What do you think the lowest age for Doom Eternal should be

[Senor Cacodemon]

It's simple, Doom Eternals rating is 17+ and we all know that but do you think that other underaged people (not like 5 years old of course) should be able to play Doom Eternal if they are simply mature enough?

[Edward850]

It seems simple but there's no single answer to such a question, and certainly not one this forum can provide an answer for. It entirely depends on the individual and how they'd potentially respond to the content of the game, and more importantly how the parents consider the age rating guideline, which is not for any of us here to decide.

[Gez]

42.

[Martin-CAI]

If you're talking about what age should be the official one, in the current social context state, I'd say 17+ is correct.

 

That being said, personally, I wouldn't say that Doom entail a real danger to children's minds, nor other games like it. Classic Doom has kind of the same amount of gore and violence and, hardly, a child that grew up playing it is nowadays, because of the game, a murderer or a psychopath. I've never found any serious study that proves that correlation. Children are not dumb. They differentiate really well what's real and what's not.

Edited November 18, 2021 by Martin-CAI

[D4NUK1]

+16.

Take it or leave it. The game have a lot of visceral gore, cartonish or not, you can still apreciate stuff like broken spines and bones, split in half, decapitation and smash of the head of enemies. Etc.

[Megalyth]

Every human born must have a keyboard thrust into their tiny hands. Their first actions in this life shall be the slaughter of demons. A mother's bonding love is secondary.

[Caffeine Freak]

10.

 

As in, 10 months old.

 

In all seriousness, I don't know there is a minimum age that would be a good answer. It varies from individual to individual, as different people mature at different rates.

[Doominator2]

No way, Doom should be rated PG-63 

[Senor Cacodemon]

8 minutes ago, Doominator2 said:

No way, Doom should be rated PG-63 

lmao

[Megalyth]

*On topic, imagine that*

 

Seriously though, the way people handle things is so amazingly different. I'd wager you're all sick of me talking about my son, but he's a perfect example.

 

I first played Doom at 11 years old and I was TERRIFIED. The room towards the end of e1m2, where you ride the lift down and then flip the switch that opens the stairs to the exit, was too much for me. I saved my progress and noped right the hell out of the game.

 

Fast forward 25 years or so, and I show Doom to my son when he's about 2 years old. I was apprehensive about this, because while I don't believe Joe Lieberman about video game violence, I also don't think it's a good idea to expose young children to too much violence and scary shit, pixellated as it may be.

 

Well, now my son is almost 7, making his own Doom maps, and when a revenant trap or something startles me a little bit, he laughs at me and says things like "did that scare you daddy?" all the while he's like a stone-faced gargoyle, not the least bit perturbed.

 

The thing is, he's one of the most sensitive children I've ever met, which leads me to believe that his exposure to video game violence has not in any way affected his ability to differentiate between real life and video games in his mind.

 

I'm not saying it has no effect at all, but it's not having a bad effect. He spends more time playing Cosmo and Crystal Caves than he does Doom.

[The BMFG]

i think its all up to the parents whether their children should be allowed to play doom or not.

 

i was allowed to play gta san andreas and manhunt 2 (im only counting manhunt 2 because i had it. i never played it because the cover scared the shit out of me) when i was much smaller and i have turned out fine

[Arrowhead]

On 11/17/2021 at 5:35 PM, Senor Cacodemon said:

(not like 5 years old of course)

That's the age I started playing Doom - it's all up to the parents ultimately. My parents didn't believe in any of that 'my kids will become murderers' nonsense... :)

Edited November 19, 2021 by Arrowhead

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

All you're pretty much asking here is "should kids be allowed to play violent video games?. What about DOOM Eternal makes it worth having its own discussion? The topic was beat to death twenty years ago. The answers, although truthful, are always the same because everyone turned out the same:

 

"I played GTA at X age and I turned out fine"

"I had to wait until I was X age to play GTA and I turned out fine"

 

I've yet to see someone say "don't allow your kids to play violent games because I played GTA when I was six and I ended up hijacking an airplane that I crashed into a tree because I was trying to get away from the cashier I shot at the gas station".

Edited November 19, 2021 by TheMagicMushroomMan

[Wavy]

2 years, 7 months, 24 days, 6 and a half hours, 39 minutes, and 56.71 seconds old.

 

But really, I don't see why this is even a discussion. It's all up to the parents if they're comfortable with their children playing Doom Eternal or any other violent game for the matter, plain and simple.

Edited November 19, 2021 by Wavy

[Azuris]

On 11/18/2021 at 7:00 AM, Edward850 said:

It entirely depends on the individual and how they'd potentially respond to the content of the game,

 

Thats the one and only reasonable Answer.

 

Every Kid and also Adult is different.

