@TearsandScreams: I know a couple of GameStop managers and I can honestly say that they're not the kind of people that would enforce carding kinds. So yes, I guess I can understand how employees might flub carding kids if their managers don't care, but it doesn't make it any more excusable.

s1ipstream

Hmm harsh or not, it's the law. And the purpose is ID everyone who looks under 21. It's there for a reason, and people should just ID anyone they suspect, not just because they look a bit older. That's why the fine is there, although I wonder quite how much it is emphasised staff should obey these laws by management

TearsandScreams

I worked in Game and it is more difficult to tell a girl's age than a man especially when they are 16-20. So I can understand how it was possible for this girl to buy these games.

Also from the article:

Ash Shah, assistant head of Brent and Harrow Council trading standards, says of the investigation's findings: "Staff should realise that they have a moral and legal duty to stop these sales from taking place.

"There is a mixed but growing body of evidence that very violent games like this can sometimes influence under-age players with reports of anti social behaviour linked to them, in extreme cases even fatalities."

Did she just make the last paragraph up? Someone who is misinformed making a broad sweeping statement is getting tired.

Malidictus

@Chilly Hollow: Yeah, I can never quite tell whether or not I should feel complimented or insulted when I get carded...

s1ipstream

If it was one of these japan-only DS "touching games", the headline would have read

High Street Retailers Sell Underage-Girl Games To Mature Gamers

/try the veal

GMC

@Tyrannical: Next time try reading! Writers love it when people read their words and then make helpful comments, instead of skipping the middle man. I even linked Ashcraft's story in my story.

Mike Fahey

Gamestop cards me every time I buy an M rated game even though I'm 21 with a thick beard. It's obvious that I'm over the age of 18, but the card anyways. These retailers can't use the "but they looked older" excuse.

Doomstink

@s1ipstream:
You´re right that age ratings are made for a reason, i just think they´re way off to the degree where one can wonder if they are actually made by people living in our day and age.
Its just unrealistic that some games get an m rating while one can see way heavier things when turning on the news channel at 11 am.
I also think its off and pretty much equally unrealistic to expect from the parents that they monitor everything what their kids see. I don´t know what its like for you or others but when i was 15 my mom and dad would both work all day so i could have easily watched/played/browsed anything i wanted to. Now with the internet and broadband access being more common its even easier for kids.
In my eyes it makes sense that parents monitor things as much as they can while kids are really small but then the more kids go towards teenager times prepare em to what they could see but then give them the freedom to see what they like. The oh so "hardcore" stuff would then maybe be less interesting to em than if one forbids it and its better they learn how to deal with things rather than trying to forbid what can´t be forbidden anymore nowadays.
The real repsonsibility of parents and the social communities and governments shouldn´t be to forbid stuff (which is unrealistic anyway) but rather to help forming self and real life aware next generation adults who don´t get a nervous breakdown or worse when playing gta or watching the news channel.

tomsamson

@King of Fun UK: Sadly I also get asked for ID when buying Mature rated games. Usually the clerks also ask me if I know the game is violent. And I am close to three times your age. Here in the U.S. it is the store policy some places to make sure folks know what they are buying.

Guess they think I'm a dumb grandmother. Obviously I need to change my "look." Wonder if I can borrow Crescente's bird shirt?

Chilly Hollow

@Fox:
But imagine if it did. ;)

Mikazukinoyaiba

@Mikazukinoyaiba:

Yeah, I didn't notice that one story was talking about online sales, and the other about retail.

