Parental controls?

A mom asked me if it were possible to turn off the swearing in Grand Theft Auto V.

"Um, it might be," I said. "But that's kind of like tossing your coffee onto a bonfire."

Fuck this guy

According to his fbook profile picture, this person is an ADULT MAN. We ran a small child out for trying to do this recently:

[IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A Facebook post with pictures, names, and places blocked out.

 

"Thank you to the worker name [redacted] at my local [redacted] for excepting my money in all pennies which we counted on the front desk so i can get GTA5. Than you for taking your time to count 60k+ pennies" ]

On the subject of hard drives

Today, a man came in to buy Grand Theft Auto V. Much like many other games that have come out this year, GTA V requires a partial install to play. So, I ask this guy if he has 8 GB of free space on his system.

"What's the basic amount?"

"...4 GB," I said.

"Yeah, I had one of those hard drives but I sold it to some kid." Super. "I can't play Grand Theft Auto at all?"

"No. It requires an 8 GB install."

"Why!?"

"Game developers have hit the limit of what the 360 can do," I said. "GTA V is too big a game to run off of a disc. You can't even play Battlefield 4 without a real hard drive. "

"How can they do that!?"

"...it's not their fault that you sold your hard drive."

He ended up buying GTA V and a 16 GB flash drive, only to return twenty minutes later to return it because he "couldn't justify spending that much."

"I'd rather just put that money towards a One," he said.

"You can't play Grand Theft Auto V on an Xbox One," I said. If he understood me or cared, he didn't show it.

And, naturally, he paid with a Visa gift card, so we got to go through the whole song and dance about how Visa gift cards aren't refundable as Visa gift cards. Hooray!

On parents who buy Grand Theft Auto for their tiny children

I hate Kotaku.

I hate everyone who reads Kotaku.

I hate it every time someone mentions to me something they read on Kotaku.

The Veteran is always texting me links to Kotaku articles he thinks I'll enjoy. (And, ok, I usually do enjoy them as long as there aren't any naked people, but I still hate Kotaku.) I mentioned this to Awesome Sauce, and he started sending me Kotaku links all the time, too.

So, what happens when there's some breaking video game news that I would be interested in?

The day it was announced that Tales of Xillia 2 was coming to the U.S., this is how my morning went:

First, I get a text from Awesome Sauce, saying "Hey, Tales of Xillia 2 is coming to the U.S."

About five minutes later, The Veteran texts me a link to a Kotaku article about how Tales of Xillia 2 is coming to the U.S.

I walk into work, and bossbro greets me with a "Hey, Tales of Xillia 2 is coming to the U.S.!"

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE, GENTLEMEN, BUT I THINK I CAN HANDLE IT.

All of the above is to highlight the extreme reluctance with which I am posting a link to a Kotaku article that was recommended to me by AsS:

I Sold Too Many Copies of GTA V to Parents who Didn't Give a Damn.

The other day I mass-texted everyone I know:

"I'm really tired of explaining to parents that Grand Theft Auto is basically softcore porn."

"Just write those exact words on a sign," my friend Wolfie* wrote back.

But seriously.


The list of warnings on the back of GTA is ridiculously long. Blood! Gore! Extreme violence! Strong language! Nudity! Strong sexual content! Mature themes! Whenever I read through it for a parent who's in the store with a ten-year-old kid, they yawn and wave me through.

"You literally torture a guy. You waterboard a guy on screen."

"He's already seen all that stuff on TV." (What the hell is your kid watching!?)

"You own and manage a strip club."

"WHAT!?"

Extreme violence hasn't fazed a single person. But the minute you mention the boobies, everyone freaks out. And even then, they still want to buy the game, so we encourage them to flip through the strategy guide and see the screenshots.

And even then, literally only one person ever has opted not to buy the game at my store since the release.

Without fail, every time I start mentioning the extreme violence and sexytimes, all of these people ask:

"They can put that stuff in a game!?"

"It's not designed for kids," I say, every time. "The average gamer is in their 30s. And the people who played the original Grand Theft Auto are in their 40s now."

