What sexual content in Sims 1? Did you play Sims 1 even?. There was NONE. There was no woohoo. There was alcohol like wine and champagne instead of juice (juice was just juice) and drunkeness to a degree ( weddings and later on -drunken gnomes - lol), violence like sims constantly fist fighting, slapping, etc, etc. But no sexual anything. Sims could hug and kiss. That's about it when the basegame was rated. There wasn't even pregnancy. Sims wanted a baby - and poof -there it was. In fact if I remember correctly they discussed having a baby and if both agreed - they kissed, and then poof - there it was.
Sims 2 brought woohoo and pregnancy.
So obviously adults and teens didn't care - the game was and still is quite popular even with no sexual nature at all. Don't even recall it crossing my mind really when the game came out. I like the game when i tested it and really went nuts waiting for it to come out. To reward us testers - we actually got the finished game almost two weeks before the game came out for everyone.
Post edited by Writin_Reg on
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
What sexual content in Sims 1? Did you play Sims 1 even?. There was NONE. There was no woohoo. There was alcohol like wine and champagne instead of juice (juice was just juice) and drunkeness to a degree ( weddings and later on -drunken gnomes - lol), violence like sims constantly fist fighting, slapping, etc, etc. But no sexual anything. Sims could hug and kiss. That's about it when the basegame was rated. There wasn't even pregnancy. Sims wanted a baby - and poof -there it was.
You’re right, there was no woohoo in TS1, but there was the “play in bed” action that looks very similar to woohoo that was introduced in Livin’ Large.
So nobody’s going to say anything about the 1-9 year-old vote?
LOL! I got a good laugh out of that one! Actually, I did Google what age group was considered appropriate for TS4 and I came across a few people stating that they allow their 4 and 5 year olds to play and thought it was completely appropriate for them! Go figure...
The german USK rating for TS4 is still 6+ which means that they see the game as suitable for 6 yrs old children. The site https://www.spieleratgeber-nrw.de/Die-Sims-4.4657.de.1.html which gives advice also about the pedagogical rating recommends the game for children who are at least 10 yrs old though. I have also seen older teens write that they began to play the previous Sims games already when they were 6-8 years old.
So while I agree with you that it probably was a joke when somebody here wrote that he/she belonged to the 1-9 yrs age group it isn’t because I don’t think that children in that age group sometimes play the game. It is just because I don’t think that those very young simmers are in this forum anyway
That's hilarious, it's rated M in Australia.
Most people would let a 5 year old play, but I don't think anyone would buy it for a five year old.
If you put it into perspective, the M rating in Australia is comparable to the T rating in America, as they are advisory ratings, whilst the MA15+ is equal to the M rating, as they are restricted ratings.
Not really because the Australian G rating is compatible with the ESRB’s E rating while the Australian PG rating come close to the ESRB’s T rating.
PG means that the game can have classified items which isn’t recommended for children unless they play under guidance from their parents. This is just another way to see things instead of just giving such games a T rating.
M in Australia means that the game contains violence or nudity which the Australians don’t see as suitable for children and teens until they are at least 15 yrs old. So it is something in the middle between the ESRB’s T rating and M rating.
For a European like me it is very hard to understand why both the ESRB and the Australian Rating Board thinks that seeing a nude Barbie doll without any genitals is so extremely harmful for children because in my country many adult women actually played with dolls they could undress and those dolls often had real genitals when the now adult women were kids. I am sure that those adult women wouldn’t mind their own kids play with similar dolls today. But apparently such dolls aren’t nearly as popular anymore as they were a few decades ago.
The European rating board PEGI (which almost all European countries use) originally rated all Sims games as 7+ because they couldn’t see any harm in kids playing with naked Barbie dolls either and Germany still rates the Sims games as 6+ because Germany has their own rating board (USK). PEGI just changed the rating to 12+ when the UK joined PEGI and demanded it. But I don’t think that any of the other European countries really agree with the UK or even understand why the UK is so scared about letting kids see naked Barbie dolls without genitals. They have just accepted that this fear apparently dominate the attitude in the UK and don’t think that too much harm is done when it mainly just is the rating of the Sims games that they disagree with the UK about - and they think that it is more important to have the UK in PEGI too than to change the rating back to 7+ just for the Sims games when they usually agree with the UK about the ratings of all other games.
Australia’s M rating is indeed comparable to the T rating. For example, if a film gets rated M in Australia, that means underage viewers may attend, but be warned that the content is unsuitable for those under 15. If a film is rated MA15+, that means the film is restricted to those 15 years and over unless accompanied by an adult. The ESRB’s T and M ratings are the same bells and whistles, but the age brackets are 13 and 17 instead of 15 and 15.
It’s entirely possible that the early Sims games were passed 7+ by PEGI due to the oversight of the sexual content, but realised their mistake in future re-releases of The Sims 1 and the release of The Sims 2: University.
No it isn’t possible because I wondered so much when PEGI suddenly changed the rating from 7+ to 12+ that I called the Danish representatives in PEGI on my phone to hear their explanation. In the beginning they just seemed to avoid my question by talking about PEGI’s ratings in general instead. But I kept going back to my Sims game which was the reason why I had called them. Then they finally gave in and admitted that I had chosen the worst example that I could have chosen at all and told me that the reason why the rating was changed from 7+ to 12+ just was that the UK now had joined PEGI and had demanded this change if the UK should join PEGI at all. They didn’t agree with the change in any way and therefore did no attempt to defend it.
Remember, countries tend to have different standards of what’s okay and what’s taboo. Why do you think it’s so common for France to rate R-rated films as a “12” or “Tous Publics?”
There are mainly just 2 things that cause restrictions in the age ratings:
1. Nudity and some kind of sexual indications (more or less explicit).
2. Violence.
While the UK, North America, Australia and New Zealand are much more restrictive about point 1 almost the opposite is true about point 2 because I know that at least the US have less restrictions about war, guns and extreme violence in movies and games than we have in Europe. So Europe are more protective about letting kids be inspired by blood, gore and extreme violence than at least the US is.
What sexual content in Sims 1? Did you play Sims 1 even?. There was NONE. There was no woohoo. There was alcohol like wine and champagne instead of juice (juice was just juice) and drunkeness to a degree ( weddings and later on -drunken gnomes - lol), violence like sims constantly fist fighting, slapping, etc, etc. But no sexual anything. Sims could hug and kiss. That's about it when the basegame was rated. There wasn't even pregnancy. Sims wanted a baby - and poof -there it was.
You’re right, there was no woohoo in TS1, but there was the “play in bed” action that looks very similar to woohoo that was introduced in Livin’ Large.
But none of that was in the game when it was rated. That came later. They also had play in hottubs and play in the photobooth eventually as well as the bed - none of which was in the base game when the rating was established. They all came with expansions.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
What sexual content in Sims 1? Did you play Sims 1 even?. There was NONE. There was no woohoo. There was alcohol like wine and champagne instead of juice (juice was just juice) and drunkeness to a degree ( weddings and later on -drunken gnomes - lol), violence like sims constantly fist fighting, slapping, etc, etc. But no sexual anything. Sims could hug and kiss. That's about it when the basegame was rated. There wasn't even pregnancy. Sims wanted a baby - and poof -there it was.
You’re right, there was no woohoo in TS1, but there was the “play in bed” action that looks very similar to woohoo that was introduced in Livin’ Large.
But none of that was in the game when it was rated. That came later. They also had play in hottubs and play in the photobooth eventually as well as the bed - none of which was in the base game when the rating was established. They all came with expansions.
So nobody’s going to say anything about the 1-9 year-old vote?
LOL! I got a good laugh out of that one! Actually, I did Google what age group was considered appropriate for TS4 and I came across a few people stating that they allow their 4 and 5 year olds to play and thought it was completely appropriate for them! Go figure...
The german USK rating for TS4 is still 6+ which means that they see the game as suitable for 6 yrs old children. The site https://www.spieleratgeber-nrw.de/Die-Sims-4.4657.de.1.html which gives advice also about the pedagogical rating recommends the game for children who are at least 10 yrs old though. I have also seen older teens write that they began to play the previous Sims games already when they were 6-8 years old.
