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Kmart To Card Buyers Of Violent Games
AbbyNormal writes: "Cnn.com is reporting that Kmart(R) is now going to start carding kiddies who buy violent games (based on the ESRB rating)." Reverend Raven adds a link which paints Walmart's name on the wall of shame as well. All the more reason to buy games from local stores or on the Web, at least from places which don't bend to pressure from overzealous state attorneys general. On the other hand, industry 'guidelines' which mainstream retailers follow as if they were law seem better than actual laws doing the same, sort of like 7-11 being free not to carry pornographic magazines.
Mister...here's a fifty, could you get me a copy of Solider of Fortune?
Sig it.
I mean, I do watch over her (she's only 4 at the moment) but when she gets older, and has her own spending money, I'm not going to be able to watch over her shoulder all day and keep her from age inappropriate stuff.
I'm a little thankful that corporations are being a little more conscience of the effects on society of what they sell. If only advertisers would follow suit.
That being said, I am letting her mess around with Deer Hunter.
Personally, I don't see who really buys games at K-Mart, they're likely to be more expensive, I know their CDs are and have no selection. Though this does set a dangerous precedent that I'd hate to see other larger stores follow. I wonder if this will contribute to downloading the games off warez rooms on IRC since the kid can't buy it for real in the store.
Shine on, you crazy diamond.
It kind of shows that you don't have children of your own. I believe in privacy, both of myself and of "my" children. It works both ways--I don't go rummaging around in their stuff, and they don't go rummaging around in mine. I lead a very busy schedule (work 60+ hours/week), and so does my fiancee. We welcome all tools that will allow us to enforce our rules that we set, such as this K-Mart bit.
Seriously, there is no way that anyone can reasonably maintain a 24/7 surveillance on their children. Like it or not, this is what will be required to filter most of the social rubbish that will be imprinted on our children. Instead, let the society and the corporations help you in building the tools to monitor the products' influences on our children. This is precisely what K-Mart is doing; as the other posters have suggested, if I wanted my children to grow up playing violent video games, I will personally buy them myself. This new-age "society has no place in rearing my children" rubbish really sickens me; for thousands of years, small communities imprinted their values on the children. This indoctrination still happens daily at schools. I guess that your children will be homeschooled as well?
If you don't like it, fine. Boycott K-Mart and Wal-Mart. That is your right as a consumer. However, when you have your own children, and they're at the age where they want to play video games, even violent ones, and are playing them in your living room, at least have the decency to listen to us when we say, "We told you so.".
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If K-Mart decides they don't want to sell any product to a minor, I believe that's their right. Discrimination laws (including those based on age) are all aimed at adults, as in 50 vs. 20, not 20 vs. 12.
Whether such law even applies to sales from a private company (as in, non-government -- I know K-Mart is publicly held), I'm not sure. I would think a store can say "We don't want to sell gummy bears to Blondes because they're too air-headed already" if they want, but maybe that's illegal...
Bad PR is what keeps such activity from occuring, by and large.
Xentax
You shouldn't verb words.
If this were _law_ that was being applied unilateraly to all retailers to enforce what is (I think) a voluntary industry content rating system, then I'd be yelling.
Aren't there plenty of other places to buy video games? I guess if you live in a smaller town that only had a Wal-Mart, that could be a problem.
This seems to come right on the heels of the Democrat's schpeil at the convention about parents having the right to have control over what sex/violence their children are exposed to in their own home. PR for K-mart and Wal-mart to say 'see, we support family values too. Come shop with us'. So what?
Any determined 16-yr-old is going to be able to get his hands on DOOM 2000, regardless of its content rating or controlled distribution at a couple of major retail outlets.
Flame away.
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
A nonviolent person with a rifle in his hand is not going to hurt you.
A violent individual will make it his goal to hurt you with all available weapons... or even with none. That's something I saw firsthand in the joint.
It is mindset, not weaponry, which makes someone a danger to society. If it were to be proven that violent video games increase the likelihood of acquiring a violent mindset (which I rather doubt, however) it would be perfectly reasonable to ban them... while keeping the .22 rifles available.
Carefree highway, let me slip away on you.
actually when I submitted that story I thought of a question. Isn't this a government monopoly on photo-state id's? I mean how is a kid going to prove how old he is IF he doesn't have a license? Cary his/her birth certificate all the time?
Sig it.
I'm over 17 and enjoy playing games of all types, violent and non-violent alike. The ESRB ratings were created so that parents and merchants could be aware of which games were not meant for children. For years, the ratings were blissfully ignored by arcade operators (who put games like Soul Calibur, rated "Life-like violence -- Strong" in public view) and merchants (who wouldn't want to risk losing a sale because their customer is too young). I'm glad that a corporation is stepping forward to make sure that the ratings are actually put to their stated purpose.
