11-year-old Bullied in Warzone Describes Pathological Player Behavior

Age restrictions in video games. Although mandatory in theory, in practice we see younger players easily circumvent them and have fun in games above their age limit. In online games that feature communication between people on the server, this phenomenon brings with it a multitude of problems. Unfortunately, children often fall victim to cyberbullying by older players. Like the 11-year-old boy who shared his story from Call of Duty: Warzone with one of the users on Reddit:

The young boy recounted how his companions forced him for example, to give them better weapons or throw away the money they earned. As a consequence, the 11-year-old tended to die easily. As the author of the post, user Quzga, writes:

"Voice chat only after mutation"

I remember vividly the rule from the headline above, which was in effect on many private Counter-Strike 1.6 servers, the game which I used to play about 8-9 years ago. The use of voice chat was only available to people over the age of 16 or boys who had went through the voice change. Any appearance of underage players on the server was associated with salvos of laughter from adult CS fans and the kids were quickly banned or had their microphones muted.

Unfortunately, as you can see, this problem is still present today.. On the one hand, it's a bit hard to blame the rest of the players for not wanting to have teenagers from primary school as co-players, who often just don't know how to behave, are just learning (so they're automatically noobs), and their use of voice chat hinders instead of helping. Of course, you can't generalize and there are certainly plenty of examples of very talented young players. On the other hand, players often don't look at the facts, but use the stereotype of a typical lobby kid, i.e. if there is a kid on the server, he will most likely be annoying. This leads to reprehensible behaviour from more experienced players, such as bullying, insulting and ridiculing.

Where are the parents?

That's a pretty fundamental question that should be considered by everyone, both other fellow players and the guardians themselves, who often don't realize what their kids are doing in front of the computer/console screen, or don't even want to take an interest.

It's hard not to admit he's got a point. Parents should keep an eye on what their kids are playing, especially when it comes to titles like CoD: Warzone, where interactions with other players are the order of the day. An indirect solution could be disabling voice chat for minors, which has been mentioned by other forum members:

Here we return to Counter-Strike 1.6, where such solutions (e.g. removing younger users from voice chat) were implemented on community servers. Did it work? Yes and no. Everything depended on the quick reaction of the administration, and players often teased younger players even after they were removed from the voice chat.

Unfortunately, there's no good solution here, and the problem of kids playing games inappropriate for their age has remained unsolved for years. So remember, prevention is better than cure.

At this point, it should be recalled that both PCs and virtually every console have parental control tools that help monitor the behavior of adolescents with regard to video games. Most platforms offer the possibility of setting up so-called family accounts, thanks to which we can create a child profile for our kid. There they will be able to find entertainment suitable for their age. In a similar way, we can set a spending limit, so that the gaming purchases of minors do not make parents dizzy when the bill comes.

Naturally, these are solutions within the operating systems of individual platforms, and unfortunately children, who often outstrip their parents in knowledge of how to use these devices, can circumvent the restrictions in various ways. This is why we appeal to parents - watch what your kids are playing.

• CoD: Warzone - official website