What is your opinion on 16+ pet sites.

[Ollie]

It seems as of recent a lot more sites are going for the 16+ age group to attract a more mature member base.

I can see a positive and negative in this.

Positive - The rules are more lax, swearing is allowed if indirect, and you generally have a much nicer community.

Negative - You are shunning out the biggest target market a petsite has. Children.

What are your opinions?

[DragonSpeaker]

16+ users have more disposable income to use at their own discretion. They are more likely to have their own jobs, credit cards, bank accounts, or at the very least, allowances. They are not subject to so many legal snags as younger users, especially the 13 and under crowd.

Also, as someone who grew up playing pet games and participating in cyberpet communities, I find that I've grown out of a lot of the sites targeted at younger people, such as Neopets. 16+ sites are targeting a subset of users who want a more sophisticated game and have the money to support it. There have always been plenty of games for children, but it's nice to finally have more communities where adults are allowed to be adult.

[cpvr]

It seems as of recent a lot more sites are going for the 16+ age group to attract a more mature member base.

I can see a positive and negative in this.

Positive - The rules are more lax, swearing is allowed if indirect, and you generally have a much nicer community.

Negative - You are shunning out the biggest target market a petsite has. Children.

What are your opinions?

I think its a great idea - but some pet sites can target children as well - what does everyone like, less chat speak, and more mature members?

[flizab]

Regardless of what age limit a site sets, children will lie to join it. There would be no way to have a 16+ site.

This doesn't really answer the question, but just wanted to comment.

[fyrkant]

Regardless of what age limit a site sets, children will lie to join it. There would be no way to have a 16+ site.

Yeah, very true - I know I did that all the time until I didn't have to anymore! But at least the children will be the ones "at fault", and not the site, if they end up with something stupid happening to them... well.

As for the discussion I'm personally all for it, I think you can probably be really successful with such a site if you just do it right.

[cpvr]

Regardless of what age limit a site sets, children will lie to join it. There would be no way to have a 16+ site.

This doesn't really answer the question, but just wanted to comment.

Usually when they lie to join it, they sometimes slip up and tell someone their age. What do you do then? Strip them off their account or let them play?

[Panda!]

Do lots of children even still play petsites, though? I've just always had this feeling that the majority of people who play them nowadays are older members who have been playing them their whole lives. I don't know. (With the exception of places like Neopets, of course)

I like the idea of a 16+ pet site, though

[Dawnshadow]

Usually when they lie to join it, they sometimes slip up and tell someone their age. What do you do then? Strip them off their account or let them play?

Neo changes their brithdate. :3 (If they don't know your age, they'll change it to the date they caught you)

For my site I was thinking that the youngest you can join is 13 (to still get the younger audiences) but it'll be (much) more directed to 16+. I plan on making the site difficult to understand when you first sign up to discourage younger users. >: D (a lot of big words and such. XD)

[Organic]

As an adult I just have zero interest in sharing my gaming experience with kids. In my experience on the internet kids have been very disrespectful to sites as a whole and beyond that I just don't feel like it's acceptable for adults to be forming friendships and having serious discussions with young kids. SO I like the 16+ audience and would prefer even a 18+ audience. There are movies for kids and adults. Games for kids and adults. Why not petsites for kids and adults? I think it's perfectly cool to cater to adults once in a while we like to have fun too.

[sunandshadow]

I generally prefer to play 18+ games, though I'm not sure how much that would affect a pet site since there's not much in the way of chat - it would only matter if there is a roleplaying community that needs the freedom to swear and rp romantic/sexual content.