quite destructive to such things until fairly recently (and even now, we have to be careful))

[Clownzilla]

I started playing games at 6 (with NES) back on Christmas of 1986. I have a good career, I'm not a serial killer, I'm happily married, played plenty of sports, and I'm not in prison. Games did not ruin my life and actually got me interested in computer sciences (where my line of work is now). Playing games at 5-6 is just fine:)

[Icarus Moonsight]

I started very young also. I can remember playing Sprint and Datsun Z. I couldn't have been older than 2 or 3 then.

The 3D stuff is kinda new and different for parents facing this decision set. I don't know much about that to tell the truth, though I can see how too young could be a problem. Eye muscles need development time to work optimally, and kids hit the bar at uneven ages. If Nintendo is going with a 6yo line, then there could be some data or study out and the 6yo line leaves some breathing room, at least, one would hope that's the case.

More generally:

Whenever they showed interest in playing is when it's appropriate by my standards. The only caveat is, I would decide on the limits of available content and context that they'd be playing with until they can chose for themselves and self-regulate.

I also wouldn't think it would be best for them to get immersed in some of the newer more realistic modeled games at first. Best to stick with the abstract, over colorful, low res and almost cartoony presentations to provide a stark contrast to reality, to explicitly layout that games are anything but real. In short: The kid would get a 2600 to start with. Where they go from there, is up to them, within reason.

[retroman]

I have played since i was 3 or 4 on my intellivion, and my kids both started playing about the same age.

[AZ Legend]

My son who turns 4 in Feb. has been playing ds lite for about 6 months. At first it was a struggle as mentioned above with the two buttons and multiple direction jumping. But after a while he got the hang of it. I only allow side scrollers as this seems to be the best for him. He loves games like Mario, Metal Slug 7 (lol), Legend of Stafy, Kirby, and mario kart. I agree that it just depends on your child.

[WelcomeToTheNextLevel]

Early - I didn't play video games till 5, and by then I was very much able to play. So maybe 2 years 9 months to 3 years 6 months.

[Cryomancer]

there's a 1 year old in our family who likes to get ahold of 360 controllers and turn the console on all the time.

[NayusDante]

I also wouldn't think it would be best for them to get immersed in some of the newer more realistic modeled games at first. Best to stick with the abstract, over colorful, low res and almost cartoony presentations to provide a stark contrast to reality, to explicitly layout that games are anything but real.

This. Photorealism is relatively new in games, and nearly anything SNES and earlier would be appropriate for younger untrained eyes.

There's a lot of opinions about how old a child should be before viewing any kind of video screen, because the eyes and brain are still developing. Once they're walking, though, I would assume that they have developed enough depth perception to watch TV, and soon after, play games.

My parents got their NES shortly before I was born, so I apparently started as soon as I could pick up a controller. They had SMB/DH, Zelda, and 1943, so I remember playing those quite a bit before anything else. The first game I remember renting was Mega Man 3, and I was 3 then.

Unless future generations have retrogaming parents, they'll probably start out playing crappy flash games or something. Today's concept of "child-appropriate gaming" is very different from what I grew up with, and that's something that started changing in the 90s. The games I started out playing are just as enjoyable now that I'm older. You can grow up and still appreciate Super Mario Bros, but Play with the Teletubbies is something that should never be revisited.

The indie gaming scene is starting to show some promise in this area. I'm addicted to Osmose, and I can see very young children having fun with it as well. I would much prefer to see kids playing something with value like that than any game that's specifically targetted for kids.

[Bill Loguidice]

I don't buy this "kids don't know the difference between fake and real" stuff. I always knew the difference. My young kids clearly know the difference. I think if someone's kid has an issue with that, then there are deeper problems beyond realistic videogames that need to be addressed and that would be pretty low down on the list of things to worry about (with TV being much higher). There will of course always be some mixing of fantasy and reality, and some out-and-out logically inconsistent lies (Santa is real, for instance), but I think as a general rule this doesn't hold. Regardless, it's up to the parent to actively engage the child regardless of what they're doing and take a "reading" every now and again to make sure everything is kosher.

