underaged players

i know u have to be over 18 to sign up for the beta... but what is the linden labs policy on minors who do get into the beta? r they allowed to remain in the game or kicked off immediately for not being able to read a contract?

9 times out of 10 they act like they're underage. I can certainly think of a small handful of people who's age I'm still a little unsure of, but they definitely act like children!

Anyways....

Rules are rules. If anyone is found to be under 18, they should get the boot.

I say, if you find them out.. file an abuse report under Misc.

While it's all good and well to allow people under 18 to play a game that may not containt adult material and/or violence if their parents CONSENT.. it's quite another thing to directly violate the rules stated in the beta application. This could lead to trouble for Lindenlabs.

They could always implement the old Leisure Suit Larry method of seeing if your over 18

Well i found out one person was underage and sent in a little report (not being mean to the person), but there are things around our little area in the outlands that aren't meant for kids to see. He was very polite and sweet, but tooo tooo young (he was 16).

if anybody noticed, we now have "credit card" checking to make sure players are 18 years or older.

spiffy eh?

(1) Cant you (can you? I dont know) have a credit card when under 18? Can't you just use a parents name and card #?

(2) Will there be a back check of current residents? Its known there are several underage residents but you'd be hard pressed to get any to admit it.

Hopefully there will be more then just 'credit card' checking to verify age, since i don't have one They are evil!

i met someone who is also 16... and he was not polite or sweet. in fact, the reason i brought this up is because he was such an ass to my friend and me that i wanted to see if i can get him banned.

It would be interesting if some kind of ballot box object could be setup in a semi-central location, or perhaps one box per general area (i.e. one for the Outlands at the corner of the 4 sims), which people could leave notes on listing the names of anyone they suspect to be underage.

Then a Linden could check out the ballots every once in a while, and if the same names seem to be appearing regularly, further investigation could be done on that account to see what was really going on.

Whaddya think?

Could turn into a witch hunt

ok..that ballot thing makes sense but some aspects i would like to see be changed.
i have a few points about this:

1)most computer games are played by teenagers ages 15-19 mostly. i would think. so having it be 18 years or older that would be like..leaving out.4 other age groups.

2) having somone who is 16 or so is ok.(to me) unless they act liuke a 12 year old or such(which in any case they might be) i mean 16 is the legal age in this ocuntry am i right??no seriously..am i? cause im not sure. so by age 16 you are seen as an adult, while you might not be able toget a cradit card or so (which i dont have because of reasons regarding my credit..long story).

ok so i thik that those who are underaged (unless the yare like 12 or so..yah know...cause thats just toooo young.

there should be a vote on if they can stay. and if many people vote against them then...bye bye. but if many people think thay are nice and have nuthin agaisnt them..then it shouldnt be that big of a deeal. most computer games and stuff have lots of teenagers playing and i bet you that when Sl comes out you will have alot more teenagers under 18 playing than we probably do now. i dont know of any teenagers but if i did it wouldnt be a big deal to me unless they said something that ocmpletley disturbed me..

That's true, and I did think of it....

I'm not saying people should spend their time hunting down underage people, and really, who wants to do that? I don't.

But if a handful of people happen to encounter someone who is acting up and showing tell tale signs of being rather immature, who maybe even admits to being underage, I think ultimately it's out duty to Linden Labs to help weed out those people.

The age rule is in place for a very good reason. If we knowingly ignore people who are violating that rule, it pretty much makes us an accomplice in the breaking of that rule.

Nobody likes being a tattle tale, I agree, but if it's between me being a tattle tale, and some little 15 year old punkass spoiling the SL experience for me and others, you better believe I'll report it.

At 16 you are accountable for crimes you commit. At 16 you can buy cigarettes. But being able to go to jail and buy cigarettes doesn't exactly translate to "adult" if you ask me.

(Edit: Gah... I'm from the UK so whenever these sorts of conversations come up I instinctively think of UK standards, which is 16. D'oh)

There are mature sims which have mature content, which could include things of a semi-pornographic nature, or offensive language, or whatever.

For most "mature" things in real life, i.e. sexually explicit materials, violent video games, etc. you have to be 18.

Certainly in the eyes of lawyers people under the age of 18 viewing certain materials is very bad indeed.


I work for a website that offers webcam/video based chat, and one of our biggest problems is the fact that our lawyers very clearly told us that our users have to be over the age of 18. It's not because we're peddling pornography, or that we knowingly allow people to engage in sexual activities over their webcam... it's the simple fact that someone COULD do something nasty over their cam. All it takes is one minor to see something they shouldn't see, and a concerned parent to figure out that fact, and you potentially have a very ugly lawsuit on your hands.

Linden Labs understandably wants to avoid those kind of situations.

Easiest way to avoid those situations? Put in an age restriction.

that makes sense yes perfect sense. i wasnt undermining the age restriction i was just pointing out the fact that most of those who play in online computer games (mohaa, dx, etc...) are under the age of 18. and i know for a fact that teenagers these days know more about anything that i will ever know.
I once knew a 12 year old that knew more sexually explicit thing (i.e. positions and phrases pertaining to sex) that i didnt know..and i still dont know!!!. but i could understand that Parent thing. because parents dont keep control over their children like they used to. they are always looking for somone or something to blame for something they dont like but themselves..but beleive that 16 is like 17 . lets see 16..that would be.......hm..*thinks for a good 5 minutes*.......hmm...........that would be like what around..Junior year? they are almost Seniors....and Seniors go to college..oops i mean Sneiors head o college. they are almost college folk. If they havent seen or heard anything yet then they seriously have been sheltered.. thats just my opinon. but ican understand the age restriction i fully understand that..well at least now hehe...

Actually in the US and California (where Linden Labs is) you are not an adult and can not buy cigarettes until you are 18. The privlidge you get at 16 is to get a drivers liscense.

I have had no dealings with it so I could be wrong, but I also believe you aren't tried as an adult until 18 either. The exception being heinous (sp) crimes which can get special rullings to have the accused tried as an adult. Again thats all hearsay on my part.

Actually I just read an article written in 2000 that cited the average age of a video or computer game player at 28. It also stated that " minors make up a tiny minority of the total number of consumers who buy computer games -- only about 3 percent. Children under 18 only represent about 13 percent of video game purchasers, as well".

Heres a quote from an article written in 2002:

"# Buyer Demographics: Ninety-six percent of those who purchase console games are over the age of 18, and 90 percent of computer game buyers are over 18. Forty-six percent of console game buyers and 55 percent of computer game buyers are women."

I searched google using "computer game age demographics"

What they don't tell you is if the adults were buying the games for themselves or for their kids.

Christmas time and birthdays can ruin weird statistics like that

actually that was addressed in the articles.. search away. I was just addressing that one point.

oh! good to hear

ok when i said most games were played by 15-19 year olds i was just giving from expericen....man...did i say somethign to cue you into research? cause if idid let me know.. i got a paper coming up

Um I just think that way. I know a lot of older players and I thought the results might be different so I went searching. hehe.

well, age restriction or not, hopefully immature idiots who find their way into SL will find their way out before they figure out how fun it is to Build anything immaginable

As I understand it the game will be open to those under 18 as well as over once we go live. The "restriction" long term is to keep mature matter on mature sims available to those over 18 only. Its not about keeping those under 18 out of the game altogether. Its about letting them in in a controlled fashion.

I felt the need to clarify since we already went through this and some people started feeling this was something personal. Its not a stance against minors as a whole and it isnt personal. A jerk is a jerk no matter what their age and some other method on some other thread will have to come up at some point to deal with those scenarios.

i agree with misnomer, immature is immature no matter what the age is. the reason i wanted to talk about this issue was to have this one immature teenager banned for being an ass and the only leverage i could think of was his age. and since none of the lindens have responded to this thread... i still don't know what LL's current position is on this issue.