who wants to bet that thompson is going to claim responsibility and say gates did it out of fear from his legal threat?

Heh, nice bit of publicity on the part of Mr. Gates.

Maybe it was a way to support/mock Jack Thompson for his letter to bill a while back.

I wonder what he would have done if the guy was under 17. I'm sure he asked for the ID in a joking way, but it would have been a PR disaster if he had found the guy to be 15 or 16 and sold the game to him anyway. Of course, it would have also been a bad situation on-hand if he had refused to sell it to him as well.

Oh, it would have been WAAAAY more funny if a Parent, with their 12 or 13 year old kid were there first.
Gates (to Parent): “I gotta check your ID to see if you’re 17.”

Parent (showing ID): Okey doke, but it's not for me, it's for my daughter.

Gates: Uh, ok. So long as YOU are over 17. Uh, you know this game is rated...

Parent (cutting him off): M, yeah, I know. For Blood and Gore, Mild Language and Viloence. I'm not dumb as the politicians and certain other individuals and organizations want the General Public to think Parents are. I know about the ESRB, GameSpot, and several dozen other review, preview, and informational resources. I also know my OWN child better than any of them. And... (goes into a 20 minute rant about being educated about video games, movies, TV, music, and where to find information about each product and knowing their child better than anyone else and not needing their Parental Rights overridden by tin-pot-dictator-wannabes.) Oh, and it's great to meet you Mr. Gates. I'm a big fan of Microsoft, except for... (goes into another 20 minute rant about buggy OSes, EULAs that violate consumer rights, and several other issues of importance).

Gates: Uh, yeah, ok, great to meet you too. Uh, yeah. :: Walks out stunned by such a well informed, and talkative, Parent and consumer.

Nightwng2000
NW2K Software

as a sidenote, heres a pic that someone found the windows blue screen of death in halo 3. HAHA!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/yamilg/1433360467/

Well that ought to put Jack in his place.

Getting Halo 3 last night was a nightmare if you didn't have ID. They had a zero tolerance policy about it, they didn't care if you were forty! I had to get my 18 year old little brother to buy it for me. How embarrassing. :P I remember picking up Bioshock and a few weeks ago and getting carded then too. In fact I remember being carded there years ago, whenever I got an M rated game. Management is apparently very serious about these rules. I'm sure an employee would get a write up for forgetting to card someone.

I think Jack is willfully ignorant of these policies. "Any kid can run in and buy these things!!!" That's an utter lie Jack.

@theninja

HAHAHAHA! I love it! :D

Kudos to Bill Gates on this one.

Not planning on any sudden flu viruses, but picking my copy up during lunch.

Also, the Blue Screen of Death was a common occurrence in Halo 2. Notably, the computer to open the garage doors in the Zanzibar multiplayer map would go blue screen after you activated the doors.

Pretty cool I must say :) .

[...] Original post here [...]

Jack, you've just had the piss taken by the richest man in the world. How does it feel?

Awesome! Take THAT Jacko, people DO care about our nations youth...Even if I already know a 14 year old that got the $70 edtiton.

I think you're all missing the real point here...

How much is that thing going to fetch on eBAY??? =)

In all seriousness though, this was a really great thing for Gates to do. Not only for Halo 3, but for the industry as a whole. If the founder of Microsoft can take the time to card someone for an M game, then certainly an $8 or $9 an hour employee can.

Wow, Take two and microsoft were both sent cease and desist orders from Jack and now he is 0 for 2. I wonder if he is boiling in rightous anger right now.

[...] Gamepolitics.com Feed Bill Gates Enforces M-Rating in Midnight Halo 3 SaleHalo 3 Arrives with Fanfare, No Controversy (outside of Miami)Jericho Denied Rating in GermanyNew Blog Zings GP [...]

@~the1jeffy

"Try living off those wages, Bill. Then we can talk." -- Well, if he did that, then we wouldn't have one of the greatest philanthropists in US history, now would we? He's given away *BILLIONS* of dollars to charity, I'd love see some Best Buy employee do that if he woke up with Gates' money tomorrow.

Hi guys, this is a bit off topic but:

http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd160/somestickguy/HitlerThompson.jpg

I made it today. My first ever photoshop!

Hey, if he can commpare people to Hitler and Saddam, so can I.

Master Chief looks like he need to eat more in that Photo...

@DarkTetsuya

Thanks! But.. I'm gonna sound like a total idiot but...



What's Godwin's law?

Lemme just say as a disclaimer that i'm not always the biggest MS fan, but I got to say, that, is how you launch a product Mr. Gates.

Now if only you and Ms would fix some of vistas bugs.

but seriously, this is great, I love it when the big wigs meet with the common people. Reminds us and them that there still human.

And the icing on the cake is that he enforced the rating. In your FACE jack.

Good job bill, good job.

Okay, now the real question is... is that a real guy in a spartan suit in the picture? And if so, where can I get one?!

Looks like I got to Bill Gates on the "Mature" rating. You're welcome, America!

Hooah! Jack Thompson

@jack thompson, attorney

Look Thompson, we're all as glad as you are that Mr Gates did the right thing even if it was in jest, but please don't take credit for it, the man just has common sense and was following store policy.

lol i knew he would say it.

@jack thompson, attorney

Think that all you want, it won't make it true. You never had anything to do with it then and you'll never have anything to do with it ever. I wouldn't be suprised if Bill Gates had you in his Spam filter.

@GoodRobotUs

Lol, that's also the first thing that came to my mind. Master Chief there looks like he overdid himself in his Halo 3 taping or something. XD

Nice one by Bill Gates. That's something interesting to see. XD

@ Quad9damage

It's not him. Although the fake is saying the same exact thing he WOULD say, and it's pretty sad that it's so darn easy to sound like him that anyone who bothered to even skim through his wikiquote page could pull off a reasonable facsimile. (sp?)

*throws a chair at Dan*

I live in Washington state and I am going to assume this took place at the best buy in Bellevue where they had a big release party. It that's the case not only did Bill check ID but there was a rather large printing in the local best buy ad that stated they would be checking ID.

@Erik:

Exactly. Why admit defeat when its easier to change your story so it looks like you still won anyway?

I certainly wouldn't wanna play HALO 3 against Jack (or Checkers, or Chess, or Go Fish, or Parcheesi, or Clue, or... )

Makes you also wonder what Jack Thompson is going to do about being disbarred. From his attitude, I think he's running out of time. He's trying to gain as much publicity as possible in order to show people that he is "right." In way he is, in that younger kids should not play mature rated games. However, he's going about this all wrong. Maybe if he focused more on the retailers, gamers would understand. Outright banning the game doesn't do anything for anyone except lead to censorship of media through legal constitutionalism.

Oh, and I thought the guy was going to stop posting here. Big whoops, Jack?

John Bruce Thompson-the only "victories" you have is posting here without getting banned.

You forgot "unsuccessful anti-video game attorney" in your name again.

[...] (Sources: GamePolitics, seatlltepi.com) [...]

Bravo to Gates, its nice to see you are making the M rating known as an adult/mature rating, even if it is just a PR stunt.

@ JT

.......WTF did you even do?

This is just utterly absurd.

The Halo series is one of the most mild M-rated titles on the market and people are making a shit storm about. Also it's not the stores' job to do this. Best Buy is just hurting themselves.

[...] - Gates cards the first HALO consumer http://gamepolitics.com/2007/09/25/bill-gates… [...]

bill gates is so rich and popular .....i like to be a successful person like him someday.............im inspired to his hardships..........