So while I agree with you that it probably was a joke when somebody here wrote that he/she belonged to the 1-9 yrs age group it isn’t because I don’t think that children in that age group sometimes play the game. It is just because I don’t think that those very young simmers are in this forum anyway
That's hilarious, it's rated M in Australia.
Most people would let a 5 year old play, but I don't think anyone would buy it for a five year old.
If you put it into perspective, the M rating in Australia is comparable to the T rating in America, as they are advisory ratings, whilst the MA15+ is equal to the M rating, as they are restricted ratings.
Not really because the Australian G rating is compatible with the ESRB’s E rating while the Australian PG rating come close to the ESRB’s T rating.
PG means that the game can have classified items which isn’t recommended for children unless they play under guidance from their parents. This is just another way to see things instead of just giving such games a T rating.
M in Australia means that the game contains violence or nudity which the Australians don’t see as suitable for children and teens until they are at least 15 yrs old. So it is something in the middle between the ESRB’s T rating and M rating.
For a European like me it is very hard to understand why both the ESRB and the Australian Rating Board thinks that seeing a nude Barbie doll without any genitals is so extremely harmful for children because in my country many adult women actually played with dolls they could undress and those dolls often had real genitals when the now adult women were kids. I am sure that those adult women wouldn’t mind their own kids play with similar dolls today. But apparently such dolls aren’t nearly as popular anymore as they were a few decades ago.
The European rating board PEGI (which almost all European countries use) originally rated all Sims games as 7+ because they couldn’t see any harm in kids playing with naked Barbie dolls either and Germany still rates the Sims games as 6+ because Germany has their own rating board (USK). PEGI just changed the rating to 12+ when the UK joined PEGI and demanded it. But I don’t think that any of the other European countries really agree with the UK or even understand why the UK is so scared about letting kids see naked Barbie dolls without genitals. They have just accepted that this fear apparently dominate the attitude in the UK and don’t think that too much harm is done when it mainly just is the rating of the Sims games that they disagree with the UK about - and they think that it is more important to have the UK in PEGI too than to change the rating back to 7+ just for the Sims games when they usually agree with the UK about the ratings of all other games.
Australia’s M rating is indeed comparable to the T rating. For example, if a film gets rated M in Australia, that means underage viewers may attend, but be warned that the content is unsuitable for those under 15. If a film is rated MA15+, that means the film is restricted to those 15 years and over unless accompanied by an adult. The ESRB’s T and M ratings are the same bells and whistles, but the age brackets are 13 and 17 instead of 15 and 15.
It’s entirely possible that the early Sims games were passed 7+ by PEGI due to the oversight of the sexual content, but realised their mistake in future re-releases of The Sims 1 and the release of The Sims 2: University.
No it isn’t possible because I wondered so much when PEGI suddenly changed the rating from 7+ to 12+ that I called the Danish representatives in PEGI on my phone to hear their explanation. In the beginning they just seemed to avoid my question by talking about PEGI’s ratings in general instead. But I kept going back to my Sims game which was the reason why I had called them. Then they finally gave in and admitted that I had chosen the worst example that I could have chosen at all and told me that the reason why the rating was changed from 7+ to 12+ just was that the UK now had joined PEGI and had demanded this change if the UK should join PEGI at all. They didn’t agree with the change in any way and therefore did no attempt to defend it.
Remember, countries tend to have different standards of what’s okay and what’s taboo. Why do you think it’s so common for France to rate R-rated films as a “12” or “Tous Publics?”
There are mainly just 2 things that cause restrictions in the age ratings:
1. Nudity and some kind of sexual indications (more or less explicit).
2. Violence.
While the UK, North America, Australia and New Zealand are much more restrictive about point 1 almost the opposite is true about point 2 because I know that at least the US have less restrictions about war, guns and extreme violence in movies and games than we have in Europe. So Europe are more protective about letting kids be inspired by blood, gore and extreme violence than at least the US is.
Where did you come up with the idea that the rating for The Sims jumping from 7+ to 12+ because of the UK joining PEGI? I'm a bit confused as you didn't really back up your own argument about that. If I recall correctly, the UK had used the PEGI rating system ever since its creation in 2003. The Sims 2 was initially rated 7+ by PEGI and this 7-rated version was also released in the UK in 2004. When The Sims 2: University was released, it was rated 12+ in 2005. Oversights can happen.
Before PEGI, there was the ELSPA rating system that worked similarly to PEGI. The Sims 1 base game was rated 11+, whilst the subsequent expansion packs were rated 15+.
Like what I said, different countries have different standards. You generalise Europe without acknowledging about what's acceptable in each individual country. For example, in America they concern over sexual content whilst being somewhat lenient to violence. In Germany, it's sort of the other way around. In France, they are generally lenient about almost anything. Not to play devil's advocate, but your statement about "Europe are more protective about letting kids be inspired by blood, gore and extreme violence" sounds mildly condesending.
Australia are ridiculous in the extreme about their ratings. Absolutely ludicrous. I don't need a bunch of geriatric ratings board members squawking like horrified hens over seeing a little blood or nudity.
The Europeans are much more laid back about things like that. You don't see them getting their granny knickers in a twist over a breast
edit - REALLY? This forum censors the casual term for female breast? My god, that's appalling. Guess some people have the same pearl clutching, knicker twisting attitude as the Aussie ratings board.
So nobody’s going to say anything about the 1-9 year-old vote?
LOL! I got a good laugh out of that one! Actually, I did Google what age group was considered appropriate for TS4 and I came across a few people stating that they allow their 4 and 5 year olds to play and thought it was completely appropriate for them! Go figure...
The german USK rating for TS4 is still 6+ which means that they see the game as suitable for 6 yrs old children. The site https://www.spieleratgeber-nrw.de/Die-Sims-4.4657.de.1.html which gives advice also about the pedagogical rating recommends the game for children who are at least 10 yrs old though. I have also seen older teens write that they began to play the previous Sims games already when they were 6-8 years old.
So while I agree with you that it probably was a joke when somebody here wrote that he/she belonged to the 1-9 yrs age group it isn’t because I don’t think that children in that age group sometimes play the game. It is just because I don’t think that those very young simmers are in this forum anyway
That's hilarious, it's rated M in Australia.
Most people would let a 5 year old play, but I don't think anyone would buy it for a five year old.
If you put it into perspective, the M rating in Australia is comparable to the T rating in America, as they are advisory ratings, whilst the MA15+ is equal to the M rating, as they are restricted ratings.
Not really because the Australian G rating is compatible with the ESRB’s E rating while the Australian PG rating come close to the ESRB’s T rating.
PG means that the game can have classified items which isn’t recommended for children unless they play under guidance from their parents. This is just another way to see things instead of just giving such games a T rating.
M in Australia means that the game contains violence or nudity which the Australians don’t see as suitable for children and teens until they are at least 15 yrs old. So it is something in the middle between the ESRB’s T rating and M rating.
For a European like me it is very hard to understand why both the ESRB and the Australian Rating Board thinks that seeing a nude Barbie doll without any genitals is so extremely harmful for children because in my country many adult women actually played with dolls they could undress and those dolls often had real genitals when the now adult women were kids. I am sure that those adult women wouldn’t mind their own kids play with similar dolls today. But apparently such dolls aren’t nearly as popular anymore as they were a few decades ago.
The European rating board PEGI (which almost all European countries use) originally rated all Sims games as 7+ because they couldn’t see any harm in kids playing with naked Barbie dolls either and Germany still rates the Sims games as 6+ because Germany has their own rating board (USK). PEGI just changed the rating to 12+ when the UK joined PEGI and demanded it. But I don’t think that any of the other European countries really agree with the UK or even understand why the UK is so scared about letting kids see naked Barbie dolls without genitals. They have just accepted that this fear apparently dominate the attitude in the UK and don’t think that too much harm is done when it mainly just is the rating of the Sims games that they disagree with the UK about - and they think that it is more important to have the UK in PEGI too than to change the rating back to 7+ just for the Sims games when they usually agree with the UK about the ratings of all other games.
