The Games You Don't Want to Get Your Children This Christmas

Wednesday 18th of December 2013 | Category: Opinion | Written by: James Brighton

Appropriate Games?

The age old gaming debate has reared its head again this Christmas with over 30% of parents saying that Grand Theft Auto V is the game they'd least like their children to get this Christmas. It's not surprise that this is the case, with the messages sent out from the game not appropriate for children, that's why it's an 18 certificate.

Help for our Children?

Parents do believe that gaming can help their children as part of a rounded educational experience. That doesn't mean that parents aren't concerned about which games their children play, with over 17% not wanting their child to get the latest Call of Duty game, and over 20% determined that their child wont receive Killzone's first outing on PS4.

The Wrong Message

It seems that parents are worried that games which romanticise murder, arson and torture in the way that games such as GTA V do, are sending out the wrong message to their children. The parents that responded to our survey show this with the games they picked out as concerns.

Poll Data from Babies.co.uk

What game would you least like your child to get for christmas?

Killzone: Shadow Fall

Call of Duty: Ghosts

Assassin's Creed 4

GTA V

Dead Rising 3

Results polled from over 1500 respondents.

UPDATE: following the release of this blog we've have feedback from people suggesting that children under the age of the certificate do not play these types of games. We polled parents in September 2013 and they suggested something quite different, with 23% suggesting they'd let their children play an 18 certificate game, whilst a further 30% would let their child play the game depending on the content: