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Anonymous's avatar
Anonymous
8 years ago

Why can't a 9yo play a game with 7yo rating???

I bought Plants vs Zombies 2: Garden Warfare for my 9 year old nephew for Christmas.

I've taken great care in making sure I bought a game with rating of 7 years or lower as his PS4 account is ofc age restricted.

This game has the age rating of 7 years old so that should be no problem, right?
I mean that is exactly what that rating is for, correct?

Well turns out that in order to at all play the game you need an EA account and you need to be at least 15 years old in order to play this game according to EA games' age restrictions....so in order to play this game you have to be 15 years old!

Then I have one question, why the [Do not attempt to bypass the swear filter - CM] does this game have an age rating of 7 clearly stated on the cover when you actually have to be more than twice that age to play it???

This [Do not attempt to bypass the swear filter - CM]me off tremendously as both him and I was very excited to play this game and I spent a lot of time trying to make it work, but ultimately some google searches later I found out that this age rating is a complete lie and a huge scam to expand the game's potential buyers.

This actually ruined Christmas for my nephew as he was super excited to play this game, but ultimately I had to tell him it wasn't going to work, the age rating was a lie and we cannot even install the game on his account.

 [Do not attempt to bypass the swear filter - CM]

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  • Anonymous's avatar
    Anonymous
    8 years ago

    Well, first of all it's not on Xbox, it's on PS4 and second that solution involved removing the parental control function on the console and creating a false EA account where you lie about the age of the child who is supposed to play this game, that may I remind you has a 7 year old rating clearly stated on the cover of it.

    Doing that would potentially severely harm your child by exposing them to 18+ year old content at such a young age.
    They could and would easily download games and movies containing overly violent and sexually focused content without their parents noticing for a long time.
    The parents don't play on the PS4 and neither do they constantly supervise the use of the PS4, they are not supposed to have to do that, that's where the parental control function comes in.

     [Do not attempt to bypass the swear filter - CM]


    Anyways, it seems there is currently no viable solution to this, EA should fix this or at least refund anyone who ever bought this game with the intent of someone above 7 years, but below their age restriction getting to play it.

    It is false advertising and a complete scam that they have allowed to go on because the age restriction of 7 give them such a huuuge market compared to putting it at 16.

  • EA_Darko's avatar
    EA_Darko
    Icon for Community Manager rankCommunity Manager
    8 years ago

    @FunKaliTy I will have to also ask that you refrain from swearing. AHQ is a community for all ages and at no time is it acceptable to use vulgar language. 

     Sorry for the confusion over the system, I can only work with the information provided and as I said the post was for if you were on Xbox. The accepted solution in that post has nothing to do with making a false account, the solution is changing the Xbox security settings so as to allow the child account to access the modes such as co-op that are available on a child account. You can change these settings on the PS4 in a similar manner.Unfortunately, this is the only way that a child account can access the modes available to them. I understand the fear that the child may access content deemed unsafe for them which is why parental accounts allow such a huge range of tailored settings. You can on the PS4 grant a child access to modes in PVZ that are suitable for them while at the same time not allowing them to create film streaming accounts or buy 18 rated content. 

    The ratings on games are placed there by PEGI in the EU and ESRB in the United States. These ratings are part of an advisory system and act as a guide as to content. The rating on PVZ:GW is to say that the content in it is suitable for a 7 years and up. There are modes ingame such as Co-Op that a child account should have no issue accessing and playing, once the parental account allows it. 

  • Anonymous's avatar
    Anonymous
    8 years ago
    I don't understand how...well that word is swearing, but okay I will not use that word anymore then.

    No you're right, it doesn't say you need to make a false account, I must have been mixing up "solutions" I've read, but it does say you need to set your child account as an adult and then manually add certain restrictions to the account as a workaround.
    That is a very convoluted way to make a child be able to play a child game and does not seem completely safe in the first place, but anyways such modifications to the parental control system is not possible on the PS4.
    You can't specifically allow or disallow joining multiplayer games, you can specify if communicating with others should be allowed or not, which preferably should not be allowed as gamers will often be using quite a vulgar language, especially towards small kids who may not be as good at the game as the older more experienced ones are.
    We tried allowing that anyways tho in order to see if that made it possible for him to play the game, but it still didn't work.

    You can only change the parental control level on a scale of 1-9 which would have had to be set at 7 in order to allow PEGI rating of 16 (ESRB rating of 15).
    I'm not sure if that would even work, as the game has a PEGI rating of 7 anyways, but we didn't try that as that would be an unacceptable setting to leave my brother's 9 year old son's account on, especially considering he mostly play together with his 7 year old brother.

    My nephew can't even launch the game on his account, it just says something about him being too young, I don't remember the exact message, but it seems it may restrict him due the DoB he registered when making the account, not the parental control function.
  • wadebear's avatar
    wadebear
    Hero (Retired)
    8 years ago

    And I have just moved this entire thread over to the correct forum. Which is 99% of what I do in the PvZ: It's About Time forum...

  • pandareno1999's avatar
    pandareno1999
    Hero+
    8 years ago
    @wadebear wrote:

    And I have just moved this entire thread over to the correct forum. Which is 99% of what I do in the PvZ: It's About Time forum...

    @wadebear As I was reading it, I was wondering how I could have missed this thread for so long!  I will defer to @EA_Darko who seems to know much better how to explain this issue.

  • dwooten77's avatar
    dwooten77
    8 years ago
    Take the restriction off while he plays. It’s good that you’re conscious of game ratings and all, but this is just the first bridge of many you will encounter with just about every game. I personally don’t have restrictions set for my son because I monitor his gameplay with however much time I give him. Now if you or the parents just want him to play and leave him to it, then I don’t know what to tell you.
  • pandareno1999's avatar
    pandareno1999
    Hero+
    8 years ago

    I'd recommend leaving the voice chat disabled.  It's very rare, at least on PS4, to hear inappropriate language or bad behavior on the chat, but it does happen.  Plus most youngsters don't seem to have any idea that they are constantly yelling into their mics and annoying all the other players.

    By the way, your child should be able to access all forms of solo play against AI with no changes to the account.  Only multiplayer modes with other human players are disabled for child accounts as far as I know.  Like @dwooten77, I have my daughter's account set to let her play freely.  She has no opportunity to play unsupervised.

  • Anonymous's avatar
    Anonymous
    8 years ago
    If you have only 1 kid I understand it may be possible to monitor their PS4 activity, however with 3 youngster at 2, 7 and 9 years old it's a lot harder.
    Especially as both parents are working busy full time jobs with the father's job requiring him to work while he is at home as well.

    You are not supposed to have to constantly monitor your children while they use their gaming console, that is what the parental control function is for.

    The kids are well behaved and they are not allowed unlimited playtime on the PS4, but the time they are given should not have to be monitored.
    While the kids are playing on it the parents get time to focus on stuff like putting the smallest one to bed, cleaning up after dinner, doing chores that need to be done around the house, answer som work emails etc. etc.

    The matter is still that the game has an age rating of 7, but you have to be 15 or 16 years old to play it without removing important safety functions preventing your child from accessing harmful content.
  • pandareno1999's avatar
    pandareno1999
    Hero+
    8 years ago

    You don't have to defend yourself, I was just explaining why it wasn't a problem for me.  I'm very sorry you took my comment to be a judgement of your parenting.

    Regarding your main point, this is a forum for players helping other players.  All I can offer you, beyond what was posted by the EA employee above, is my sympathy.  As I mentioned, every game mode in the game can be played against AI's at various difficulty levels, with no age restrictions.  It seems that your three options are to do that, pursue @EA_Darko's suggested avenue, or seek a refund for the game.  Cheers!

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