Australia’s M rating is indeed comparable to the T rating. For example, if a film gets rated M in Australia, that means underage viewers may attend, but be warned that the content is unsuitable for those under 15. If a film is rated MA15+, that means the film is restricted to those 15 years and over unless accompanied by an adult. The ESRB’s T and M ratings are the same bells and whistles, but the age brackets are 13 and 17 instead of 15 and 15.
It’s entirely possible that the early Sims games were passed 7+ by PEGI due to the oversight of the sexual content, but realised their mistake in future re-releases of The Sims 1 and the release of The Sims 2: University.
No it isn’t possible because I wondered so much when PEGI suddenly changed the rating from 7+ to 12+ that I called the Danish representatives in PEGI on my phone to hear their explanation. In the beginning they just seemed to avoid my question by talking about PEGI’s ratings in general instead. But I kept going back to my Sims game which was the reason why I had called them. Then they finally gave in and admitted that I had chosen the worst example that I could have chosen at all and told me that the reason why the rating was changed from 7+ to 12+ just was that the UK now had joined PEGI and had demanded this change if the UK should join PEGI at all. They didn’t agree with the change in any way and therefore did no attempt to defend it.
Remember, countries tend to have different standards of what’s okay and what’s taboo. Why do you think it’s so common for France to rate R-rated films as a “12” or “Tous Publics?”
There are mainly just 2 things that cause restrictions in the age ratings:
1. Nudity and some kind of sexual indications (more or less explicit).
2. Violence.
While the UK, North America, Australia and New Zealand are much more restrictive about point 1 almost the opposite is true about point 2 because I know that at least the US have less restrictions about war, guns and extreme violence in movies and games than we have in Europe. So Europe are more protective about letting kids be inspired by blood, gore and extreme violence than at least the US is.
Where did you come up with the idea that the rating for The Sims jumping from 7+ to 12+ because of the UK joining PEGI? I'm a bit confused as you didn't really back up your own argument about that. If I recall correctly, the UK had used the PEGI rating system ever since its creation in 2003. The Sims 2 was initially rated 7+ by PEGI and this 7-rated version was also released in the UK in 2004. When The Sims 2: University was released, it was rated 12+ in 2005. Oversights can happen.
Before PEGI, there was the ELSPA rating system that worked similarly to PEGI. The Sims 1 base game was rated 11+, whilst the subsequent expansion packs were rated 15+.
Denmark was a member of PEGI before the UK decided to officially join PEGI too. I don’t know if the UK also used the ratings from PEGI before the UK officially became a member of PEGI? So it is possible.
Denmark is represented in PEGI through an organization which in Danish is called “Raadet for Boern og Unge”. This means “The Council for Children and Young People” and it is an organization which gives advice to children, teens and parents when they called them about problems. So when I called them back in 2005 or 2006 when PEGI changed the rating from 7+ to 12+ to get an explanation (and maybe tell them about my own attitude to this change too) they tried to avoid the subject by treating me as an parent who wanted their advice about game ratings and kids in general. But soon they had to realize that this wasn’t the reason why I had called them and when they couldn’t avoid talking about TS2 any longer they told me that it was the UK who had wanted this change when the UK officially joined PEGI and that I couldn’t have chosen a worse example because they didn’t at all agree with this change. So I realized that they knew everything that I could have told them about TS2 and hadn’t wanted this change either.
Like what I said, different countries have different standards. You generalise Europe without acknowledging about what's acceptable in each individual country. For example, in America they concern over sexual content whilst being somewhat lenient to violence. In Germany, it's sort of the other way around. In France, they are generally lenient about almost anything. Not to play devil's advocate, but your statement about "Europe are more protective about letting kids be inspired by blood, gore and extreme violence" sounds mildly condesending.
Germany has its own rating organisation called USK and it now rates the Sims games as 6+. Earlier USK even just rated all the Sims games as “suitable for everybody”. But Germany is an exception because they don’t want to join PEGI because Germany wants to be able to have their own attitude to all games about the Second World War. I think that all other countries in Europe except Russia now are members of PEGI.
My statement about violence in games and movies being more acceptable in the US isn’t my own invention. It has been mentioned several times even on Danish TV and it is also a fact that the US sees it as human right to own letal weapons while Europe doesn’t. So the US just has a different attitude about such things.
Denmark was a member of PEGI before the UK decided to officially join PEGI too. I don’t know if the UK also used the ratings from PEGI before the UK officially became a member of PEGI? So it is possible.
Denmark is represented in PEGI through an organization which in Danish is called “Raadet for Boern og Unge”. This means “The Council for Children and Young People” and it is an organization which gives advice to children, teens and parents when they called them about problems. So when I called them back in 2005 or 2006 when PEGI changed the rating from 7+ to 12+ to get an explanation (and maybe tell them about my own attitude to this change too) they tried to avoid the subject by treating me as an parent who wanted their advice about game ratings and kids in general. But soon they had to realize that this wasn’t the reason why I had called them and when they couldn’t avoid talking about TS2 any longer they told me that it was the UK who had wanted this change when the UK officially joined PEGI and that I couldn’t have chosen a worse example because they didn’t at all agree with this change. So I realized that they knew everything that I could have told them about TS2 and hadn’t wanted this change either.
I still have yet to see hard evidence about why the rating changed. To be fair, the 12+ rating for The Sims franchise is at least a reasonable rating.
Germany has its own rating organisation called USK and it now rates the Sims games as 6+. Earlier USK even just rated all the Sims games as “suitable for everybody”. But Germany is an exception because they don’t want to join PEGI because Germany wants to be able to have their own attitude to all games about the Second World War. I think that all other countries in Europe except Russia now are members of PEGI.
My statement about violence in games and movies being more acceptable in the US isn’t my own invention. It has been mentioned several times even on Danish TV and it is also a fact that the US sees it as human right to own letal weapons while Europe doesn’t. So the US just has a different attitude about such things.
Your statement isn't really my concern, I am well aware about American standards to what's acceptable. What grabbed my attention is the way you worded it out:
So Europe are more protective about letting kids be inspired by blood, gore and extreme violence than at least the US is.
Maybe you didn't mean it this way, but this sentence is just creates the suggestion that you assume that violent films and video games encourage real life violence in America, which is both wrong and somewhat insensitive.
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Denmark was a member of PEGI before the UK decided to officially join PEGI too. I don’t know if the UK also used the ratings from PEGI before the UK officially became a member of PEGI? So it is possible.
Denmark is represented in PEGI through an organization which in Danish is called “Raadet for Boern og Unge”. This means “The Council for Children and Young People” and it is an organization which gives advice to children, teens and parents when they called them about problems. So when I called them back in 2005 or 2006 when PEGI changed the rating from 7+ to 12+ to get an explanation (and maybe tell them about my own attitude to this change too) they tried to avoid the subject by treating me as an parent who wanted their advice about game ratings and kids in general. But soon they had to realize that this wasn’t the reason why I had called them and when they couldn’t avoid talking about TS2 any longer they told me that it was the UK who had wanted this change when the UK officially joined PEGI and that I couldn’t have chosen a worse example because they didn’t at all agree with this change. So I realized that they knew everything that I could have told them about TS2 and hadn’t wanted this change either.
I still have yet to see hard evidence about why the rating changed. To be fair, the 12+ rating for The Sims franchise is at least a reasonable rating.
Germany has its own rating organisation called USK and it now rates the Sims games as 6+. Earlier USK even just rated all the Sims games as “suitable for everybody”. But Germany is an exception because they don’t want to join PEGI because Germany wants to be able to have their own attitude to all games about the Second World War. I think that all other countries in Europe except Russia now are members of PEGI.
My statement about violence in games and movies being more acceptable in the US isn’t my own invention. It has been mentioned several times even on Danish TV and it is also a fact that the US sees it as human right to own letal weapons while Europe doesn’t. So the US just has a different attitude about such things.
