“Welcome to Wal-Mart they say”, you hear the partially retarded door greeter say as you walk in to a store owned by the worlds largest retailer. Inside you find everything from fresh produce to fresh chrysanthemums, but according to a wired.com news article you won’t find any games rated M or any movies rated R (unless walmart sees dollar signs). This isn’t anything new; Wal-Mart’s buyers have been promoting clean family entertainment since the chain of stores began. There are however exceptions to the rule, as demonstrated by the sale of the Sony Play stations Grand Theft Auto III, Wal-Mart will sell questionable material if they think the material will sell extremely well, according to wired.com.
I have no objections with Wal-Mart not selling M and R rated material, after all they own the store they can pick and choose what they will and will not carry, and to take away this right is to take away Wal-Mart’s right to run itself. I find more and more people confusing censorship by companies with censorship by the government, there is a huge difference. If the American government censors what we as Americans can read, write and sell then that is a direct violation of our first amendment rights. But as a business owner you can sell whatever you’d like so long as what you’re selling is legal.
Thier is however a problem, it's ludicrous for walmart to disallow the sale of music with the "F-word" in it, if they're selling a video game where you rape prostitues and kill police officers to get points. With a company as big as a walmart you'd think they could afford to set a precidentm, an all or nothing... guess not
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