Goonhub
10-23-2024, 06:44 AM
At risk of sounding like a ‘think of the children’ type of person I think raising the age to 16+ at the least would be probably safer and a bit more enjoyable. While regrettable some players wouldn’t be able to play, I think it’s pretty important and central that there’s some kind of little nudge and nod that those younger probably aren’t suited for the game. It’s very dialogue and player interaction focused with real players, and it’s pretty fair to say that kids kind of lack the maturity and emotional intelligence to take something not at face value, or as a personal attack, or be negatively effected far deeper than an adult generally would by violent, cruel, or overall more serious discussion. This is with acknowledgement of the game, despite the simple art style, still having gorey content, violence, the various suicide methods, drugs and alcohol. While of course many of us, me included, played games we weren’t meant to as a child, this doesn’t necessarily mean it was okay as fun as it was. More so, those games came with the express warning that this was unsuitable. Goonstation is unique in that 13+ is permissible/suggested as an appropriate age to play. Which I disagree with.
Arguably, I think having a bigger space between children, teenagers, adults is a good thing—you have to change the way you approach the former in a more drastic way to ensure you don’t cause them distress or harm or even accidentally introduce to them drugs and alcohol etc,.
Of course the game will never add or permit sexual/romantic/suggestive content. Regardless of the suggested age rule change, I don’t see how that would lead to a change in how we approach that content that will stay out of the game.
I think by permitting and signing off on extremely young players, we put them at risk of seeing content that is wholly inappropriate for their age and something they are not at the maturity yet to be exposed to, absorb the scenes infront of them and impact of them in a healthy manner, and respond to accordingly.
Arguably, I think having a bigger space between children, teenagers, adults is a good thing—you have to change the way you approach the former in a more drastic way to ensure you don’t cause them distress or harm or even accidentally introduce to them drugs and alcohol etc,.
Of course the game will never add or permit sexual/romantic/suggestive content. Regardless of the suggested age rule change, I don’t see how that would lead to a change in how we approach that content that will stay out of the game.
I think by permitting and signing off on extremely young players, we put them at risk of seeing content that is wholly inappropriate for their age and something they are not at the maturity yet to be exposed to, absorb the scenes infront of them and impact of them in a healthy manner, and respond to accordingly.