There isn't much of it is there. Not that I specifically want this or something but I do find it a bit disturbing that most action games don't even have kids, and those that do, won't allow you to harm them. Take fallout 3, or Skyrim, hell even Bioshock where you actually DO harm little girls, they don't show it.

I'm trying to think of a fPS game I've played where one could actually arm kids... can't think of any. Where there kids in Postal 2? If so, were they indestructible too?

Edit: I just remembered that I COULD kill kids in Fallout 1 & 2 as well as Deus ex (from 2000).

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Fine, I'll come clean, me want's it! I want cities in say GTA, to feel real. I can't stand how in Prototype everybody is roughly a 30-something year old slim person. WTF? No, I want fat people, old people, sick people, sporty people, young people, kids and baby trolly's, You know, like in real life. I figure if one game can do that and get away with it, the controversy will be over and it'll be "acceptable" in games. Take violence or or foul language in games, that was once banned but now it's accepted. I wonder if a game like Manhunt would get banned today?

Seriously, why can't games get an 18 rating. Movies can and it's an okay thing. Take sick films like "Human Centipede". NO WAY would a game even close to that sick would be allowed today.

Because videogames are primarily seen as toys. Regardless of the age rating slapped on them, the powers-that-be know that ultimately all games end up, sooner or later, in the eager hands of under-age users (just go into, say, GAME any day of the week and stand close to the cash registers to see how this works: in almost every case of under-age gamers getting hold of age-inappropriate titles we need look no further than their irresponsible, often clueless or just plain ignorant parents/siblings/older friends as the culprits. I certainly don't blame the game stores (who are actually surprisingly responsible in this respect), based on the countless examples I've seen for myself).

I agree it's ridiculous that in this day and age video games treat the issue of children within them with, ahem, kid gloves. There are a multitude of reasons for this, many of them having to do with the unhealthy, pernicious atmosphere of fear and reprisal whenever and wherever children are featured in cultural art forms in any remotely controversial way. It's just another reason why video games, as a viable art form, will probably never be allowed to grow up and tackle serious issues involving children - and it's certainly the reason why today to even feature 'kids' in your video game, especially ones in which they might potentially be mown down by random machine gun fire or by someone deliberately a driving a car into them is to probably ask for serious trouble - 'kill' any number of 'adults' within your virtual worlds, after all, in any number of vile ways, but simulate the killing of just one child and you can expect the putrid wrath of the tabloids to descend with full self-righteous force. Nobody wants to risk the wrath of these gutter-dwelling low-lifes. A shame that we should have to live in fear of such pond-dwelling scum, that such a wonderful new art form as diverse and creatively unbounded as video games should be neutered in this way before it has even really begun.

Too see how fraught the whole issue of using children - or at least using 'child-like avatars' in video games - can be, we need cast our minds no further than to Peter Molyneaux's fantastic 'Milo and Kate' Kinect presentation a few years back. Whilst many of us were bowled over by the possibilities suggested - the genuine thrill of what was being hinted at for the future - there were many more purile and vapid observers who saw nothing more than the chance to make snide 'jokes' about a 'paedophile simulator', etc., and so, sniggering, wasted little time going into print to warn us all where this would lead.

Video games and kids: sadly still a lot of growing up to do.

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"Nothing is the cause of a phenomenon in the presence of which the phenomenon fails to occur."

its one of those things that although it would make the game more real I dont think many companies would risk the bannings....

they may just get lots of paper coverage but that is just publicity and would mean they shifted more copies, but bannings would kill it... and they couldn't risk that....

Oh and i believe Carmageddon used to have kids and buggies you could run down, and apparently a new version is out this year so you may get you wish that game

I don't think society would look too kindly about games enabling us to kill kids. I was surprised they are even in Skyrim. You can get mods to kill them.

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Carmagedon! That's right, that had kids and everything.