Tyrannical

I don't know much about how UK retailers operate, but usually in the US, stores tell employees whatever the age limit is for [whatever material], ID the guest unless they look [age + ten years] or [age times two] or something. So I really can't pity these guys too much. I know sometimes teenage girls don't appear to be minors, but they rarely appear to be twenty-five or thirty.

wild homes and gardens

@tomsamson: I would agree that placing a mature rating on a game kind of adds to the intrigue for kids, but I think the mature guidelines are set for a reason. There are all sorts of marginal parents out there who have absolutely zero regard for what kinds of media their children are ingesting and having enforced mature ratings serves as a kind of buffer against this. The bottom line has *always* been that parents need to monitor what their kids are buying/watching/playing etc etc etc, but there are only so many good parents out there.

s1ipstream

Its really a bit unfair to try that test with a girl in that age cause usually girls in that age look much older than boys in the same age.
Besides that, yeah, i don´t think that small kids should play m rated games either but if a 15 year old gets serious issues from playing an m rated game he/she probably already had lots of other serious issues before and seeing any movie,mag or newspaper post could have caused the same for him/her.
Let´s put the Jack Thompson kinda worldview glasses off for a second and get realistic: then its pretty obvious that way more mature stuff is shown in mags,newspapers and on tv throughout the whole day than one can experience in most m rated games. Also thanks to the internet anything anyone wants to see is basically just a click away, so why bother with outdated views?
Next to that most of us have watched or played with m rated stuff when we were a good bit younger and its a wild guess, but yes, i´d expect most of us didn´t become psychopats.
Next to all that fuzz its the most obvious thing that everything forbidden or unreachable seems way more interesting than what one can easily get, so yeah, if you put an m rated,only for adults label on something its your fault kids are more interested in it.
I remember back when i was small we of course didn´t have access to the internet yet and back then nudity wasn´t so common on german tv either so it was most special to us to see titty mags or a way bad soft "porn" from the 70ies on tv on weekends.
Look at Africa where some tribes run around naked all day and noone cares about seeing a nipple.
I think there would be much less fuzz about these things if all were available to everyone 15 and up.
But yeah,no,go try putting m ratings and "so heavy it was almost forbidden" labels and hype on stuff..

tomsamson

@s1ipstream: Agreed. Female or not, looking of age or not, they should be ID'ed. The law does not take "bu-but, she looked older!" as an excuse.

Fox

They all should have known better.
If they don't abide by the rules it brings the crap down on the rest of us.

CanaryWundaboy

Oops! There goes my faith in humanity.

garytek

the kryptonite of 13-30 year-old boys everywhere.

fixed.

robotleawesome

@Coldgunner: Actually, the 18-rated games don't have a "game rating", they have an 18 BBFC classification which is the same used for films here in the UK. So those stores would 100% know all about the BBFC ratings and so basically, they didn't care very much.

Kazzahdrane

@in5ane: Actually, they should have known something was up from the beginning. EVERYONE knows that there's no such thing as a girl gamer!

;)

Spoony Bard

They're all traps now!

greyhoundbus

I'm sorry, but there's really no excuse for letting underage kids buy mature-rated games. Clerks should treat it like waiters do in restaurants with alcohol: if a patron looks under the age of 30, you card them. Period. So if a kid looks like they're under 25, ask for ID.

I really don't understand why GameStop employees here in the States have such a hard time with that.

s1ipstream

The female variety mature faster than the male species, and with the added addition of make-up, they can make themselves look years older than they actually are.

SovietEngland

@Tyrannical:
Uh, what do you mean?

Ashcraft's story is about buying said games online and this one is about actual walk-in retailers.

Mikazukinoyaiba

A 15yo can look 18 easily. They should have noticed something was fishy when a girl was buying Condemned tho :)

in5ane

[kotaku.com]

I guess no one noticed the same story was posted by Ashcraft a 1 1/2 hrs ago? Oh well, we can compare and contrast writing styles.

Tyrannical

Actually, the poor clerks did ask for ID but it was in a soundless awkward mumble directed at their own shoes.

PositivelyGreg

Meh, this is what matters? games? what about all the people on weekends (and now weekdays due to summer) underages drinking across the UK?

Flawless101

The EYES! They're looking at MY SOUL! GAH! The heretics! Purge this area in FLAME, my brothers!

Salen

I am pretty sure that to do this sting operation, they gussied up some 15 year old girl to look like a 20 year old.

