ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the topic of the design and play of violent open-world games with child National Parents Council (NPCs). It further deals with representations of children in digital games, especially the way in which children are inscribed in the rules of the games, and the discourses that support these ways of designing and discussing games. Naturally, the idea of the child and childhood has been at the centre of the debate surrounding digital media in general and digital games specifically. Children in digital games have been studied a lot less than children in front of digital games. While the child player is a frequent topic in academic discourse, the child avatar or NPC is all but invisible in game studies. The way in which representations of children are studied may find parallels in studies of other groups that are either largely missing from digital games or are forced into stereotypical positions.