I'm wondering, why can't they make games like GTA and Prototype open to madders so they could add kids, dogs and aliens?

yeah it was fun excluding the kids version of the game where they just made everything a zombie and made the bloody green

You can't kill kids in Fallout/skyrim etc.


God knows, I've tried.

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Cal makes a lot of good points, it's just a really tricky area..

I suppose it's a problem with interactive media. When you're watching a film you don't hypothesise about who you could kill or what would happen if you shoot x or explode y. In games though we all like to push the boundaries, to see if the developers have put little flourishes in there - you know the sort of thing: smashable mirrors, shoot a water pipe and water leaks out, shoot your buddy and there's funny dialogue etc.

Imagine Aliens as a game, you play a marine, probably one of the first things people would do is see what happens if you shoot Newt. As a developer you can do one of three things:

1) Nothing happens, Newt is invincible.
2) Newt dies game carries on without her - possibly have a "bad" ending in this scenario.
3) Ends the mission, friendly fire will not be tollerated etc.

In terms of interactivity and a consistent world, number 2 would probably be best, but this means your whole game needs to be rigged to cope with or without Newt, which is a bit of a nightmare and would make devs sway toward 1 or 3. And that's without even taking into consideration all the points that Cal raised.

Thinking about it, there aren't many films where you see children die either..

why is it perfectly ok to harm animals in games but not kids?

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Seems half the game related vids out there are by Swedish foilk. Why is this?

Do you seriously not understand the difference between animals and human children?

Honestly, I don't see what's wrong with an abscence of the ability to kill children in computer games. Yes it can take away from some of the immersion I suppose or make a world like Grand Theft Auto seem less immersive than it could otherwise be, but it's really not that big of a deal in my opinion. Honestly, I've got bigger worries about missing things from games, or more worried about bugs than wondering "why aren't there any children for me to run down?".

As Cal said, the second a game comes along in todays age of ever increasinly realistic graphics that allows you to kill children, the media would be all over it. Video games have a bad enough reputation as it is that they're trying to shake, so it would be commercial suicide for the company that decided to take the risk. The average gamer (ie me and you) know that it would make sod all difference to anything, but the media would immediately start running unproven and unproveable shock stories about how computer games encourage child murder and peadophilia in order to shift more papers.

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Why is it OK to eat animals but not children?

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What about the kid(s) in Heavy Rain? Forgive me as I'm about to to put something in a spoiler box about the game, I've not actually played it so I'm not sure if this is correct and I don't want to ruin it.

Isn't the killer trying to kill the main character's son? Like he's trying to get him drowned or something? Sorry I am very blurry on this and I really can't remember. Watched a friend play some of it when it came out so I'm unsure.

I don't see what it detracts from a game, to be honest. In the Fallout 3 example, children are still present and still in danger (like the kid whose family are killed by the fire ants, the children who have taken shelter in that cave I can't remember the name of). When I was playing Fallout 3 I had no idea that children couldn't actually be harmed until someone explained it to me. I thought they moved around it quite well. I remember visiting the children's town, and one of the boys has grown up, so he has to leave. I was supposed to escort him when a bear just ran up out of no-where and killed him in one hit. In Fallout 3 they still appeared vulnerable to me even if they weren't actually kill-able.

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Twatter

I've been wondering that myself for a number of years now. I guess this is as good a time as any to announce that I plan to start a "No child parts left behind" club. Right now I guess I'm the only member but I hope others will join soon.

Whenever I play WOW or Angry Birds I get the sudden urge to eat, kill then rape children (in that order).

I've not checked, but thinking about it I bet you're not allowed to kill children in console games, I'm sure Sony, MS and Ninty will have a rule against it.

Interestingly Sony also used to have a rule forbidding games from allowing the player to kill a dog, that was a rule right up until the PS2 era.

Probably for this reason: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/KickTheDog

I was quite chilled by the child necromorphs in dead space - not that I hesitated to blow them away - preciselybecause you see so little of that sort of thing... where are all the child zombies?