Your statement isn't really my concern, I am well aware about American standards to what's acceptable. What grabbed my attention is the way you worded it out:
So Europe are more protective about letting kids be inspired by blood, gore and extreme violence than at least the US is.
Maybe you didn't mean it this way, but this sentence is just creates the suggestion that you assume that violent films and video games encourage real life violence in America, which is both wrong and somewhat insensitive.
I don’t see the 12+ rating for Sims games as reasonable at all because the game ratings never were about the difficulty of the games. So while I agree that small children who haven’t learned to read yet can’t get the full experience from the game it still doesn’t do them any harm to play with it and they can often get help from their parents or older siblings.
The ratings instead have the purpose to protect children from getting harmed by watching movies or playing games that could give them nightmares or psycological problems in other ways. I watch a lot of German TV too and many movies can’t even be streamed until late in the evening because Germany wants to protect children from seeing them. In the same way the UK in 2012 changed the law such that stores now could get punished if they sold PEGI rated games to children who according to PEGI weren’t old enough to use them. So in the UK children and teens can’t buy such games in any store unless they let an adult buy the games for them.
I know that I was a little provocative when I used the word “inspired” above because the US of course doesn’t see it that way. But Europe does. So this is actually also the reason why Europe doesn’t allow people to buy letal weapons without having a special need for such weapons. And if we see at the number of people killed by guns in Europe and compare it to the same number for the US the Europeans IMO seems to be right. But feel free to disagree with me about that
Denmark was a member of PEGI before the UK decided to officially join PEGI too. I don’t know if the UK also used the ratings from PEGI before the UK officially became a member of PEGI? So it is possible.
Denmark is represented in PEGI through an organization which in Danish is called “Raadet for Boern og Unge”. This means “The Council for Children and Young People” and it is an organization which gives advice to children, teens and parents when they called them about problems. So when I called them back in 2005 or 2006 when PEGI changed the rating from 7+ to 12+ to get an explanation (and maybe tell them about my own attitude to this change too) they tried to avoid the subject by treating me as an parent who wanted their advice about game ratings and kids in general. But soon they had to realize that this wasn’t the reason why I had called them and when they couldn’t avoid talking about TS2 any longer they told me that it was the UK who had wanted this change when the UK officially joined PEGI and that I couldn’t have chosen a worse example because they didn’t at all agree with this change. So I realized that they knew everything that I could have told them about TS2 and hadn’t wanted this change either.
I still have yet to see hard evidence about why the rating changed. To be fair, the 12+ rating for The Sims franchise is at least a reasonable rating.
Germany has its own rating organisation called USK and it now rates the Sims games as 6+. Earlier USK even just rated all the Sims games as “suitable for everybody”. But Germany is an exception because they don’t want to join PEGI because Germany wants to be able to have their own attitude to all games about the Second World War. I think that all other countries in Europe except Russia now are members of PEGI.
My statement about violence in games and movies being more acceptable in the US isn’t my own invention. It has been mentioned several times even on Danish TV and it is also a fact that the US sees it as human right to own letal weapons while Europe doesn’t. So the US just has a different attitude about such things.
Your statement isn't really my concern, I am well aware about American standards to what's acceptable. What grabbed my attention is the way you worded it out:
So Europe are more protective about letting kids be inspired by blood, gore and extreme violence than at least the US is.
Maybe you didn't mean it this way, but this sentence is just creates the suggestion that you assume that violent films and video games encourage real life violence in America, which is both wrong and somewhat insensitive.
I don’t see the 12+ rating for Sims games as reasonable at all because the game ratings never were about the difficulty of the games. So while I agree that small children who haven’t learned to read yet can’t get the full experience from the game it still doesn’t do them any harm to play with it and they can often get help from their parents or older siblings.
The ratings instead have the purpose to protect children from getting harmed by watching movies or playing games that could give them nightmares or psycological problems in other ways. I watch a lot of German TV too and many movies can’t even be streamed until late in the evening because Germany wants to protect children from seeing them. In the same way the UK in 2012 changed the law such that stores now could get punished if they sold PEGI rated games to children who according to PEGI weren’t old enough to use them. So in the UK children and teens can’t buy such games in any store unless they let an adult buy the games for them.
I know that I was a little provocative when I used the word “inspired” above because the US of course doesn’t see it that way. But Europe does. So this is actually also the reason why Europe doesn’t allow people to buy letal weapons without having a special need for such weapons. And if we see at the number of people killed by guns in Europe and compare it to the same number for the US the Europeans IMO seems to be right. But feel free to disagree with me about that
You are right about the difficulty aspect, as PEGI themselves has stated on their website that a game is never rated based on its difficulty, but I am a bit confused about why you thought that my opinion on the 12 rating for The Sims is because of difficulty. My opinion on The Sims deserving a 12 rating is because they contain content that's not quite what you call kid-friendly. Rating boards rate a game as a whole by its content. There's no beating around the bush about what "woohoo" is. The sight of a Sim drowning or burning to death would seem out of place for anything below "12" in my opinion.
In my honest opinion, I actually do not have a problem with the idea that you must be at least 12 to buy a "12" rated game or that you have to be at least 16 to buy a "16" rated game. That's kind of how the BBFC works for classifying films.
Denmark was a member of PEGI before the UK decided to officially join PEGI too. I don’t know if the UK also used the ratings from PEGI before the UK officially became a member of PEGI? So it is possible.
Denmark is represented in PEGI through an organization which in Danish is called “Raadet for Boern og Unge”. This means “The Council for Children and Young People” and it is an organization which gives advice to children, teens and parents when they called them about problems. So when I called them back in 2005 or 2006 when PEGI changed the rating from 7+ to 12+ to get an explanation (and maybe tell them about my own attitude to this change too) they tried to avoid the subject by treating me as an parent who wanted their advice about game ratings and kids in general. But soon they had to realize that this wasn’t the reason why I had called them and when they couldn’t avoid talking about TS2 any longer they told me that it was the UK who had wanted this change when the UK officially joined PEGI and that I couldn’t have chosen a worse example because they didn’t at all agree with this change. So I realized that they knew everything that I could have told them about TS2 and hadn’t wanted this change either.
I still have yet to see hard evidence about why the rating changed. To be fair, the 12+ rating for The Sims franchise is at least a reasonable rating.
Germany has its own rating organisation called USK and it now rates the Sims games as 6+. Earlier USK even just rated all the Sims games as “suitable for everybody”. But Germany is an exception because they don’t want to join PEGI because Germany wants to be able to have their own attitude to all games about the Second World War. I think that all other countries in Europe except Russia now are members of PEGI.
My statement about violence in games and movies being more acceptable in the US isn’t my own invention. It has been mentioned several times even on Danish TV and it is also a fact that the US sees it as human right to own letal weapons while Europe doesn’t. So the US just has a different attitude about such things.
Your statement isn't really my concern, I am well aware about American standards to what's acceptable. What grabbed my attention is the way you worded it out:
So Europe are more protective about letting kids be inspired by blood, gore and extreme violence than at least the US is.
Maybe you didn't mean it this way, but this sentence is just creates the suggestion that you assume that violent films and video games encourage real life violence in America, which is both wrong and somewhat insensitive.
I don’t see the 12+ rating for Sims games as reasonable at all because the game ratings never were about the difficulty of the games. So while I agree that small children who haven’t learned to read yet can’t get the full experience from the game it still doesn’t do them any harm to play with it and they can often get help from their parents or older siblings.
The ratings instead have the purpose to protect children from getting harmed by watching movies or playing games that could give them nightmares or psycological problems in other ways. I watch a lot of German TV too and many movies can’t even be streamed until late in the evening because Germany wants to protect children from seeing them. In the same way the UK in 2012 changed the law such that stores now could get punished if they sold PEGI rated games to children who according to PEGI weren’t old enough to use them. So in the UK children and teens can’t buy such games in any store unless they let an adult buy the games for them.