I think some people hear the word "game" and immediately assume "children's toy." People who ramble about games like Grand Theft Auto V ruining kids are missing the point that there are games that are not meant to be played by children. After all, it's impossible to get access to an R-rated movie or an M-rated game without parental consent.

If you buy something that says "Strong Sexual Content" on the packaging, you should also be prepared for your child to come up and you asking what "pimps" and "hos" are.

I understand that children are different, and what's appropriate for one child might not be for another. I played Grand Theft Auto III when I was ten, and I turned out ok. It was my 17-years-old-at-the-time-now-he's-old brother's game, and I would play it when he wasn't around. I would drive around in the cars and follow traffic laws. I was a well-read child, with two older siblings, and I wasn't unaware of the existence of sex workers, nor was I ever really taught to demean or dehumanize them, so I wasn't confused or bothered by what was going on.

Extreme torture, though? That would even bother me now. There were several parts in my first playthrough of Borderlands 2, which I loved, where I had to stop playing because it was too intense. (Maybe I'll write a post about that someday.) And that's sci-fi/fantasy, not true crime. And I'm almost 25 years old.

The Grand Theft Auto franchise has been about pushing limits, both in game design and in storytelling, for years. It's supposed to be edgy and controversial. And even if you find the story trite and silly (ahem), you can't deny that GTA is a poster franchise for Games As A Grown-Up, Edgy Storytelling Medium.

Controversial entertainment isn't typically accessible or appropriate for kids.

For example, this one time, a dad and a little boy, no older than six or seven, came in looking for a game.

"He likes playing Grand Theft Auto at his uncle's house, but we don't want to buy it for him, so we're looking for something similar but not as... bad," said the dad. "He likes having a big open city to run around in."

"Ok," I said. "How about Batman: Arkham City? You have a pretty open area to explore, and it's Batman, so you still get to beat up bad guys."

"Does that sound interesting?" the dad asked the kid. And the kid immediately turned to me, and asked, with a perfectly serious face:

"Does Batman shoot cops?"

I was so taken aback by the question that I just squeaked out:

"Batman doesn't shoot anybody."

Kids who play games like Grand Theft Auto are, at best, the equivalent of a kid bragging about how he watched all the Saw movies and didn't get scared, and at worst, miniature sociopaths who like to shoot cops, with a lot of poorly delivered sex ed in between.

Please, people. Listen when some bitter, disillusioned register jockey is telling you that what you're purchasing might be a bit too much for your kid.

Because when you're furious that your 8-year-old suddenly knows the meanings and usage of a dozen different racial slurs and the term "Dirty Sanchez," well, you've got nothing to blame but your own hands-off parenting. 

*My only friend who had the decency to already have an internet alias before I started blogging. Seriously, my funny nickname muscle is tired. 

No GTA for you!

A tiny kid- seriously, less than four feet tall- who I've never seen before just came up and asked if we could put Grand Theft Auto V in the demo system.

"No, because you're not allowed to play it," I said. "We need parental consent to even sell you that game."

He stuck his tongue out and flounced out of the store.

I'm devastated that we lost such a valued customer.

Conversations with Ladyboss

Ladyboss is in the back room with me while I eat lunch.

"I DON'T WANNA SELL COPIES OF GRAND THEFT AUTO ANYMORE."

The door buzzes. She peeks out into the store.

"DAMMIT, HERE'S ANOTHER ONE."

"Your world is cutthroat!"

Words typed to me by my BFF She-Ra, Princess of Power as she forwarded me a link to this story, about a guy in London who was stabbed and robbed right after buying Grand Theft Auto V. 

I personally prefer this one, about some dudes in NYC who impersonated police officers to cut the line. 

This kind of thing happens at every release for every Hot New Item (just think of the moms mauling each other for Tickle Me Elmos and Zhu Zhu pets!), and probably wouldn't be national newsworthy if the title of the game weren't a felony. Nintendo actively discouraged retailers from having midnight release parties for the Wii U for this very reason.

But yes, working in a video game store is preeeetty hardcore.

Oh for the love of

This guy, and people like him, make my life miserable on a regular basis:

"Good job letting us know the GTA V Limited Edition was pre-order only"

FOR FUCK'S SAKE. ALL LIMITED EDITIONS ARE PRE-ORDER ONLY.

