I just received an email from Wal-Mart.
It is a promotional email called the ‘Wal-Mart Wire’.
This week they are featuring computer games for children and young adults.
The magzine they included is called ‘Gamer’s Edge’.
To give you an idea of the sort of social impact Wal-Mart is having on our society all you need to do is look in the upper right hand corner of the ad. That ad is titled, “Cheater’s Corner’.
The first game on the page is for ‘Need For Speed: Most Wanted’.
The ad asks the children, ‘It that thing street legal?’
It finishes up with, ‘Just don’t let the cops catch you.’
Also included in the top ten is ‘F.E.A.R.’. It is described by Wal-Mart as ‘Horror story meets over-the-top action-move gun battles’.
Wal-Mart is also providing a game called ‘The Movies’ which allows children to create lifelike characters, like human sized baby chicks, that you can fight to the death with fists and kicks. Right below this particular advertisement is a picture of ‘Mario’ from ‘Mario Brothers’ with the title ‘Family Fun’.
Wal-Mart also is marketing ‘Dead or Alive’. The game allows you to choose between fighting for your life or fighting to the death. In order to avoid addressing the problem of a game that glorifies murder and beating someone to death Wal-Mart crows that some characters will be sporting new hair-dos.
Think Mom will fall for that one?
Sam Walton started a great company. It has declined and is shameless.

Here we go again Cranston. And, I suppose you'd like the perfect store to sell nothing but granny panties and boxers in their underwear department. :rolleyes:

In the "spam" vein, I don't think Walmart sends any email unless you provide them with your email address. So perhaps you'd better "unsubscribe" so that their next email doesn't give you a coronary.

Seriously, Cranston, most parents instruct their kids to know the difference between a video game/movie and reality. Wile E. Coyote dies a hundred deaths, and the kids from the 1950s on up knew that if you fell off a cliff, strapped a rocket to your bum, or had an anvil land on you, that you most likely wouldn't make it.

Don't wig out so much over this. There are so many more important things to worry about. Like, how to make my latest Sims' character woo hoo with the neighbor while their aspiration level is soaring. *GASP!* THE HORROR!

You seem to have a great deal of brand loyalty.

Originally posted by saycricket
And, I suppose you'd like the perfect store to sell nothing but granny panties and boxers Great line.


Cran, If they refused to sell these products, you'd be screaming censorship. In fact, were are some CD's they wouldn't carry until the manufacturers cleaned up the covers, and that's precisely what some people said.

The best way to deal with Wal-Mart is simple. If you want to shop there, shop there. If you don't like them, don't shop there. They have a right to exist, and to do business within the law. You have the right to not shop there, and to urge others to do the same thing if you like. You also have the right to urge your elected representatives to change the laws.

"Cran, If they refused to sell these products, you'd be screaming censorship. In fact, were are some CD's they wouldn't carry until the manufacturers cleaned up the covers, and that's precisely what some people said."

Cran? First you start out contracting the handle I use for this forum and intimate a closer relationship than that which exists.

Secondly you then state that I would be screaming about censorship as if you know what I am thinking and as if the issue were easy to deal with - by just ignoring it - as you seem to be doing.

You then referenced whtat 'some people said' without referencing who these people are and exactly what it is that you say they said.

Cran? First you start out contracting the handle I use for this forum and intimate a closer relationship than that which exists.

I think you are reading too much into it. I certainly don't expect people to type Napsterbater every time they refer to me, even Loki, whom I like to affectionately switch the syllables in his name around to reflect how much weed he must be smoking to come up with the shit he does. ;)

I have no problem with Wal-Mart selling anything that is legal. If, I as a parent do not want my children to have certain games I will see that they don't have them. The same with certain CDs or with certain styles of clothing.

Wal-Mart is not the parent of my children and I have no expectations of them acting in that capacity.

Originally posted by Napsterbater
even Loki, whom I like to affectionately switch the syllables in his name around to reflect how much weed he must be smoking to come up with the shit he does. ;)
He's not high; he's English. I should know - my mother's side of the family is almost entirely English, and they say some wacky shit from time to time. I mean, c'mon - have you ever seen a Monty Python flick??? Those people are totally nuts. ;)

Those people are totally nuts.

Not nuts, coconuts.

1st soldier with a keen interest in birds: Who goes there?
King Arthur: It is I, Arthur, son of Uther Pendragon, from the castle of Camelot. King of the Britons, defeater of the Saxons, Sovereign of all England!
1st soldier with a keen interest in birds: Pull the other one!
King Arthur: I am, and this is my trusty servant Patsy. We have ridden the length and breadth of the land in search of knights who will join me in my court at Camelot. I must speak with your lord and master.
1st soldier with a keen interest in birds: What? Ridden on a horse?
King Arthur: Yes!
1st soldier with a keen interest in birds: You're using coconuts!
King Arthur: What?
1st soldier with a keen interest in birds: You've got two empty halves of coconut and you're bangin' 'em together.
King Arthur: So? We have ridden since the snows of winter covered this land, through the kingdom of Mercia, through...
1st soldier with a keen interest in birds: Where'd you get the coconuts?
King Arthur: We found them.
1st soldier with a keen interest in birds: Found them? In Mercia? The coconut's tropical!
King Arthur: What do you mean?
1st soldier with a keen interest in birds: Well, this is a temperate zone
King Arthur: The swallow may fly south with the sun or the house martin or the plover may seek warmer climes in winter, yet these are not strangers to our land?
1st soldier with a keen interest in birds: Are you suggesting coconuts migrate?
King Arthur: Not at all. They could be carried.
1st soldier with a keen interest in birds: What? A swallow carrying a coconut?
King Arthur: It could grip it by the husk!
1st soldier with a keen interest in birds: It's not a question of where he grips it! It's a simple question of weight ratios! A five ounce bird could not carry a one pound coconut.
King Arthur: Well, it doesn't matter. Will you go and tell your master that Arthur from the Court of Camelot is here?
1st soldier with a keen interest in birds: Listen. In order to maintain air-speed velocity, a swallow needs to beat its wings forty-three times every second, right?
King Arthur: Please!

Originally posted by cranston36
To give you an idea of the sort of social impact Wal-Mart is having on our society all you need to do is look in the upper right hand corner of the ad. That ad is titled, “Cheater’s Corner’......

Damn, Cranston......i despise what WalMart has done to the economies of small towns, and their abonimable labor practises as much as the next guy.......but the particular VIDEO GAMES they are selling are [for me] among the least worrisome of all the things they are doing.

You're starting to come off like a fundamentalist...........

Walmart has sales of more than 215 billion and its stock, bonds and other issues are underperforming. They need to expand into California and start selling to the middle class - which is a joke because they have driven so many middle class Americans out of work.

Originally posted by cranston36
Walmart has sales of more than 215 billion and its stock, bonds and other issues are underperforming.........they have driven so many middle class Americans out of work.

Excellent point.

NOW you're talking about an issue that is very real, very significant.

The new COO of Microsoft came from Wal Mart, where he was the CIO. His motto seems to be :”Track Record + Empathy = Credibility.”

If you pretend that you really care, customers are more forgiving of poor performance.