I know that I was a little provocative when I used the word “inspired” above because the US of course doesn’t see it that way. But Europe does. So this is actually also the reason why Europe doesn’t allow people to buy letal weapons without having a special need for such weapons. And if we see at the number of people killed by guns in Europe and compare it to the same number for the US the Europeans IMO seems to be right. But feel free to disagree with me about that
You are right about the difficulty aspect, as PEGI themselves has stated on their website that a game is never rated based on its difficulty, but I am a bit confused about why you thought that my opinion on the 12 rating for The Sims is because of difficulty. My opinion on The Sims deserving a 12 rating is because they contain content that's not quite what you call kid-friendly. Rating boards rate a game as a whole by its content. There's no beating around the bush about what "woohoo" is. The sight of a Sim drowning or burning to death would seem out of place for anything below "12" in my opinion.
In my honest opinion, I actually do not have a problem with the idea that you must be at least 12 to buy a "12" rated game or that you have to be at least 16 to buy a "16" rated game. That's kind of how the BBFC works for classifying films.
It isn’t the violence at all that makes the ESRB, Australia and Russia see TS4 as not suited for children. It is mainly that the Sims can be nude, the harmless woohoo (which doesn’t show anything) and for especially Russia the same sex relationships.
For the ESRB we know that nudity was the main reason why the ESRB even considered to raise the US rating from T to M because they told both us and EA. If EA hadn’t removed the cheat code which could remove the blur from the bathroom when the sims used the toilet or the shower then the M rating from the ESRB actually would have become a reality.
There is much less violence in the Sims games than there is in a lot of other games which have an E rating in the US. This just shows once more that the violence in TS4 and the other Sims games didn’t influence the rating from the ESRB in any way. But the nudity and (to lesser extent) the woohoo did.
Germany of course doesn’t have its own rating system because they couldn’t accept PEGI’s rating of Sims games. But Germany just doesn’t like WWII movies or games that describes all Germans as evil. On the other hand German TV very often shows the burned down cities all over Germany from the time where the UK and the US tried to burn down all the houses where women and children lived and to kill as many women and small children as possible. I haven’t seen those pictures shown outside Germany. But they are of course part of the history too.
Denmark was a member of PEGI before the UK decided to officially join PEGI too. I don’t know if the UK also used the ratings from PEGI before the UK officially became a member of PEGI? So it is possible.
Denmark is represented in PEGI through an organization which in Danish is called “Raadet for Boern og Unge”. This means “The Council for Children and Young People” and it is an organization which gives advice to children, teens and parents when they called them about problems. So when I called them back in 2005 or 2006 when PEGI changed the rating from 7+ to 12+ to get an explanation (and maybe tell them about my own attitude to this change too) they tried to avoid the subject by treating me as an parent who wanted their advice about game ratings and kids in general. But soon they had to realize that this wasn’t the reason why I had called them and when they couldn’t avoid talking about TS2 any longer they told me that it was the UK who had wanted this change when the UK officially joined PEGI and that I couldn’t have chosen a worse example because they didn’t at all agree with this change. So I realized that they knew everything that I could have told them about TS2 and hadn’t wanted this change either.
I still have yet to see hard evidence about why the rating changed. To be fair, the 12+ rating for The Sims franchise is at least a reasonable rating.
Germany has its own rating organisation called USK and it now rates the Sims games as 6+. Earlier USK even just rated all the Sims games as “suitable for everybody”. But Germany is an exception because they don’t want to join PEGI because Germany wants to be able to have their own attitude to all games about the Second World War. I think that all other countries in Europe except Russia now are members of PEGI.
My statement about violence in games and movies being more acceptable in the US isn’t my own invention. It has been mentioned several times even on Danish TV and it is also a fact that the US sees it as human right to own letal weapons while Europe doesn’t. So the US just has a different attitude about such things.
Your statement isn't really my concern, I am well aware about American standards to what's acceptable. What grabbed my attention is the way you worded it out:
So Europe are more protective about letting kids be inspired by blood, gore and extreme violence than at least the US is.
Maybe you didn't mean it this way, but this sentence is just creates the suggestion that you assume that violent films and video games encourage real life violence in America, which is both wrong and somewhat insensitive.
I don’t see the 12+ rating for Sims games as reasonable at all because the game ratings never were about the difficulty of the games. So while I agree that small children who haven’t learned to read yet can’t get the full experience from the game it still doesn’t do them any harm to play with it and they can often get help from their parents or older siblings.
The ratings instead have the purpose to protect children from getting harmed by watching movies or playing games that could give them nightmares or psycological problems in other ways. I watch a lot of German TV too and many movies can’t even be streamed until late in the evening because Germany wants to protect children from seeing them. In the same way the UK in 2012 changed the law such that stores now could get punished if they sold PEGI rated games to children who according to PEGI weren’t old enough to use them. So in the UK children and teens can’t buy such games in any store unless they let an adult buy the games for them.
I know that I was a little provocative when I used the word “inspired” above because the US of course doesn’t see it that way. But Europe does. So this is actually also the reason why Europe doesn’t allow people to buy letal weapons without having a special need for such weapons. And if we see at the number of people killed by guns in Europe and compare it to the same number for the US the Europeans IMO seems to be right. But feel free to disagree with me about that
You are right about the difficulty aspect, as PEGI themselves has stated on their website that a game is never rated based on its difficulty, but I am a bit confused about why you thought that my opinion on the 12 rating for The Sims is because of difficulty. My opinion on The Sims deserving a 12 rating is because they contain content that's not quite what you call kid-friendly. Rating boards rate a game as a whole by its content. There's no beating around the bush about what "woohoo" is. The sight of a Sim drowning or burning to death would seem out of place for anything below "12" in my opinion.
In my honest opinion, I actually do not have a problem with the idea that you must be at least 12 to buy a "12" rated game or that you have to be at least 16 to buy a "16" rated game. That's kind of how the BBFC works for classifying films.
It isn’t the violence at all that makes the ESRB, Australia and Russia see TS4 as not suited for children. It is mainly that the Sims can be nude, the harmless woohoo (which doesn’t show anything) and for especially Russia the same sex relationships.
For the ESRB we know that nudity was the main reason why the ESRB even considered to raise the US rating from T to M because they told both us and EA. If EA hadn’t removed the cheat code which could remove the blur from the bathroom when the sims used the toilet or the shower then the M rating from the ESRB actually would have become a reality.
There is much less violence in the Sims games than there is in a lot of other games which have an E rating in the US. This just shows once more that the violence in TS4 and the other Sims games didn’t influence the rating from the ESRB in any way. But the nudity and (to lesser extent) the woohoo did.
The frequency of the violence doesn’t really matter. The violence is still a contributing factor to its rating, even if it is milder compared to other T-rated games on the market. I can’t really picture the violence I noted above in a game below a T rating. About the woohoo aspect, like I said, you can soften the blow as much as you can, but it’s quite obvious about what it is. Sexual content doesn’t really have a place in E or E10+ games in the first place. I’m sure if it was even an inch more explicit, the game would be threatened with an M rating.
Denmark was a member of PEGI before the UK decided to officially join PEGI too. I don’t know if the UK also used the ratings from PEGI before the UK officially became a member of PEGI? So it is possible.
Denmark is represented in PEGI through an organization which in Danish is called “Raadet for Boern og Unge”. This means “The Council for Children and Young People” and it is an organization which gives advice to children, teens and parents when they called them about problems. So when I called them back in 2005 or 2006 when PEGI changed the rating from 7+ to 12+ to get an explanation (and maybe tell them about my own attitude to this change too) they tried to avoid the subject by treating me as an parent who wanted their advice about game ratings and kids in general. But soon they had to realize that this wasn’t the reason why I had called them and when they couldn’t avoid talking about TS2 any longer they told me that it was the UK who had wanted this change when the UK officially joined PEGI and that I couldn’t have chosen a worse example because they didn’t at all agree with this change. So I realized that they knew everything that I could have told them about TS2 and hadn’t wanted this change either.
I still have yet to see hard evidence about why the rating changed. To be fair, the 12+ rating for The Sims franchise is at least a reasonable rating.