Hell, maybe they used that R. Kelly girl...

Spoony Bard

Girls tend to look older than they are by the way they dress, so effectively looked old enough. Only GAME is a dedicated store who should know better, the others sell loads of other stuff and game ratings are not relelvant to them.

Coldgunner

Thats hardly fair, most girls around that age look alot older than their male counter parts.

Annoyingly, I'm 20 and I still get asked for ID when buying an 18 rated game :(.

King of Fun UK

Sounds like entrapment of the male kind with that kind of setup, seriously at that age, I would have got into a fist fight with blood all over me asking for the girls number or attention.

Oh the opposite sex, destructive to the unrelenting chaos called puberty and male sexuality.

Mr.DuckSauce

That picture is disgusting and obscene! Where's that NSFW fish when you need it?

Metal_Slug_Solid

Maplin sells computer games? People go to Maplin to buy games? Since when?

cdammers

@Capt. Struggle Bunny: And in my experience, they're not far wrong sadly :(

TearsandScreams

@TearsandScreams: Yes, the law is there for a reason: the UK thinks its adult citizens are too stupid to parent their own children and thinks its underage citizens are all potential murdering wackos who just need to see a little flash of blood to go off.

Capt. Struggle Bunny

@s1ipstream:
Probably because it isn't illegal in the states to sell an M rated game to a 5 year old. (or whatever)

(Strictly speaking, I'm not sure if anybody has pressed the issue, but it actually may be illegal to refuse to sell an M rated game to a 5 year old. From what I understand, many states have laws on the books preventing discrimination in who you can sell to, (mainly to prevent anti-black discrimination) but it's likely the law says something like the typical anti-descrimination "age, race, or gender".) 'Course, I'm uncertain whether somebody under the age of 18 could legally bring such a case to court on their own, and if their parent would endorse said case, the parent would probably have just bought the game for their kid themselves.

(Pornography, for what it's worth, is under a whole different set of laws)

GnatB

Uhm.. not to be an ass but shouldn't the first word be why instead of which Mike?

CheechWizz

I thought the point of enforcing the rating system was because they didn't want post-adolescent boys going apeshit and going on a school shooting rampage after being easily influenced by the murder simulators.

AS WE ALL KNOW, girls are precious little snowflakes that are absolutely harmless, and won't be infected by the games by proxy.

Can they not even stick to a coherent and consistent message?

xanderphydeaux

@s1ipstream: agreed on all :)

tomsamson

@tomsamson: I wholeheartedly agree. The only problem I really see is that so much of what we deem "child-appropriate" can only be determined on a case by case basis. By this I mean that while certain kids may be able to comfortably process violent or erotic content, the are others the same age who just aren't mature enough to handle these things. Therefore, as you said, putting a 18 and over label on a game isn't necessarily adequate. And yes, I think the mature game age requirement probably should be knocked down a peg, but to what? I mean, what do we use to gauge what's inappropriate for kids or not?
I think we can both appreciate the complexity of the issue. And it's why I don't envy the ESRB. >_<

s1ipstream

@Jagzthebest: What bullshit is that? If you walk around with alcohol on the street in the UK and it's been opened, the police have the right to take it off you and pour it away. No matter what age you are. And if it's not opened, you're only allowed to carry it with you if you're over 18. It goes without saying that you're not allowed to drink alcohol unless 18 and over, no matter where you are.

That's how it works in this city in England and I doubt it's different from others in the country.

Candlejack

@Flawless101: You mean buying right? Its legal to drink in the UK from the age of 5, yes, no typo 'five' and at restaurants you can buy alcohol from the age of 16 if you're with a parent. otherwise 18 for buying.

Jagzthebest

Yeah, that's uhm.

That's pretty fucked up.

Poor clerks.

sir_carrot

[upload.wikimedia.org] Only the creepiest cover in history.

