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.

Re:Manhunt 2

[ElleyKitten]

Most of those kids will just get their parents to buy it. I used to work at Gamestop, and I used to card kids, and invariably they'd just drag Mom or Dad in to pay for it and bitch at me for doing my job. They'd stay stupid things like "Yes, I know it has swearing" and I'd tell them it has hookers and you can beat people with dildos or whatever, and they'd just glare at me like I had just dared to question their parenting ability. Yeah. I really don't think sales are going to drop much at all.

Re:Manhunt 2

[Chosen Reject]

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.