Germany has its own rating organisation called USK and it now rates the Sims games as 6+. Earlier USK even just rated all the Sims games as “suitable for everybody”. But Germany is an exception because they don’t want to join PEGI because Germany wants to be able to have their own attitude to all games about the Second World War. I think that all other countries in Europe except Russia now are members of PEGI.
My statement about violence in games and movies being more acceptable in the US isn’t my own invention. It has been mentioned several times even on Danish TV and it is also a fact that the US sees it as human right to own letal weapons while Europe doesn’t. So the US just has a different attitude about such things.
Your statement isn't really my concern, I am well aware about American standards to what's acceptable. What grabbed my attention is the way you worded it out:
So Europe are more protective about letting kids be inspired by blood, gore and extreme violence than at least the US is.
Maybe you didn't mean it this way, but this sentence is just creates the suggestion that you assume that violent films and video games encourage real life violence in America, which is both wrong and somewhat insensitive.
I don’t see the 12+ rating for Sims games as reasonable at all because the game ratings never were about the difficulty of the games. So while I agree that small children who haven’t learned to read yet can’t get the full experience from the game it still doesn’t do them any harm to play with it and they can often get help from their parents or older siblings.
The ratings instead have the purpose to protect children from getting harmed by watching movies or playing games that could give them nightmares or psycological problems in other ways. I watch a lot of German TV too and many movies can’t even be streamed until late in the evening because Germany wants to protect children from seeing them. In the same way the UK in 2012 changed the law such that stores now could get punished if they sold PEGI rated games to children who according to PEGI weren’t old enough to use them. So in the UK children and teens can’t buy such games in any store unless they let an adult buy the games for them.
I know that I was a little provocative when I used the word “inspired” above because the US of course doesn’t see it that way. But Europe does. So this is actually also the reason why Europe doesn’t allow people to buy letal weapons without having a special need for such weapons. And if we see at the number of people killed by guns in Europe and compare it to the same number for the US the Europeans IMO seems to be right. But feel free to disagree with me about that
You are right about the difficulty aspect, as PEGI themselves has stated on their website that a game is never rated based on its difficulty, but I am a bit confused about why you thought that my opinion on the 12 rating for The Sims is because of difficulty. My opinion on The Sims deserving a 12 rating is because they contain content that's not quite what you call kid-friendly. Rating boards rate a game as a whole by its content. There's no beating around the bush about what "woohoo" is. The sight of a Sim drowning or burning to death would seem out of place for anything below "12" in my opinion.
In my honest opinion, I actually do not have a problem with the idea that you must be at least 12 to buy a "12" rated game or that you have to be at least 16 to buy a "16" rated game. That's kind of how the BBFC works for classifying films.
It isn’t the violence at all that makes the ESRB, Australia and Russia see TS4 as not suited for children. It is mainly that the Sims can be nude, the harmless woohoo (which doesn’t show anything) and for especially Russia the same sex relationships.
For the ESRB we know that nudity was the main reason why the ESRB even considered to raise the US rating from T to M because they told both us and EA. If EA hadn’t removed the cheat code which could remove the blur from the bathroom when the sims used the toilet or the shower then the M rating from the ESRB actually would have become a reality.
There is much less violence in the Sims games than there is in a lot of other games which have an E rating in the US. This just shows once more that the violence in TS4 and the other Sims games didn’t influence the rating from the ESRB in any way. But the nudity and (to lesser extent) the woohoo did.
The frequency of the violence doesn’t really matter. The violence is still a contributing factor to its rating, even if it is milder compared to other T-rated games on the market. I can’t really picture the violence I noted above in a game below a T rating. About the woohoo aspect, like I said, you can soften the blow as much as you can, but it’s quite obvious about what it is. Sexual content doesn’t really have a place in E or E10+ games in the first place. I’m sure if it was even an inch more explicit, the game would be threatened with an M rating.
Why would you try to protect children from the extremely mild violence in TS4 just to let them play more violent E rated games (where the characters maybe even can kill eachother) instead?
Yes, to adults it is obvious what the woohoo is. But why do you think that small children would understand it just as well and therefore need to be protected from understanding it? This has just way too much internal contradiction in the reasoning for me to accept it
Children won’t see the woohoo as sex but just as a way that adults play and apparently are happy about it. Therefore I just don’t believe that it can harm children. But war and violence is different because we know that children play with the things they see. I don’t mind if two small children play “woohoo” in a bed without understanding what it really is. But I do mind if small children try to fight like it is done in violent games or have nightmares because they dream about the same kind of violence happening to them in their real lives. Therefore I don’t like violence in games for small children. But I am not overprotective anyway such that I can’t accept a little violence in movies or games for bigger children too because I don’t think that it will harm them unless it is too extreme and overdone.
Why would you try to protect children from the extremely mild violence in TS4 just to let them play more violent E rated games (where the characters maybe even can kill eachother) instead?
Yes, to adults it is obvious what the woohoo is. But why do you think that small children would understand it just as well and therefore need to be protected from understanding it? This has just way too much internal contradiction in the reasoning for me to accept it
Children won’t see the woohoo as sex but just as a way that adults play and apparently are happy about it. Therefore I just don’t believe that it can harm children. But war and violence is different because we know that children play with the things they see. I don’t mind if two small children play “woohoo” in a bed without understanding what it really is. But I do mind if small children try to fight like it is done in violent games or have nightmares because they dream about the same kind of violence happening to them in their real lives. Therefore I don’t like violence in games for small children.
Your argument about woohoo does not make sense. Sex is a pretty mature subject in on itself, which is why it’s virtually non-existent in media aimed for younger demographics. The point is that The Sims as a whole is rated T, an advisory rating that is not age restricted, rendering your argument moot.
Moral of the story is, you decide what’s right for your kids, but don’t be pointing fingers when your kid is horrified by a Sim burning to death.
Why would you try to protect children from the extremely mild violence in TS4 just to let them play more violent E rated games (where the characters maybe even can kill eachother) instead?
Yes, to adults it is obvious what the woohoo is. But why do you think that small children would understand it just as well and therefore need to be protected from understanding it? This has just way too much internal contradiction in the reasoning for me to accept it
Children won’t see the woohoo as sex but just as a way that adults play and apparently are happy about it. Therefore I just don’t believe that it can harm children. But war and violence is different because we know that children play with the things they see. I don’t mind if two small children play “woohoo” in a bed without understanding what it really is. But I do mind if small children try to fight like it is done in violent games or have nightmares because they dream about the same kind of violence happening to them in their real lives. Therefore I don’t like violence in games for small children.
Your argument about woohoo does not make sense. Sex is a pretty mature subject in on itself, which is why it’s virtually non-existent in media aimed for younger demographics. The point is that The Sims as a whole is rated T, an advisory rating that is not age restricted, rendering your argument moot.
Because you are living in a Victorian country who think that God is against sex - and not in Europe who thinks that I doesn’t harm even children to see animals have sex or to see adults have woohoo that doesn’t really come near to real sex
I still remember when a 7 yrs old boy asked me where I thought I came from? I was 7 yrs old too and had never wondered about that. What annoyed me a little was though that he gave me the answer even before I had time to think: “You were created and born in the same way that pigs and calves are created!” We knew about that very well because both our dads were farmers and we had seen such things happen. He didn’t shock me in any way. But I still remember it because I didn’t like the way that he told me about those facts and found it a little insulting which I hadn’t expected from him because he was my best friend.
Moral of the story is, you decide what’s right for your kids, but don’t be pointing fingers when your kid is horrified by a Sim burning to death.
Then I will just show them how they can get such a sim back such that it didn’t happen anyway. But you would maybe instead tell them to play a shooter instead where they could kill hundreds of enemies by using guns and other letal weapons?
Why would you try to protect children from the extremely mild violence in TS4 just to let them play more violent E rated games (where the characters maybe even can kill eachother) instead?
