Queen of TV 'retailer refits', Mary Portas, has used her televisual weight to bleat for her son and simultaneously utterly confuse the question of Age Ratings for video game sales.The basic principle is that when a game retailer who suspects that an under-age child is going to buy an inappropriately rated game, that retailer asks for valid proof of age. If no valid proof is available, then the retailer doesn't sell the game to the child or to an adult if it's suspected that the adult is buying the game for the child.
"Valid proof of age" is key here.
What happens if the retailer is found to have sold a game with an inappropriate age rating? A large fine and prison time.
So,
as CVG notes, Game on Oxford Street refused to sell when TV retail diva Ms Portas' 17 year-old son a 15+ game based on production of his 'Oyster Card', she went Twitteringly ballistic.
"STILL holding on after 8mins to spk to a human at GAME Ox st where they refused to sell my 17 yr son a 15 + game. Now they've cut me off," she bleated before getting into "Don't you know who I am" mode with, "So now the mngr of GAME has hung up on me after another 10min phone wait. I believe Ian Shepherd is the CEO. Are you out there? Want to talk"
He did, and he caved in, "That's appalling. I'm very proud of our focus on age verification but also of our service. If that's gone wrong, we'll fix it."
By "fix it", he obviously meant 'cave in despite our staff abiding by what they see as the law.'
We can't wait for the next televisual slating of video games for "creating monsters of our kids". Way to confuse the issue Ms Portas.