What do these people think "limited" means? "There'll be copies for purchase all over the place"? BECAUSE THAT IS THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT LIMITED MEANS.

We had people strolling into my store one or two days before the release demanding to reserve a collector's edition of Grand Theft Auto V. Um, even if there were any left- which there are not, because other people bought them all already- how would we get it to the store by launch day? You realize we're not printing and packaging games in the back, right? We're supposed to fork out for overnight shipping because your entitled ass didn't think to order a limited run item from any of a million retailers, at any point in the past year?

Sorry. Buy the stuff on eBay. I don't even care.

Conversations with Bossbro

Bossbro, naturally, is the only one in my store who bought Grand Theft Auto V. He also stayed up all night playing it, because duh.

"So, I got to take Chop for a walk," he said. Chop is the dog on the cover. "And while you're doing that, you can switch to Chop's point of view. So I'm in first person doggie view, and halfway through the walk, I just veer off and start humping this other dog. I got to watch first-person dog humping."

"And you liked it," I said.

"No! It was super weird."

"So, it was weird because you liked it?"

"Franklin pulls Chop off the other dog, and he's like "Come on, man! That's not even a girl dog!" so I got a first person view of some gay dog sex."

"And you liked it," I said.

"No!"

I didn't get a lot of sleep last night.

Also, an observation

There were over a hundred people at my store tonight picking up Grand Theft Auto.

As far as I saw, only one was a woman picking up the game for herself.

Naturally, the fact that women, such as myself, are not buying Grand Theft Auto in large, visible numbers will be taken as evidence that women "don't like hardcore video games," despite the fact that the Grand Theft Auto franchise is notoriously hostile to women.

I look forward to the weeks ahead, wherein dudebros will be constantly asking if I'm playing GTA V, and then asking the inevitable follow-up question:

"God, why do you work here? Do you even play video games?"

I play lots of video games. I just try to avoid the ones that shit all over people who look like me.

GTA V midnight release aftermath madness

Surprisingly normal, with no little kids bragging about how they were being allowed to stay home from school to play the game. (Apparently all the Parents-of-the-Year save that privilege for Call of Duty.)

The only real issue we had was that our state increased sales tax this month, so everyone who full-paid the game before September 1st owed an extra fifteen cents.

Most people were cool about it. One guy even left all his change behind to help other people out. (Thanks, guy! You're all right.) But then, as it always happens, we get this one douchebag who just won't let it go.

"I PAID FOR THIS FIVE MONTHS AGO," he said. "YOU CAN'T CHARGE ME EXTRA TAX."

"Well, you weren't actually buying a product until literally right now," I said. "You just put a deposit down that covered the former cost of sales tax. That changed, so you have to pay the difference."

"I PAID FOR THIS FIVE MONTHS AGO," he said.

"No, you just put a deposit down."

"I PAID FOR THIS FIVE MONTHS AGO. YOU CAN'T CHARGE ME TAX. ARGLE BLARGLE."

It was a collector's edition game and and guide that he had preordered, so he owed about a dollar, which he finally coughed up when he realized I wasn't particularly sympathetic to his brilliant tax-dodging plan.

We also get a lot of people who insist on buying things online so they "won't have to pay tax." Most states seemed to have caught up with that- I know I have to pay sales tax on online purchases here, even for game downloads. And even if you don't pay taxes through the seller, you're still supposed to declare your purchases to the government, because not paying your taxes is a crime.

"Bye! Have fun getting audited!" - Things I'm not allowed to say

If I never have to explain sales tax to anyone ever again, I could die happy.

SEE ALSO: This guy.

No, seriously, is it September 17 yet?

Today, a man spent about twenty minutes trying to bribe me into giving him his Grand Theft Auto V early. This sort of thing isn't uncommon at all, but luckily, I hate all our customers, so it's easy not to give into temptation.

"Come on," he said. "I already paid for it, just give it to me early."

"I can't do that," I said. "[Store] gets fined, and I would lose my job."

"I have $40 cash I can give you," he said.

"I'm too poor to lose my job over this," I said.