Yes, to adults it is obvious what the woohoo is. But why do you think that small children would understand it just as well and therefore need to be protected from understanding it? This has just way too much internal contradiction in the reasoning for me to accept it
Children won’t see the woohoo as sex but just as a way that adults play and apparently are happy about it. Therefore I just don’t believe that it can harm children. But war and violence is different because we know that children play with the things they see. I don’t mind if two small children play “woohoo” in a bed without understanding what it really is. But I do mind if small children try to fight like it is done in violent games or have nightmares because they dream about the same kind of violence happening to them in their real lives. Therefore I don’t like violence in games for small children.
Your argument about woohoo does not make sense. Sex is a pretty mature subject in on itself, which is why it’s virtually non-existent in media aimed for younger demographics. The point is that The Sims as a whole is rated T, an advisory rating that is not age restricted, rendering your argument moot.
Because you are living in a Victorian country who think that God is against sex - and not in Europe who thinks that I doesn’t harm even children to see animals have sex or to see adults have woohoo that doesn’t really come near to real sex
I still remember when a 7 yrs old boy asked me where I thought I came from? I was 7 yrs old too and had never wondered about that. What annoyed me a little was though that he gave me the answer even before I had time to think: “You were created and born in the same way that pigs and calves are created!” We knew about that very well because both our dads were farmers and we had seen such things happen. He didn’t shock me in any way. But I still remember it because I didn’t like the way that he told me about those facts and found it a little insulting which I hadn’t expected from him because he was my best friend.
Moral of the story is, you decide what’s right for your kids, but don’t be pointing fingers when your kid is horrified by a Sim burning to death.
Then I will just show them how they can get such a sim back such that it didn’t happen anyway. But you would maybe instead tell them to play a shooter instead where they could kill hundreds of enemies by using guns and other letal weapons?
That’s right, keep stroking your own ego and making poor generalisations.
Why would you try to protect children from the extremely mild violence in TS4 just to let them play more violent E rated games (where the characters maybe even can kill eachother) instead?
Yes, to adults it is obvious what the woohoo is. But why do you think that small children would understand it just as well and therefore need to be protected from understanding it? This has just way too much internal contradiction in the reasoning for me to accept it
Children won’t see the woohoo as sex but just as a way that adults play and apparently are happy about it. Therefore I just don’t believe that it can harm children. But war and violence is different because we know that children play with the things they see. I don’t mind if two small children play “woohoo” in a bed without understanding what it really is. But I do mind if small children try to fight like it is done in violent games or have nightmares because they dream about the same kind of violence happening to them in their real lives. Therefore I don’t like violence in games for small children.
Your argument about woohoo does not make sense. Sex is a pretty mature subject in on itself, which is why it’s virtually non-existent in media aimed for younger demographics. The point is that The Sims as a whole is rated T, an advisory rating that is not age restricted, rendering your argument moot.
Because you are living in a Victorian country who think that God is against sex - and not in Europe who thinks that I doesn’t harm even children to see animals have sex or to see adults have woohoo that doesn’t really come near to real sex
I still remember when a 7 yrs old boy asked me where I thought I came from? I was 7 yrs old too and had never wondered about that. What annoyed me a little was though that he gave me the answer even before I had time to think: “You were created and born in the same way that pigs and calves are created!” We knew about that very well because both our dads were farmers and we had seen such things happen. He didn’t shock me in any way. But I still remember it because I didn’t like the way that he told me about those facts and found it a little insulting which I hadn’t expected from him because he was my best friend.
Moral of the story is, you decide what’s right for your kids, but don’t be pointing fingers when your kid is horrified by a Sim burning to death.
Then I will just show them how they can get such a sim back such that it didn’t happen anyway. But you would maybe instead tell them to play a shooter instead where they could kill hundreds of enemies by using guns and other letal weapons?
That’s right, keep stroking your own ego and making poor generalisations.
Let us just agree to disagree. You want to win the discussion. But I would lie if I pretended that I agree with your assumptions. So alas I can’t tell you what you want me to.
Why would you try to protect children from the extremely mild violence in TS4 just to let them play more violent E rated games (where the characters maybe even can kill eachother) instead?
Yes, to adults it is obvious what the woohoo is. But why do you think that small children would understand it just as well and therefore need to be protected from understanding it? This has just way too much internal contradiction in the reasoning for me to accept it
Children won’t see the woohoo as sex but just as a way that adults play and apparently are happy about it. Therefore I just don’t believe that it can harm children. But war and violence is different because we know that children play with the things they see. I don’t mind if two small children play “woohoo” in a bed without understanding what it really is. But I do mind if small children try to fight like it is done in violent games or have nightmares because they dream about the same kind of violence happening to them in their real lives. Therefore I don’t like violence in games for small children.
Your argument about woohoo does not make sense. Sex is a pretty mature subject in on itself, which is why it’s virtually non-existent in media aimed for younger demographics. The point is that The Sims as a whole is rated T, an advisory rating that is not age restricted, rendering your argument moot.
Because you are living in a Victorian country who think that God is against sex - and not in Europe who thinks that I doesn’t harm even children to see animals have sex or to see adults have woohoo that doesn’t really come near to real sex
I still remember when a 7 yrs old boy asked me where I thought I came from? I was 7 yrs old too and had never wondered about that. What annoyed me a little was though that he gave me the answer even before I had time to think: “You were created and born in the same way that pigs and calves are created!” We knew about that very well because both our dads were farmers and we had seen such things happen. He didn’t shock me in any way. But I still remember it because I didn’t like the way that he told me about those facts and found it a little insulting which I hadn’t expected from him because he was my best friend.
Moral of the story is, you decide what’s right for your kids, but don’t be pointing fingers when your kid is horrified by a Sim burning to death.
Then I will just show them how they can get such a sim back such that it didn’t happen anyway. But you would maybe instead tell them to play a shooter instead where they could kill hundreds of enemies by using guns and other letal weapons?
That’s right, keep stroking your own ego and making poor generalisations.
Let us just agree to disagree. You want to win the discussion. But I would lie if I pretended that I agree with your assumptions. So alas I can’t tell you what you want me to.
Why did you think it was a good idea to patronise me for what I think is right or wrong? You literally used generalisations and stereotypes to support your argument like a troll.
Nice condescending-as-hell use of emojis, by the way.
Why would you try to protect children from the extremely mild violence in TS4 just to let them play more violent E rated games (where the characters maybe even can kill eachother) instead?
Yes, to adults it is obvious what the woohoo is. But why do you think that small children would understand it just as well and therefore need to be protected from understanding it? This has just way too much internal contradiction in the reasoning for me to accept it
Children won’t see the woohoo as sex but just as a way that adults play and apparently are happy about it. Therefore I just don’t believe that it can harm children. But war and violence is different because we know that children play with the things they see. I don’t mind if two small children play “woohoo” in a bed without understanding what it really is. But I do mind if small children try to fight like it is done in violent games or have nightmares because they dream about the same kind of violence happening to them in their real lives. Therefore I don’t like violence in games for small children.
Your argument about woohoo does not make sense. Sex is a pretty mature subject in on itself, which is why it’s virtually non-existent in media aimed for younger demographics. The point is that The Sims as a whole is rated T, an advisory rating that is not age restricted, rendering your argument moot.
Because you are living in a Victorian country who think that God is against sex - and not in Europe who thinks that I doesn’t harm even children to see animals have sex or to see adults have woohoo that doesn’t really come near to real sex
I still remember when a 7 yrs old boy asked me where I thought I came from? I was 7 yrs old too and had never wondered about that. What annoyed me a little was though that he gave me the answer even before I had time to think: “You were created and born in the same way that pigs and calves are created!” We knew about that very well because both our dads were farmers and we had seen such things happen. He didn’t shock me in any way. But I still remember it because I didn’t like the way that he told me about those facts and found it a little insulting which I hadn’t expected from him because he was my best friend.
Moral of the story is, you decide what’s right for your kids, but don’t be pointing fingers when your kid is horrified by a Sim burning to death.
Then I will just show them how they can get such a sim back such that it didn’t happen anyway. But you would maybe instead tell them to play a shooter instead where they could kill hundreds of enemies by using guns and other letal weapons?
That’s right, keep stroking your own ego and making poor generalisations.