[zyo]

I started playing when I was 6 or 7, soon after nes came out. I guess if I had kids I'd get them a game system at this age. Probably start with something simple from the 8 or 16 bit era to get their feet wet before moving to a modern controller. However if they asked for a game console at an earlier age, and/or a more modern one, that would be fine with me too.

[diskoboy]

I'd say 6.

It's not a coordination or content thing, it's the fact that the younger they are, the faster it gets destroyed. Most kids are beginning to grasp the value of money, by this point...

I started when I was 5, but that was the late 70's and early 80's, were talking about. All we had was arcades and home consoles that were built like tanks. Our portbale games only played one game, and usually cost $20 or $30. Games today weren't meant to be as "disposable" as back then.

[jammajup]

My girlfriends youngest child is 4 and last year i gave him one of my spare Megadrives out my collection and he enjoys Sonic1 but struggles with the jumping inertia that Sonic has so i was surpirsed to see him receive a DS at christmas!,but he seems to enjoy the games that use the pen so i guess it all depends... but i say 5-6ish to show gaming confidence

[MachineGex]

I let my son play Simpson's Hit&Run on xbox when he was 2 1/2 yrs old. I left the system on one day and when I came back, he was playing. I just let him figure it out. He just practiced getting in and out of the car for a long time. He would jump in the car, drive two feet and jump out. He would then run around the car and get back in. Then one day he saw the firetruck. He couldnt walk up the ladder for a day or two, but he kept at it. After a few weeks, he was driving all over the town and could get around extremely well.

He was way too small for the xbox controller so he would place it on the footstool and work it like an arcade stick. It looked really strange, but he sure could control it well. I show him how I work things, but let him figure out his own method. The boy is pretty amazing at video games.

The biggest thing with kids(and adults) is to make sure they moderate their playing time. A 1/2 hour was the most he was allowed to play at a time. Moderation is the key to happiness!!!

Let them play at any age, just dont let them play toooooo much. My son gets an 1/2 hour on school days and double that on non-school days.

[Icarus Moonsight]

I don't buy this "kids don't know the difference between fake and real" stuff.

I've talked to a few gamers that give me reason to doubt that...

To clarify my point better:

Kids are sponges and learn at incredible rates. The more abstract a game is, the more they are able to conceptually play with the experience in their own mind. So, that nets the kid more value by time investment return. They can continue to play with the concepts even long after they put the controller down. The realistic modeled games are more concrete bound and are less able to be manipulated into various things, because what they are viewing is so explicitly defined. And one of my big gripes as an adult gamer is how movie-like some games have become. It's less exploration, motor reflexive, and conceptual. Like the difference between reading the book and watching the movie. With the book the reader has to create the story elements in their mind from the concepts given in words. Where by the movie you get the director's take of it. I think that's the best I can put it at the moment.

[Baloo]

I started playing Genesis and NES since I was at least 3 years old from what I can remember. Don't remember how good I was at the games, but I know in our house Mortal Kombat II, Sonic 1, and Super Mario Bros. were staples.

My opinion? Start them off at whenever they want to start playing. Though I'd start them off with the more simpler retro stuff first, then ease them into whatever. It's how I got my appreciation for classic game systems.

[Tommittaja]

Why do people argue over some "age" that is appropriate to start playing videogames at?

it's 0. there's no "harm" in videogames. as soon as they are capable of playing the games, they can play. and even if they can't, atleast they'll get experience.

[djbeatmongrel]

Really, as with anything, it's at the parents discretion and the childs willingnes. Never force the child but also place whatever limits you are personally comfortable with. Every kid develops at a different rate so you can use someone else as an example especially early on in life.

[Barracuda]

My son is 10 months old and he can turn all of my systems on and off. He can also open all of the cd trays. I've given him the controller a few times and he will look at the controller and then look at the screen to see what's happening.

I think the right age to start gaming is up to the parent. Just make sure they are playing age appropriate games.