The Game Politic
Apparently it is now Target’s corporate policy to scan the driver’s license of anyone buying an M-rated game. Also, it is apparently Target’s policy to tell its employees that such a policy is in accordance with state law in Arizona. Of course it isn’t. Also: fuck that.
Not ten minutes ago, I found myself engaged in a surprisingly heated conversation with a Target employee over checking ID for a game purchase. The best part: it wasn’t even me buying the game. It was the poor guy in front of me. This gentleman, obviously over 18, wanted to purchase a copy of God of War. For his trouble he was harassed, embarrassed, and made to feel guilty, as though he were buying some particularly offensive pornography. It went down like this:
He hands her the game, she scans it. The computer bloops up the familiar ‘this is going to take a while’ noise all line-waiting consumers dread. She mutters something about “need to scan your driver’s license for this now.” He shifts uncomfortably. “My driver’s license? Scan it?” He obviously doesn’t have a driver’s license and now everyone in line is privy to that information, which obviously makes him extremely uncomfortable. He hands her some card or other, probably a SS card, with his DOB on it. She tries to scan it; no dice. Great. His eyes dart around with the wild fear of a caged beast. I try to bail him out by asking if she’s really scanning his license for a game purchase. “I guess…” Yes, God of War Guy, it is preposterous. You are correct. Finally, she reads the DOB on the card, and decides it’s time to move the line along.
“Did you just scan his driver’s license for that game?” I ask. “Yes,” she says “it’s State law.” Is she serious? By her tone I can tell she is, and it’s very clear what side of this issue she stands on. I have to retort. “I’m sorry, but it’s not. There have been attempts to pass laws in various states, but they’ve all been blocked by their respective courts.” She takes this as a personal attack, we get into a bit of a ‘yes it is, no it isn’t’ cycle, and things degenerate. I tell her that I’m going to write a strongly worded letter to Target Corporate. She points me to the ‘write a letter to Corporate’ cards and falls back on “it’s not worth losing my job over.” I tell her that I’m not trying to get her fired, but that their new corporate policy is ridiculous. Surprisingly heated, as I said.
What the hell is going on here? Is Target deliberately misinforming their employees about Arizona state law? Even as a corporate policy, how does checking a driver’s license for a game equate to being harassed and publicly embarrassed? What are we, at the airport? Is God of War Guy wearing a turban? As he put it “it’d be easier to go to the liquor store.” Heh.
So, I’m a gamer. Not only that, I’m a game developer, which makes me part of a somewhat nonexistent constituency, politically speaking. Still, I hardly deserve to be treated like a child rapist. Of course, there are neat initiatives out there, like the Video Game Voters Network, working to counter the various legislative and political assaults on games, but in general the gamer as a political force is a non-entity. It would (and, I suspect, will) be a huge and vocal political force if mobilized. Senators Hillary Clinton (D-NY), Joe Lieberman (D-CT), and Evan Bayh (D-IN) would do well not to underestimatethe portion of the young voting population who are gamers. Why grope desperately for the scraps from the reactionary family values fundamentalist table with “The Family Entertainment Protection Act,”when you can capture a new, youthful constituency whose values are much more in line with those your party claims to espouse? Barf.
Are you aware that nowhere in the United States is it allow a minor access to an R-rated movie? From VGVN:
“Government does not regulate access to or the sale of movies, books or cable TV, and it should not regulate video games.”
Duh. I will be contacting senator McCain, and I will no longer be patronizing Target who, regardless of the underlying motivation, enforce a policy in their stores which personally affects and offends me.
8 Comments
Wow, had to read that one twice! I can’t believe that, thx for the VGVN link, i will definately be joining!
Are you sure that’s really a Target policy? Maybe its just some dumbass GM at that particular location that misinformed his/her employees. I guess the letter you wrote will answer that though.
When I was a Sales Manager at Best Buy, I had to weed out the retarded emails I would get about censoring certain movies and games. People get chewed out by a bad parent because we failed to inform her of whatever part of the game she bought offends her. The end result is a rant and a “new policy you should think about” getting emailed to everyone in a management position.
Either way, that manager should be fired, placed in the town square, and stoned.
I’m poking around right now trying to find a resource for verifying company policies such as this one. What I observed, though, was that the system had locked her out of completing the transaction until she had scanned or entered a driver’s license number.
[...] Yes, checking ID for an M rated game is a good thing; it’s self-regulatory and as such keeps the government at bay. Scanning the driver’s license was what angered me. I’ve never had to scan my driver’s license to purchase liquor or an R rated movie. That, and the way the woman treated poor God of War Guy, as though he were buying horse porn, was unacceptable. And the whole ’state law in Arizona’ thing. The sum total of the situation was enough to rile me up. [...]
Political Games
The politics of games….
I don’t think it’s target’s policy. Honestly, any employee that gets locked out for something like that uses “state law” as a defense. She was just blathering bullshit to get you off her back. It’s stupid, but honestly she wouldn’t have been able to tell you anything, as a front line grunt with no influence on target policy, that you would want to hear or that would appease you. it’s easier for her to just ask the guy for his ID and scan it than it is to hassle a manager who hates life to come over and override it because he doesn’t have an ID. She just wanted to go home. It’s like me telling people that cell phone towers magically know when you’re actually saying something and when you’re not to conserve the battery of your phone. People will usually just say “oh, i didn’t know that” and be on their merry way. If someone tells you it’s state law and you don’t know any better, 9 times outta 10 you’ll just say “oh, it’s law” and walk away. you, obviously, knew better and are more educated but for her, the 1 in 10 chance is worth taking…
i’m pretty radical about non-regulation of pretty much everything i can think of. even though i can get my hands on everything but alcohol at this point, it still annoys me that people think
1. things such as video games should be controlled because kids shouldn’t have them
2. the control put in place will actually keep kids from having them anyway
i think we should all just be pot smoking, god of warring, alcoholic five year olds. if we get bored of it by then, we could just turn out to be better adults. you never know.
The post I’m commenting on is apparently pretty old but for anyone reading this, the girl was just doing her job and probably wasn’t even sure why she was carding him, or WAS misinformed (many of them are) and was possibly just as embarassed as the guy trying to buy the game so she made something up. I got in an argument with an old lady on carding her for MucineX when she was clearly at least 40-something, but there’s no way employees can bypass the system when it asks for you to scan a card (there used to be, or so I’m told) and the team leaders can and will get on your case about it.