• Is it age appropriate?

  About our ratings

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  Not age appropriate for kids under 12, age appropriate for kids over 14; suggested age 13.

• Is it any good?

  3.0

• Common Sense says

  Virtual world has safe chat but iffy games and music.

Why We Rated This for Ages 13–14

The good stuff

• Educational value:

  Not an issue.

What to watch out for

• Messages:

  Some of the songs/videos on the music player glamorize violence and have sexist and homophobic messages.
• Violence:

  A few of the games involve animal cruelty: bashing penguins with a club until blood squirts out, rats squealing when they're killed by traps, sheep drowning in a moat. Some of the movie theater content has PG-rated violence, such as explosions.

• Sex:

  Chat blocks sexual terms, but many songs and videos in the library contain sexual lyrics and images.
• Language:

  Chat is filtered, and users will be issued a warning if they try to type in profanity – and banned if they don't clean up their act. But the music player has some songs and videos with graphic and hateful language, including "f—k," "bitch," "fag," and the N word.

• Consumerism:

  The site promotes a VIP membership that starts at 1 a month, and users are frequently prompted to purchase Viz Dollars. There's a store that sells VizWoz T-shirts and other items (for real money). There are content partnerships, such as jokes sponsored by outside Web sites and video promos for upcoming films.

• Drinking, drugs, & smoking:

  There's a nightclub that has a bar in the background.

What Parents Need to Know

About VizWoz

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