I mean, seriously. If you're gonna ask me to lose my job, you've got to give me at least $1000. For food and stuff. If you pay my rent and bills until I find a new job, I will happily give you your GTA V.

I mean, what kind of asshole asks someone to lose their job so they can have a toy two days early?

September 17 can't come soon enough

"WHAT DAY DOES GRAND THEFT AUTO COME OUT?"

"September 17."

"WHAT DAY IS IT NOW?"

"...August 30."

"THAT'S TOO LONG."

And then he left without buying anything.

Well, I guess they can't all be winners

Today, a kid wearing a SWAG shirt came in and announced that he wants to play Grand Theft Auto V because the lady on the cover has an iPhone.

Hooked on phonics

99% of working a retail job is deciphering the nonsense that people ask you for. "I need that game that just came out," is a common question right before Christmas when every game has just come out. "There's one Assassin's Creed I don't have but I don't know which one it is or what it's called." "My kid wants this horse game? I'll know it when I see it, so just pull out every single game with a horse on it." And, of course, my personal favorite: "I'm looking for a game. I think there's a guy with a gun on the cover."

Now, of course, some video game names are total gibberish. (I'm looking at you, Ar Tonelico Qoga: Knell of Ar Ciel!) But most of them aren't. Here are some examples that I hear so often that I'm beginning to wonder if it's some kind of very specific deficiency in the American school system.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Sky rim? Rim of the sky? Takes place in a mountain range? Anyone? Bueller? This game is super popular and mainstream and people should stop calling the store and asking for "Scrim." I've even heard it from people who have played the game! Skyrim is the name of the country where the game action happens, so characters in the game name-drop that shit in dialogue all the time! Were you playing with the sound off for all 200 million gajillion hours?

Incidentally, when the game first came out, my big brother assumed from the ads that not only was the game titled "Scrim," but that "Scrim" was also the name of the evil dragon. LOL THE DRAGON'S NAME IS ALDUIN OMG BROTHERS ARE DUMB

L.A. Noire

The name is a pun. "La noire" is French for darkness. The game takes place in 1940s Los Angeles, and is done in the style of film noir. Get it? Get it? Aren't they clever?

My three favorites among the many butcherings of this title I have heard are "luh-nore-ee," "lah-no-eyre," and "I don't know how to say it, but I want it!" while pointing at the poster. 

Deus Ex: Human Revolution

 Deus Ex is an old-ass franchise, but the console crowd was unprepared for it when the above title was released as the first installment in the series on 360 and PS3. Pretty much everyone calls it "deuce ex," but there was one lady who freaked out when my boss mentioned it and shouted, "DID YOU JUST SAY DAY OF SEX!?" 

Grand Theft Auto IV

Every asshole in the world comes into my store and asks for "grand theft auto ivy" just to piss me off. But then this conversation happened between me and a little kid.

"When does Grand Theft Auto V come out?" He asked for "grand theft auto five," like a functional person. I told him when Grand Theft Auto V comes out.

"Ok," he said. "Do you have Grand Theft Auto Ivy?"

"How is it that you can read the roman numeral for five but not four?" I asked. His mom laughed.

"I dunno, I just call it Grand Theft Auto Ivy."

"Then why not call the other one Grand Theft Auto Vee?"

"Because that's stupid."

He probably wasn't alive for Grand Theft Auto Ay-Ay-Ay.

 NBA 2K-wev

This isn't so much a mispronunciation as an unfortunate quirk of people who play NBA games that I've been forced to get used to. Anyone who comes in to buy the NBA game just asks for 2K. As in: "I need the new 2K!"

Now, 2K Sports doesn't just release a basketball game every year. They also do baseball and hockey, and they follow the same naming scheme (NHL 2K13, MLB 2K13, and so on back until the dawn of time. Or at least, since Y2K.) So even though we know they're talking about basketball, our go-to Corny Retail Humor is to offer up NHL 2K9 instead. 

Lollipop Chainsaw

No one has ever mispronounced "Lollipop Chainsaw." I had to put it on the list, however, because when it first came out, one of our regulars called the store and asked me the following question:

"Is it true there's a game out called Lollipop Chainbang!?"