Sunjammer

As someone else said, girls look older than guys do at that age. But also I think stores wouldn't expect girls who are not 18 to be buying 18 games. Or the old theory that male staff serve teenage girls no matter what it is. (I'm mainly referring to alchol here.)

CrazyBlue

Well it makes sense that it'd be outlawed there, I mean, a person cant sneak into a pr0n shop, an X rated movie, why let someone buy a movie that has neither of that, or content that isn't that much worse then TV?

Talleh

It's just harder to tell what age girls are, I know people that do it all the time! What with 18 being the age to purchase games, no wonder those clerks were confused!

Chewbenator

There is no place for the law, nor is there place for the regulation of who buys what. They're going to have to financially implement their own checking system if they *really* want to enforce this kind of law (ANYWHERE even). Because...come on. It's really up to the parents what their kids see, isn't it? I mean... I grew up watching Rated-R movies and my parents didn't get thrown in jail. Funny how the clerks are held responsible. They don't give a fuck, especially when they can't even be responsible for being totally sober as a store clerk most of the time. Heh.

Brocklesocks

" It goes without saying that you're not allowed to drink alcohol unless 18 and over, no matter where you are."

Uh, no. As Jagz says:

You can give alcohol to a child of five - "No intoxicating liquor may be administered to a child under five years of age except under medical supervision or in the case of sickness or other urgent cause."

16 year olds can be served alcohol with a meal - "It is an offence for an individual under 18 to consume alcohol on relevant premises and for anyone who had the authority to stop him to allow him so to do. The exception where the consumption is to be on the premises, is where the child is aged between 16 and 17 and is accompanied by an adult and is having a table meal. In those circumstances, the only alcohol that they are allowed to consume is wine, beer
or cider."

Many local authorities have banned drinking in the street, but it is not statutory law. The closest statute allows the police to confiscate alcohol from under 18s when they are creating disorder.

cdammers

This is probably a terrible thing to say, but I've never heard of a girl being involved in a school shooting.

Society views women as loving, caring and not-violent. We have less testosterone than men and we're biologically less prone to violent and aggressive behavior.

I think that if there was to be studies done on male aggression vs female aggression after exposure to videogames, there would be a significant difference.

Maybe the clerks just didn't CARE that she was underage because of the innate male and female differences and the REASONS those restrictions were put in place.

TropicalParadise

Obviously a setup to ensure that response.

But quite frankly, isn't every so very tired of this? "Oh my god *somebody* got *something* and *someone* doesn't think that's appropriate".

I really can't find a way to care at all. It's nothing that every other child to have ever grown old didn't do throughout their childhoods.

David Whitney

@TropicalParadise: I've never heard of a boy being involved in a school shooting either - in the UK, where this story comes from, that is.

Incidentally there was a news story in Japan just the other day about a woman who stabbed 3 people (not fatally) in a railway station. Don't know what happened to that or if they caught her - or if she was influenced by violent video games. :)

Anyway, not arguing that women are responsible for vastly fewer violent attacks than men (although I'm sure there's a range - i.e. the stereotype is accurate on average, but there are violent women and peaceful men)... but I think it's extremely unlikely that this played any part in the shop assistants' decision. Most likely they either (a) guessed she was old enough, or (b) didn't care. The fact that she's a girl would make it harder for them, since I don't imagine they get many young girls trying to buy 18-rated games (whereas they are probably used to dealing with young boys).

A few years ago my mum had a couple of 13-year-old boys visiting from Germany (she's now retired, but was a German teacher at the time, so there was some kind of exchange visit) and they were very pleased when they managed to buy a 15-rated video game in the local shop. I totally know why - one of these kids was really small and looked about 10, while the other (who went in to buy the game) was huge and looked at least 16. Unless they start implementing 'card anyone who looks under 21' policies, this is definitely going to happen, regardless of gender.

quen

Remind me about the other day when I was in line to get a copy of MGS 4, there was a girl looks underaged also got her a copy as well without being asked for ID. :D

iTravis