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The Tale of Wal-Mart, Jack, and Bully

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the suspicious-activity dept.

GamePolitics is reporting on something that seems like a simple decision: Wal-mart is no longer accepting pre-orders for unrated games. As a 'family-friendly' establishment, it makes a certain amount of sense. The catch is that, in the eyes of many, one of the U.S.'s largest retailers is bowing to pressure from Jack Thompson. The company denies these claims, with Kotaku running a short discussion with John Simley, Wal-mart spokesperson. From that article: "Simley says it has nothing to do with Bully, but rather is the outcome of discussions that the company has been in for 'weeks if not months' about how to handle rating pending titles. Bricks and mortars stores have never accepted pre-orders for RP titles, he added. 'I'd like to give credit to Jack Thompson, but there are a lot of Jack Thompsons out there and we are just listening to our customers,'"

7 of 138 comments (clear)

  1. That's great, Walmart... by tacarat · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ... now get the rest of the RP games out there off the preorder list. If you're going to do it for violent or racier games, then I expect to see every unrated, family safe Disney game get the same treatment before release.

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    1. Re:That's great, Walmart... by Phat_Tony · · Score: 2, Interesting

      If the reason they're holding back on these games until they're rated is to avoid carrying games with mature ratings, then there's no point in them holding Disney games where it's 100% positive the game will get child-friendly rating like EC or E. If you don't want to carry any "A" games, then it makes sense not to accept pre-orders on any "RP" games that are known to be shooting for an "M" rating until they are actually rated. If the ESRB really plays hardball and requires dramatic changes to meet "M," the company may decide to go ahead and release it as "A," leaving Walmart in a pickle.

      But Disney isn't going to "accidentally" include a sequence where you murder prostitutes and bathe in their blood in the next "Learning With Nemo" title, and then refuse to take it out and accept an "A" rating when they were shooting for "EC." Walmart has no reason to wait on allowing pre-orders, because there' no realistic scenario in which games everyone knows are aiming for a rating of "E10" at the highest get released as "A."

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  2. Not really... by steveo777 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Wal-Mart has always had this stance. I doubt Jack has anything to do with it. I still remember back when Mortal Kombat came out and they didn't carry the Genesis version because there was blood in it. But they had the SNES version becuase it was colored gray (sweat).

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  3. Walmart supplies the heartland by 192939495969798999 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I understand that this seems incredibly bogus, and I agree. However, you have to understand where Wal-mart does the bulk of its business, in my experience. This decision didn't come down to affect scientifically enlightened locations like Silicon Valley or New York City. These are areas where if the local church objects, there will be mass boycotts and negative media attention, because EVERYONE in town goes to that church. And, of course, the local church will object to anything that sounds like it's not a) conservative, b) WWJD, c) wont someone think of the children, etc.

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  4. Re:What's the big deal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    First off, Walmart has not said they will stop stocking games based off of ratings (with the obvious exception of Adult Only games; all Walmart said is that they would stop allowing people to pre-order games where the rating is pending. I have to agree with their decision on this one.

    Ultimately Rating Pending is a bad rating for a company to deal with mainly because they don't know what rating it will get so how do you handle a 14 year old that wants to pre-order the game? If the game gets a Mature rating and the child asks his mother to pick up a game he pre-ordered the mother may assume that the content was appropriate because they allowed her child to pre-order it; in a way, this means that you could violate the spirit of policies you set up to prevent Mature games from getting into the hands of minors (even though you would face no legal liability, you could still see public outrage from this).

    Beyond the censorship issues, I think it makes good sense not to allow a pre-order until the ESRBs give a rating (or more appropriately, within 6 weeks of a game/system launching); if you allow pre-orders before that you're setting yourself up for headaches because you have copies of a product in your store which will sell quickly (but only for the first couple of weeks) and you can't sell them because you "promised" not to (possibly with money down, but usually only a small ammount down).

  5. Re:Preorder is a scam anyway by dctoastman · · Score: 2, Interesting

    A game costs $50.
    Doesn't he gain money then?
    Because if he paid $10 a year ago, and if that $10 is worth $8 when the game is released, then he only needs to come up with the last $40, instead of $42.
    In a way, that $10 did earn him interest because it was protected from deflation by being held in a private trust.
    And if he prepaid for the game, then he really paid $40 adjusted for inflation.

    Hell, you convinced me, I'm preordering my PS4 now so I'll only be paying $200 after adjusting for inflation.

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  6. no effect by dlc3007 · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I really couldn't care less what Wal-Mart does or does not sell. I refuse to shop there for anything anyway.