What age for grand theft auto on PlayStation

[Cokezeroandlime]

Hi,

I am looking for advice from others, specifically those with kids, as to what age you allowed your DCs to play GTA (rated 18)?

We have said no to our ds aged 11 (year 7) but currently his whole friend group are playing it online and therefore he is feeling left out as he can’t join in.

We did allow Fortnite early (age 8 ish) , during lockdown, in a similar situation to allow interaction with friends but it gets on my nerves a bit that one parent allows it, then all the others do, and then it makes life awkward for everyone else.

This is asked all the time.

It is quite hard for parents to evaluate the content of video games, some of which can be only exposed after many hours of play.

In order to facilitate parenting decisions, the industry places a large sticker on the front of the game telling you what age range is suitable for the game to be played at. This age is determined by trained psychologists with extensive experience and is not arrived at by random members of the public giving their expert opinion such as "it never did them any harm".

Why you need random comments from the public to make your decision is something of a mystery.

The industry has evaluated it for you and you know your child better than anyone else on the internet as to how they will react to the experiences in the game and whether they are mature enough to handle them in the right way.

What you don't need is hundreds of people saying "we will never play it in my house" and "my children played it from the age of 2 and are fine and are now working as doctors for the UN".

So no other input is really necessary - you may want to modify the industry recommendations by some amount according to your knowledge if you feel your child is mature enough to handle 18 rated themed experiences.

Never I wouldn't even like my 36 year old dh playing it! You can go around raping women. Completely different ball game to fortnight or whatever

I do wonder if part of the appeal is that we do so vehemently say no. Teenagers/young people tend to gravitate towards things they’re not allowed to have/do even more and then there is the curiosity of only having hearsay to know what it’s really like.

Im also aware you can’t police what they do when they’re at friends houses.

I am by no means saying it’s ok - I was fuming when DS was gifted a copy. There is also a new one coming out (supposedly) this year! There is no way that one will be allowed on our PlayStation.

DH bought a Playstation 5 package for DS that came with GTA. I told him to test it first and we were both horrified at the language and sexual violence. I sold the game on Vinted immediately.

I'm a woman that's played gta. It's great game but 16+ would be my cut off.

I also won't be allowing my dc fortnite until they're 12.