Call it censorship if you'd like. Say it's Big Corporate America trying to say what's right for Our Children. (Don't worry, JonKatz will say the same thing soon enough.) Threaten to boycott K-Mart if you're really that active about it. This is just a realization of the ratings system, much like a young kid can't go into an R-rated movie -- assuming that the person behind the counter knows to card.
This will be an annoyance, but it's something that parents have asked for. The world doesn't revolve around whiny Your-Rights-Online activists.
For more information, click here.
I don't see why this is a big deal. The ratings are there for a reason aren't they? Just like movie ratings, why shouldn't game ratings be enforced by those retailers who want to? I don't see any federal or state authority forcing K-Mart to do this, they simply feel it's responsible and that's their right.
... you're not an adult and like it or not, you can't get whatever you want or do whatever you want.
... that's called parental control, more people should practice it and the more help parents get from voluntary actions like what K-Mart is doing, the better.
... but as far as I'm concerned, K-Mart is doing the responsible parents of this world a favor by giving them yet another safeguard to make sure their kids don't buy what they don't want them to have.
Wal-mart asks for ID when I buy an R rated DVD (I'm 27 mind you) and I have no problem with that.
People seem to want to give CHILDREN all sorts of freedoms but the simple fact is, if you're not 18
If I were a parent, I'd much rather drop my 15 year old kids off at a theater that ENFORCES the ratings knowing that if by chance my kids do want to buy tickets to an R rated movie after I leave, they won't be able to. The same goes for stores that enforce game ratings. As the parent, *I* should decide if they buy things that are not age appropriate. If I want them to get the "M" games, I'll buy them for them
Suggesting a boycott or "wall of shame" in these cases is just ridiculous and makes it seem like this story was written by a 14 year old who's mad he can't get Soldier of Fortune without his mom knowing.
If you want to be an irresponsible parent, fine
A few thoughts:
1) Funding and promotion for the entire media industry (entertainment, news, Slashdot, etc.) is largely predicated on the belief that people's behaviors can be influenced by the media; hence, commercials, ads, celebrity endorsements.
2) Nearly everyone in the media who earns money from the sale of violent, salacious, or obscene material holds that their work does not affect people's behavior. Interestingly, that work is usually funded & promoted in part by commercials.
=> The media is hypocritical.
Of course we are influenced by what we mentally "consume". Our entire culture is based upon information transfer. We read newspapers, books, magazines to gain info and thus have our behavior influenced and modified. We send our kids to school to hear teachers teach, so they gain knowledge & wisdom, and have their behavior change with that. Most of this is self-caused, and often purposeful. But not all. Young kids watch "Power Rangers" and then karate-kick friends and family in emulation. Teens watch hit comedies, and then talk about them, and introduce new slang into their language ("Not that there's anything wrong with that", "D'oh!", etc.)
To hold that the content of movies, books, music, games, etc. has no effect on anyone is naive, to say the least.
It seems a useful question to ask is whether we should have any restrictions on who can access what content, or none at all. (e.g. > 17 for "R" movies, "Playboy" can't be purchased by minors, need parents' permission to call the TV Psychics).
Perhaps first, we should ask not whether we are influenced by intellectual intake, but to what degree.
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D. Fischer
ShoutingMan.com
It *is* your decision. If you believe your kid should be able to get the game, go with little Timmy to the checkout lane and say so. They're not trying to make it so kids can't play the games, they're restricting who can buy them.
It makes the parents aware that their kid is getting the game, and makes sure that parents know.
This is the purpose of ratings, so the industry can police itself. Otherwise the government might decide to, and there's no way in hell I'll let that happen.
I'd like to see someone kill me at a range of fifty yards using only his hands and "arbitrary nearby objects." You don't need guns to kill someone. They just make it a whole lot easier.
But, out of deference to your argument, I suppose we should make an effort to destroy all the remaining copies of "Donkey Kong," in the world, just in case some big yahoo walks past a stack of barrels and starts getting ideas.
This will help the game industry more than hurt it. They came up with age based rating ages ago, and would have been saved most of the headache had stores enforced the ratings this way all along.
It isn't like this will hurt game sales. How many people under 17 buy their own games anyway? Games are expensive, not too many teenagers (Much less young children.) have $50 to blow on games on a regular basis. This will just result in parents purchasing the games, just like they do with R-rated movies. How many dads do you know that would tell their teenage sons no if the kid wanted to play a violent game? Chances are that if a kid has parents stupid enough to shelter the kid from violent games, the kid is probably too stupid to figure the games out anyway.
It frees the game industry from people being able to claim that they didn't know what their kids were into. That will really do a lot more good than harm in the long run. Age limits were never able to stop porn, or R level content in movies, or cigarettes, or alcohol. They won't stop violent games. If anything, they will help.