Jack T. Makes it a Family Biz; Claims Best Buy Sold Warriors to Son

Does the isolated sale of an M-rated game to an underage consumer make Best Buy a rogue retailer?

Jack Thompson says yes.

The controversial Miami attorney and self-described "anti-game" crusader issued a press release late yesterday in which he claimed that an employee named "Sergio" at an unspecified Best Buy location sold a copy of Rockstar's M-rated The Warriors to Thompson's 13-year-old son. In Thompson's words, "The sting proves that Best Buy is not enforcing its own stated policy not to sell adult, Mature-rated games to young kids... It was all a public relations lie by Best Buy to fool parents into thinking it is a responsible retailer of porn and violence."

Thompson plans to file a new lawsuit against Best Buy to enforce a 2004 agreement not to sell M-rated games to underage buyers.

Ed: Store policy is crucial, but there is no question that retail clerks are the weak link in ratings enforcement. GamePolitics examined this issue back in July. That being said, does a single sale - or even a few sales chain-wide - make Best Buy into some sort of criminal enterprise? How many M-rated games does Best Buy nationwide sell in a year? GP has no idea, but let's say one million. If they achieve 99.9% policy compliance, that still means that 1,000 games were sold in violation of store policy.

People screw up. GP screws up. Jack Thompson screws up. Sounds like Sergio screwed up. What's important is that Best Buy managers fix the problem.

If you're so inclined, Thompson posted the full text of his Best Buy press release in GamePolitics' comments area.