Monday, September 17, 2007

GameStop punishes manager for "Games for Grades"

A manager of a GameStop has been suspended by the home office after introducing a "Games for Grades" program. The idea was that his store would sell no games to a school age child unless a parent or guardian could vouch that they were keeping their grades up. The attempt to make a statement about proper priorities was not appreciated by the corporate headquarters.

After CNN picked up the story, GameStop backed off somewhat and claims to be re-evaluating the program. What do Mod-Bloggers think about this? Is the manager to be lauded for trying to get across a message about education to kids? Or is GameStop right to protect any patron's right to purchase legal products in their stores?

4 comments:

Sean said...

personally, i think that it sounds like a great idea. kids need somebody to show them what priorities should be if their parents won't. on the other hand he was hired to sell games for the company and they have every right to suspend or fire him if he doesn't live up to the conditions by which he was hired.

i think he should have cleared it with his superiors before trying it. so the only wrong i see in the actual situation is that he didn't clear it with his superiors.

Nomad said...

I'd love to see a major video game seller institute the opposite of this a well. Something like "If you show up with a 4.0 average, you get 10% off of all purchases."

Anonymous said...

I agree with Nomad, but would not make it a 4.0. Perhaps a B average. This would make the point, without the kid having to be perfect.

It would preserve the right of a customer to buy a legal product, while still rewarding academic effort and achievement.

quizwedge said...

I don't think they are breaking a patron's "right" to purchase. After all, they're basically just putting out a sign, "must be 18 or older to purchase here." Still, I can see what the corporate offices would be mad at him as he was turning away sales and the students could just visit another video game store, assuming another one existed nearby. All in all, like Nomad and shadowmom, I'd like to see incentives for good grades.