Games for Grades: not an incentive, but a permission…
Ξ September 18th, 2007 | → | ∇ General |
Games for Grades: Kind of Backwards
Wow. The manager of this GameStop decided that he was going to help out the community by refusing to sell games to teenagers unless an adult vouched that they were getting decent grades.
Bad Business. Bad. GameStop suspended the manager, wisely, and has said that he instituted the policy entirely of his own volition and that it is not a corporate policy. They said they would review the concept to see if it had merit.
It does have merit. If they’re trying to stop selling games. I understand the intent here. It’s a good one, but this manager obviously didn’t get very good grades himself, at least not in psychology. By refusing to sell games he’s creating bad PR, losing sales, and generally making himself a nuisance. Since there are certainly other stores where kids can buy games that don’t have this restriction he’s just driving away business.
Corporate policies should definitely try to help communities. But is driving yourself out of business and creating job-loss good for the community? I have a better idea. If you make the honor-roll you get 5% off every purchase for the next 3 months. Straight A’s? 10%. — Even better, register as a participant in the program, and your discount will increase each time you achieve your level. (first time 5%, second in a row 7%, third in a row 10% etc. Miss one you start back at 5% next time)
If the guy doesn’t get fired he’s lucky. GameStop has the opportunity to turn this event into a whole LOT of money in volume if the make the policy described above official and spread it across all their stores nation wide. Great PR, and most people won’t take advantage of it, but they’ll shop there because they know GameStop is working to make a difference.
