Microsoft was great to have fixed this, but it would be nice if EA caught a bit more of the blame, as they were the ones reading the profile information on an account that was set up by a parent (hence the gold account), with parental overrides specifically allowing certain ratings of games to be played. And after all of these existing checks, they have their obnoxious parallel “registration” process reach right past the layers of parental controls, do an out of context age comparison and lazily fail out with a “get older, and NO REFUNDS” default response.

The age requirement should be the first line outranking even “No refunds” if they want people to read it, but really the account should be barred from purchasing it if it’s going to be unable to play it.

Just like the dry ice example — if you sent a kid into a bar to buy a beer, the barkeeper doesn’t take the kid’s money THEN tell him he can’t have the beer and keep the money. The bartender tells him ahead of accepting his money and the kid goes home with the money he walked in with.

I’m frankly amused so many people don’t see it the same way as I do.

your where just QQing because you overlooked things in CAPSLOCK, SEE THIS TEXT, IT IS VERY EASY TO SEE!

1) My fears about the tough missions in Jurassic Park were not unfounded. As soon as Davey said I’d have to create a new Xbox Live account, seriously the first thing I thought was “dammit! I’m going to have to replay those missions in Operation Genesis!” and didn’t say anything to Tommy about it. I swear the kid is psychic; LAST NIGHT he pulls out Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis and starts playing it for the first time in months. lol

2) A couple of the commenters on The Escapist piece cracked me up. They were applauding my decision to be involved in my kid’s hobby … little do they know I’m dragging the poor kid into *my* hobby. I’ve been a gamer since I first got an Atari 2600 back in the day, and now I’m passing along the terrible tradition to my son.