Part of the reason for this experiment is that the holiday season is upon us yet again and many parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles will go out into the retail world, not armed with the proper knowledge about what kinds of games they are buying for their respective little people.  We know that a lot of parents won’t heed the warnings given anyway, (we’ve personally witnessed parents being told not to buy a certain game for a child due to its’ content and were dismissed), But if the ratings aren’t posted anywhere, it’s a little difficult to refer to them for help.  During the holiday season it’s easy for all this protocol to get lost in the shuffle at Wal-mart or Target, or even on a busy Saturday.   On this site and on Gamer Girls Radio, we often preach to parents about being better at watching what their kids play, but in truth, not a lot of parents visit gaming sites to gather knowledge about what their kids play.  Even less have taken the time to read the game packaging to determine if there MIGHT be something harmful in the games they pick up for their little ones. This is where the experiment began.

 Our main focus for these experiments was not the usual suspects such as GameStop and GameCrazy, not because they are perfect in their execution of following the rules set forth by the ESRB,  but because they are obvious.  Now, while we can be a bit controversial here at times, this is not our aim this time. We set out to run a controlled (or as controlled as it can be in this instance) experiment.  Our volunteers were not permitted to take ANY photos of the employees at any of the retailers visited as we didn’t want anyone to lose their jobs.  Our volunteers were told that they didn’t have to have the children actually purchase a game, only attempt to, to see if it could be done.  We were shocked to find that a Target on Flatbush Ave, in New York did indeed sell an M rated game(Borderlands) to a 14 year old. 

Even though GameStop was not included in the experiment, more than a few people added that they’d witnessed Call of Duty being offered to minors at the midnight launch event, IF someone else who was of age in line would vouch for them.  The person that vouched for them did not have to be a legal parent or guardian…shame on you GameStop!

Wal-mart was not observed as having sold a game to a minor, but no Wal-marts visited here in our local Houston area were observed to have any ESRB ratings posted in their stores.  We did contact Wal-mart to give them the opportunity to respond to this allegation and were met with a rather… “passionate” ,we’ll say, employee who said it was impossible that this was so.  We informed her it was indeed so and would be happy to send her photos. We also noted that on the Wal-mart website it’s stated that Wal-mart does not carry “adult” rated games, as in AO.  This is admirable, but they carry Grand Theft Auto IV, which we pointed out.  The rep pointed out that M is not adult.  Anyone who’s actually played GTA can tell you..M is indeed adult in this instance. The rep said to us that they were merely following the ESRB ratings, that M is not the same as AO,  and that they are a family store. We say that’s splitting hairs.  Our suggestion is a new job needs to be created at Wal-mart (and Target), called Play Tester.  Yes the ESRB informed you that the game was not rated Adults Only, but that does not mean the material in the game is suitable for a “family” environment.  We’re willing to bet there are several parents who would say pimps and prostitutes in a game is not family friendly at all.

We also visited Toys R Us but no gamers attempted to purchase games there.  There were also no ESRB signs. Also in the no signage camps were Office Depot and Big Lots, both of which carry games. 

We corresponded with Grace Lee at the ESRB regarding the lack of ESRB ratings signs at most of the retailers visited, and were told that at present displaying ESRB signage is on a voluntary basis at present.  The aforementioned retailers ARE in fact working with the ESRB to make sure parents are adequately informed of what they are buying for their children.  However, when you’re an entity as large as Wal-mart or Target, it can be difficult to be sure that every single outlet is following such a protocol.  While Wal-marts’ passionate response is admirable, the focus should not have been on us finding the mistake (which is what we were made to feel like) but on correcting it.  We also were not impressed by it being implied that we were liars and couldn’t have seen what we saw nor could we mobilize thousands of gamers to pull off such an experiment.  Need it be pointed out again that this is the age of Twitter and Facebook, and it only takes one message and a moment to reach thousands of gamers who are every bit as passionate about their games as they(Wal-mart and Target) are about their respective companies.

Toward the end of our “talk” I explained this very thing to the rep and told her that this is OUR community and we receive more than enough bad press.  Every time some lunatic shoots up a grocery store and they find a copy of a game at their house, it falls to our community to deal with the fall out.  If our community can self regulate and create ratings systems, then our retailers should display this so that there are fewer misunderstandings.  When the initial scandal with Rockstar and the Hot Coffee Mod came about,  it was gamers, NOT Wal-mart or Target who had to stick up for our developers.  When Jack Thompson attacked games, it was gamers who had to step in again and protect our developers.  We understand there is money involved and these retailers have to protect their own interests.  Just be aware, we will be protecting ours as well.

Please visit the ESRB at www.ESRB.org for further information on policies and practices.  And visit www.theeca.com to sign up make your voice heard.

*At the time this article went live, neither Target, nor Wal-mart provided further comment.  We will keep you posted of any further updates.