Stories of Stupidity
I’m going on a week-long trip on Friday. I mention that to explain the story I’m about to tell. This trip I’m taking, some would call it a vacation, involves me being in a car for about 14 hours. For those of you who have driven this far before you know that it is important to have something to do or at least have a healthy supply of sleeping pills. I’m out of sleeping pills. Instead I decided to go to the mall and pick myself up a Nintendo DS (sidetrack: screw every “next-gen” system, I’m having more fun with this thing than any other system I’ve played recently) and some games. I’m a masochist as should be obvious by the fact that I ventured into EB Games. To understand how horrible Gamestop/EB Games is you should probably imagine yourself in prison. Your cell-mate in this prison is the Devil himself.
But I digress because this is not a story of EB Games’ stupidity (though I have a story of their stupidity as well, which happened the same day.) This story is of a parent. This parent happens to have two sons. Neither one of which is older than, I’d guess, six (actually the one didn’t look any older than about three or four.) The older of the two children, the six year old is standing in front of me in line, game in hand, with this father next to him. I look down at the game the kid is clutching in his death grip, carefully avoiding showing any large part of it, front or back, to his father. The girl at the register is watching this kid too, though she can’t see what game he is holding. I can. The game is Conker: Live & Reloaded. If you have heard of either these games you know what the problem is with a six year old getting them. If you don’t merely clicking the link I provided will tell you all you need to know. Here’s the important bit, the game is rated “M”. Here’s why:
ESRB Content Descriptors: Blood and Gore, Mature Humor, Intense Violence, Sexual Themes, Strong Language, Use of Drugs and Alcohol
The “Use of Drugs and Alcohol” label has always seemed rather silly to me, so I think it is safe to say that it isn’t a big deal if the kid sees a squirrel drinking beer, judging by how the rest of this story goes it isn’t the first time he has been introduced to either drugs or alcohol in his own home let alone his life. Let’s also assume that this kid won’t “get” the “Mature Humor” of the game, it will all just go right over his head. I’ll even be generous and say that the same is true for the “Sexual Themes.” Taking out all of those things which you probably don’t want a six year old to see what are we left with that he will be exposed to and understand. “Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language.” These are things, we can all admit, a six year old shouldn’t be viewing.
They are next up in line and the kid hands his father the game, so he can pay for it. The father doesn’t look down, doesn’t look at the box, doesn’t look at the rating, just blindly hands it over to be paid for. She rings it up because, technically, the buyer is over 18. And hey, there’s no reason to hurt the bottom line over this when saying anything would be a bit of a stretch. As she hands him bag her bag her conscience seems to get the better of her and she says, “You should probably watch him while playing that game, it’s really bad.”
The father smiles, tousles his kid’s hair and walks out. A naughty squirrel? How preposterous!
August 20th, 2007 at 8:56 pm
Gosh, the clerk was in a terrible position because you know if she had said something more, the dad would have been all defensive.
I don’t get the “having children and refusing to be a parent” thing. How much effort does it take to check a book title, game title or CD cover?
August 20th, 2007 at 9:18 pm
Too disturbing on too many levels! I guess this is where the “building manual dexterity” excuse comes in. Kid can’t read a book without pictures yet, but he can blow somebody’s brains out in half a second with a digital beer in one hand and his virtual girlfriend’s butt in the other.
August 20th, 2007 at 9:20 pm
“How much effort does it take to check a book title, game title or CD cover?”
More than none, which is the effort people like that put into parenting.
What I want to know is why didn’t anyone else mention it to him?
August 20th, 2007 at 9:25 pm
This is exactly why violent tragedies happen. Too many people are quick to blame video games, but it isn’t the games themselves–its the inability of the parent to make sure that what their kid is playing is APPROPRIATE.
And don’t get me started on the stupidity of Gamestop/EB. I stood in line FOREVER there the other day because their employees are IDIOTS.
/end rant.
August 20th, 2007 at 11:16 pm
And this is going to be one of the parents who later goes along with the masses and blames “those damn video games” for violence in the world.
Go ahead. You blame video games and remember when you bought your six year old a game that even some 18yos would find a big much.
Pfft.
August 21st, 2007 at 12:16 am
Welcome to the generation of television and video game childcare.
I’m sure the cashier would have to indure a discussion from the supervisor if she had said something more.
August 21st, 2007 at 9:44 am
Wow. What’s worse is that is probably bothered you more than it did the father, who apparently has no clue. Why the cashier said nothing is beyond me. This saddens me because some parents are so oblivious, it’s truly scary.
August 21st, 2007 at 10:06 am
[...] San Jose Children August 21st, 2007 by Catherine Neal Stupid is as stupid does. A fellow blogger at MMO Gaming wrote about the drama that went down at a local EB Games. In short a six year old walked out of the [...]
August 21st, 2007 at 10:18 am
[...] place-specific books this week (I have the Mounties book in hand) but I ran across this post on a Gaming MMO and couldn’t help myself. It kind of goes to the heart of my posts from last week about [...]
August 21st, 2007 at 6:01 pm
I hate stupid parents. My son does play video games…what’s wrong with MARIO?! There are so many different Mario games, you can never tire of them all!!!!
August 22nd, 2007 at 5:45 am
While I totally agree with the premise of the story and the comments that follow. Can I interject a more probable scenerio, before the poor Dad lands in jail.
I have three kids and I have been to the store with them many times by myself with them at this age. The big “flick” for me at the store is to keep my kids near me and in control, not that they are out of control by any means.
So, let’s say that this father is some what responsible and is doing the same as I would at the store. Let’s say that he was holding both of his kid’s hands, even holding his smaller child in his arms maybe, while walking around what would seem like a pretty busy store.
Then this father sees the game he wants to buy and asks his older son to hold on to it until they get to the checkout. Then at the checkout the older child, proud to help his Dad, hands him the game when they get to the checkout.
That is the scenerio that I hope took place instead of the one presented to us.
August 23rd, 2007 at 7:25 am
Scott your scenario requires a lot of things to be true and Brandon did not make them exactly clear. As I was also there I can say that the dad was waiting to check out with his other children for about 5 minutes at least, because I was in line behind him. During that time he was holding a movie and arguing with one of the younger kids about some Xbox for Playstation magazine or something that caught the kids attention. About 30 seconds before he was set to check out the child in question finally got around to showing back up with this game in hand.
August 26th, 2007 at 7:02 am
Josh,
Thanks for the clarification. I was just hoping that my scenario was true, unfortunately it seems it was not.