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GameStop Cracks Down on Underage Game Sales
Via GamePolitics, which has commentary of its own on the situation, a report on the Destructoid site pointing out a new, harsher penalty for GameStop employees that sell M-Rated games to minors. To be blunt: they're fired. Not only that but their managers are fired too, for failing to keep an eye on them. This new policy was set down last week in a conference call, which also warned that 'secret shopper' sub-17-year-olds would be trying to keep game store employees on their toes. The article quotes statistics from the ESRB saying that the M-rated policy has, in the past, only been enforced 65% of the time. I would imagine this will work to fix that.
Is the manager expected to work so closely to the employee, that they see every transaction that takes place? If so, couldn't they just use the manager to do the work, and get rid of the employee?
No, seriously. As someone entering the video game development industry, and who doesn't want to see the industry shackled by a decade of Hayes-code-esque "decency laws", I think it's about time for retailers to start picking up the slack WRT enforcement. Sooner or later the Jack Thompsons of the world are not going to be batshit insane self-destructors, and when that happens we need to be able to show that heavy-handed legislation is not the solution to keeping video games age-appropriate.
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So all I really need to do if I hate my manager and don't care about my job is sell an M game to a 16 year old? This sounds like a really fun way to quit your crap Gamestop job while taking someone else (you probably hate) out with you. I have had a couple of jobs I would have exited a lot more readily if it meant that my boss would also be fired also.
The only way this will reasonably work is if the point-of-sale system requires manager approval to sell an M rated game. Hopefully the (ahem) genius that devised the ridiculous policy will at least figure out this simple way to make it somewhat fair.
Now I have to pay some homeless guy every time I want to buy a video game, not just when I want cigarettes or booze. Can GameStop start selling Olde English 800 to cut down on my transaction costs? Do these execs think high school kids are made of money??
Certainly some of them will do that, but a good portion of them will just go find an older brother or an irresponsible parent to buy it for them. Less than 10% of games are purchased by someone under 18. I understand that it's important for companies like Gamestop to be responsible about selling to minors, but these rules are almost worthless when it comes to keeping violent games out of the hands of children. The onus is on the parents to ensure that their children aren't playing these games. They're the only ones with any real control over the situation.
Ding. You figured it out. If a kid wants Manhunt 2 and the Gamestop employee won't sell it to them and they still want it then they have to go get someone else to buy it for them. That someone else might be an older brother or a friend or maybe even a parent. If it's the latter then Gamestop has helped the parent know what their kids are buying. If it's not, then Gamestop has absolved itself of any wrong doing and the parents can't sue neither Gamestop or the company that made it. The person who gave the kid the bad video game is not involved in the industry.
This isn't, and never has been, about keeping kids from playing certain games. It's about passing the blame. If Gamestop succeeds with this, then parents can only blame themselves for buying it, or they can blame their older children for buying it, or they can blame their kids' friends, or whatever, but they can't blame the games industry. I see nothing but good coming of this and hope them all the best. This new rule is the smartest thing Gamestop could have done. I applaud them.
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Just say no to irreversible processes!
It used to be that alcohol was a part of man's daily life. Making water into beer and wine kept it potable for long periods of time. While "underage" - if you could call it that - drinking wasn't illegal, it was generally frowned upon for a man to let his son or daughter get roaring drunk. There was family oversight of drinking activities, which tended to restrain people from getting totally sloshed. That, and the fact that hard liquor hadn't been invented...
As the industrial era came upon us, families generally stopped producing alcohol. They could buy it more cheaply from the brewery than they could make it. Consequently, there came about laws which prevented minors from purchasing alcohol. Now the state had to step in to prevent unscrupulous shopkeepers from profiteering from inappropriate drinking. The rationale was pretty good - underage drinking does have deletrious effects on developing minds and bodies.
Still later, when the dangers of tobacco became apparent, selling it to minors was prohibited. Again, it was done with the intention of protecting children, and given that nicotine is more addictive than heroin, it didn't seem like such a bad law.
Now, in the Land of the Future(TM), selling strings of bits to minors is prohibited. Somehow, we are supposed to believe that children are not capable of dealing with violent video games, even though they'll see 16,000 murders on tv by the time they are 18. This restriction, mind you, from the same society that considers Jack Bauer torturing a suspect on national tv to be entertainment. Show it all you want on tv, but don't dare let a minor buy a violent video game.
What an improvement to society!
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