 

[NoXion]

I think the context and presentation matters. Doom Eternal is very violent, but the player character is morally unambiguous, and the only possible targets of his violence are the demons of Hell and those who are masterminding the destruction of Earth. So I would feel more comfortable introducing a younger child to that, as opposed to a similarly violent game where the player characters operate in more of an ethical grey area and/or direct their violence towards others characters who aren't just straight-up evil.

Edited November 29, 2021 by NoXion

[Doomkid]

I played Doom since age 3 and look how good I turned out!...

...

...

...

I think I accidentally just made an argument for not letting young kids play Doom...

[yakfak]

imo the graphics in the fatalities are just too gory to be looked at at any age

[Sena]

If you're not old enough to know who the Dopefish is, you're not allowed to play.

[Senor Cacodemon]

1 hour ago, Sena said:

If you're not old enough to know who the Dopefish is, you're not allowed to play.

True lmao

[Albertoni]

I'd risk saying you should be old enough to have seen the defeat of the Elemental Wraiths of Argent D'Nur with your own eyes.

[Quasar]

With Eternal I'd be more worried about the stress factor. Sheesh.

[snapshot]

feed them enough sugar and they'll blast through the whole campaign and its 2 dlcs like its nothing

[whatup876]

The art style and graphics feel like they intentionally go for a cartoony type of gore (besides the fact that it's on demons and monsters) for it to be more enjoyed by most people. (i think even Hugo Martin himself mentions this on interviews, so it's the opposite of MK11 and TLOU2 having devs watching LiveLeak videos for extreme realism and modelling characters' skin pores)

 

Same goes for lack of curse words (i recall D3 having "ass" or shit" on e-mails or NPC lines and maybe VEGA's 2016 rare line of "holy fucking shit"), mentions of drugs and sexual themes. (Hugo even said they couldn't add breasts to the WhipLash and i guess that means no Cacodemon "back holes")

 

To some, it could mean that Doom got slightly less edgy to the point its Heaven is a very creative take on it that doesn't show off more blatant references (for a series that came from an era of "Satanic Panic" and violent videogame discussion), but at the same time, there's certain levels that not even Doom 3 would reach.

[BGreener]

For that last point, that's mirroring how I felt about Nekravol. Some of the bits at the base of that tower are particularly brutal, nearly Event Horizon worthy! It's consistently horrid throughout with all those caged people, that body slide...It's a stark contrast to Urdak and Eternal's "non-consumed" portions of Argent Dnur.

 

Adding to the idea of a more "cartoony" and broadly appealing type of gore, that's how I feel when I run into the "gorenested" purple gooey areas; I get Ivan Ooze flashbacks for some reason, maybe I have a bias! This is also more fuel for my perpetual comparison between Eternal and Army of Darkness, despite it being a sequel and Hugo considering it their 'Evil Dead 2'.

[Dubbag]

Doesn't matter. It's just a game.

[Senor Cacodemon]

1 hour ago, Dubbag said:

Doesn't matter. It's just a game.

true though

[bofu]

I played Wolfenstein 3-D, with parental supervision/approval, when I was about 6 years old. (It had been out for a bit by then.) I didn't go out and become a psychopath or anything, it didn't traumatize me, and I didn't become desensitized to violence or the historical context of the game. In fact, it actually got me really interested in history, and I ended up minoring in history and doing a considerable amount of research in both the Pacific and European theaters of WWII, not to mention a lifelong passion for video games that eventually led me to pursue a music career (due to video game music being one of my foremost interests).

 

I'm not saying every kid can handle that stuff, and I'm not saying we should be letting kids buy violent games on their own or anything without their parents' approval, but I don't think we should be dictating minimum ages and cutting off access completely, either.

 

Now, Wolfenstein 3D was a lot cartoonier than Doom Eternal is, but you were also gunning down human opponents amidst the backdrop of one of the biggest atrocities in human history. I think they're still an apt comparison.

[D4NUK1]

49 minutes ago, bofu said:

 

 

Now, Wolfenstein 3D was a lot cartoonier than Doom Eternal is, but you were also gunning down human opponents amidst the backdrop of one of the biggest atrocities in human history. I think they're still an apt comparison.

 

We can't really compare those too, the action may be the same sure, gunning down a bad guy.

But, the grafics on their dead animation are 20x more detailed that it's on Wolf3D. So it's more hard to see as a younger.

[bofu]

1 hour ago, D4NUK1 said:

 

We can't really compare those too, the action may be the same sure, gunning down a bad guy.

But, the grafics on their dead animation are 20x more detailed that it's on Wolf3D. So it's more hard to see as a younger.

The mind can fill in a lot of blanks. And even the goriest glory kill in Doom Eternal doesn't really compare to the boss death in Episode 3 of Wolf3D.