Never Fear, Retail Hero is Here!

Zap! Ping! Zoinks! Evil beware! Arguable studies have come out touting the benefits of video game play and its ability to enhance hand-eye coordination, analytical thinking, etc. But never before has a game been created to help enhance the ability of building a retail business. And a superhero game at that! An interactive, online game by Retail Hero (a provider of POS and retail security systems), dubbed "Retail Champion," allows you to "play" the retail market, starting from running a small hot dog stand all the way up to a top-notch, high-end retail store. Through five training levels, cartoonish characters and animated graphics allow you to advance your skillset toward running the retail operation of your dreams. (It's no Madden, but it is a great time waste that's sorta-kinda-semi-work-related.)

The program promises to teach you various bar code scanning techniques and skills to catch high-ticket sales, use retail technology to lower shrinkage and increase revenues, learn to withstand a sudden tax audit, learn issues of human capital, experience the magic of POS and successfully exercise an exit strategy. In level one, our able-bodied Retail Hero must make a profit of $200 (i.e. by determining how much to borrow and catching falling Uber-Colas and hot dogs out of the air). However, when a big-bad, masked thief the likes of a skinny version of the Hamburgler comes to steal your loot, you are warned that security cameras might have been a wise investment (nice subtle plug, guys).

--Alison Embrey Medina