Let us just agree to disagree. You want to win the discussion. But I would lie if I pretended that I agree with your assumptions. So alas I can’t tell you what you want me to.
Why did you think it was a good idea to patronise me for what I think is right or wrong? You literally used generalisations and stereotypes to support your argument like a troll.
Nice condescending-as-plum use of emojis, by the way.
I am not interested in patronizing you. The case just is that I have studied PEGI, the ESRB and also a little about the German USK and the Australian Classification Board for years. So I have a long time ago made my own observations about how they rate the games and it became clear to me that they don’t care about the difficulty of the games already 10 yrs ago when the USK rated TS2 as “suitable for all ages”. So it was only something else that mattered to them and when the ESRB even considered to change the TS2 rating from T to M just because EA had added a cheat code that could remove the blur in the bathroom then the huge difference between Europe and the US also became clear to me.
So it isn’t because I don’t know understand that you want to think that things are different because I understand that very well and I also understand that you almost certainly can’t be from Europe and therefore wants to think that it is Europe who are wrong in its attitude. But I just see things differently. So when we both are convinced that we are right then there isn’t really anything else to do for us except just agreeing to disagree.
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Sims 2 brought woohoo and pregnancy.
So obviously adults and teens didn't care - the game was and still is quite popular even with no sexual nature at all. Don't even recall it crossing my mind really when the game came out. I like the game when i tested it and really went nuts waiting for it to come out. To reward us testers - we actually got the finished game almost two weeks before the game came out for everyone.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
There are mainly just 2 things that cause restrictions in the age ratings:
1. Nudity and some kind of sexual indications (more or less explicit).
2. Violence.
While the UK, North America, Australia and New Zealand are much more restrictive about point 1 almost the opposite is true about point 2 because I know that at least the US have less restrictions about war, guns and extreme violence in movies and games than we have in Europe. So Europe are more protective about letting kids be inspired by blood, gore and extreme violence than at least the US is.
But none of that was in the game when it was rated. That came later. They also had play in hottubs and play in the photobooth eventually as well as the bed - none of which was in the base game when the rating was established. They all came with expansions.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
Before PEGI, there was the ELSPA rating system that worked similarly to PEGI. The Sims 1 base game was rated 11+, whilst the subsequent expansion packs were rated 15+.
Like what I said, different countries have different standards. You generalise Europe without acknowledging about what's acceptable in each individual country. For example, in America they concern over sexual content whilst being somewhat lenient to violence. In Germany, it's sort of the other way around. In France, they are generally lenient about almost anything. Not to play devil's advocate, but your statement about "Europe are more protective about letting kids be inspired by blood, gore and extreme violence" sounds mildly condesending.
lol
The Europeans are much more laid back about things like that. You don't see them getting their granny knickers in a twist over a breast
edit - REALLY? This forum censors the casual term for female breast? My god, that's appalling. Guess some people have the same pearl clutching, knicker twisting attitude as the Aussie ratings board.
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Denmark is represented in PEGI through an organization which in Danish is called “Raadet for Boern og Unge”. This means “The Council for Children and Young People” and it is an organization which gives advice to children, teens and parents when they called them about problems. So when I called them back in 2005 or 2006 when PEGI changed the rating from 7+ to 12+ to get an explanation (and maybe tell them about my own attitude to this change too) they tried to avoid the subject by treating me as an parent who wanted their advice about game ratings and kids in general. But soon they had to realize that this wasn’t the reason why I had called them and when they couldn’t avoid talking about TS2 any longer they told me that it was the UK who had wanted this change when the UK officially joined PEGI and that I couldn’t have chosen a worse example because they didn’t at all agree with this change. So I realized that they knew everything that I could have told them about TS2 and hadn’t wanted this change either.
Germany has its own rating organisation called USK and it now rates the Sims games as 6+. Earlier USK even just rated all the Sims games as “suitable for everybody”. But Germany is an exception because they don’t want to join PEGI because Germany wants to be able to have their own attitude to all games about the Second World War. I think that all other countries in Europe except Russia now are members of PEGI.
My statement about violence in games and movies being more acceptable in the US isn’t my own invention. It has been mentioned several times even on Danish TV and it is also a fact that the US sees it as human right to own letal weapons while Europe doesn’t. So the US just has a different attitude about such things.
The ratings instead have the purpose to protect children from getting harmed by watching movies or playing games that could give them nightmares or psycological problems in other ways. I watch a lot of German TV too and many movies can’t even be streamed until late in the evening because Germany wants to protect children from seeing them. In the same way the UK in 2012 changed the law such that stores now could get punished if they sold PEGI rated games to children who according to PEGI weren’t old enough to use them. So in the UK children and teens can’t buy such games in any store unless they let an adult buy the games for them.
I know that I was a little provocative when I used the word “inspired” above because the US of course doesn’t see it that way. But Europe does. So this is actually also the reason why Europe doesn’t allow people to buy letal weapons without having a special need for such weapons. And if we see at the number of people killed by guns in Europe and compare it to the same number for the US the Europeans IMO seems to be right. But feel free to disagree with me about that
In my honest opinion, I actually do not have a problem with the idea that you must be at least 12 to buy a "12" rated game or that you have to be at least 16 to buy a "16" rated game. That's kind of how the BBFC works for classifying films.
For the ESRB we know that nudity was the main reason why the ESRB even considered to raise the US rating from T to M because they told both us and EA. If EA hadn’t removed the cheat code which could remove the blur from the bathroom when the sims used the toilet or the shower then the M rating from the ESRB actually would have become a reality.
There is much less violence in the Sims games than there is in a lot of other games which have an E rating in the US. This just shows once more that the violence in TS4 and the other Sims games didn’t influence the rating from the ESRB in any way. But the nudity and (to lesser extent) the woohoo did.
Germany of course doesn’t have its own rating system because they couldn’t accept PEGI’s rating of Sims games. But Germany just doesn’t like WWII movies or games that describes all Germans as evil. On the other hand German TV very often shows the burned down cities all over Germany from the time where the UK and the US tried to burn down all the houses where women and children lived and to kill as many women and small children as possible. I haven’t seen those pictures shown outside Germany. But they are of course part of the history too.
Yes, to adults it is obvious what the woohoo is. But why do you think that small children would understand it just as well and therefore need to be protected from understanding it? This has just way too much internal contradiction in the reasoning for me to accept it
Children won’t see the woohoo as sex but just as a way that adults play and apparently are happy about it. Therefore I just don’t believe that it can harm children. But war and violence is different because we know that children play with the things they see. I don’t mind if two small children play “woohoo” in a bed without understanding what it really is. But I do mind if small children try to fight like it is done in violent games or have nightmares because they dream about the same kind of violence happening to them in their real lives. Therefore I don’t like violence in games for small children. But I am not overprotective anyway such that I can’t accept a little violence in movies or games for bigger children too because I don’t think that it will harm them unless it is too extreme and overdone.
Moral of the story is, you decide what’s right for your kids, but don’t be pointing fingers when your kid is horrified by a Sim burning to death.
I still remember when a 7 yrs old boy asked me where I thought I came from? I was 7 yrs old too and had never wondered about that. What annoyed me a little was though that he gave me the answer even before I had time to think: “You were created and born in the same way that pigs and calves are created!” We knew about that very well because both our dads were farmers and we had seen such things happen. He didn’t shock me in any way. But I still remember it because I didn’t like the way that he told me about those facts and found it a little insulting which I hadn’t expected from him because he was my best friend.
Then I will just show them how they can get such a sim back such that it didn’t happen anyway. But you would maybe instead tell them to play a shooter instead where they could kill hundreds of enemies by using guns and other letal weapons?
Nice condescending-as-hell use of emojis, by the way.
So it isn’t because I don’t know understand that you want to think that things are different because I understand that very well and I also understand that you almost certainly can’t be from Europe and therefore wants to think that it is Europe who are wrong in its attitude. But I just see things differently. So when we both are convinced that we are right then there isn’t really anything else to do for us except just agreeing to disagree.