The Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, a coalition of 275 faith-based institutional investors, said in a report released today that video game retailers are doing a better job of controlling sales of violent video games to children.

In particular, the group applauded Target and Best Buy's efforts.

"It is evident that retailers are doing well on several fronts: all retailers included in the report have video game policies to restrict access by young teens to M-rated games; all display signage about the ESRB rating system; all conduct employee training programs and ongoing education on the video game rating system for employees; and all have established a system to identify the age of the purchaser at the register. ICCR is pleased with both Target's and Best Buy's policies to restrict ads for Mature-rated games in teen publications and on television. Target also places a prominent "M" on games advertised in its store circulars and Best Buy has a robust internal auditing process and compliance program, which are noted improvements."

The report also looked at Circuit City, K-Mart, Sears, Toys R Us, GameStop and Wal-Mart. The group goes on to highlight a number of things that should be done to improve the existing system, all of which, I kid you not, I agree with.

The improvements that the ICCR suggests are:

* Adherence to policy. ICCR understands that retailer members of the ESRB Retail Council will participate in a 'mystery shopping' verification program, coordinated by the ESRB, which will publicly disclose the mystery shop results on an aggregated and anonymous basis. This is an important action. However, shareholders that own stock in each of these companies deserve to see individual results, excluding confidential information. ICCR believes that companies have the capacity to develop such a report without providing proprietary information.

* Long and short term goals for compliance. ICCR recommends that companies set aggressive goals and objectives and track results to ensure progress is being made, with the end goal of 100 percent store compliance.

* Benchmarks or indicators. ICCR suggests that companies create indicators to demonstrate implementation of their policies on violent video games and evaluate the effectiveness of these programs.

* A balanced assessment. The public needs to understand the challenges relating to policy implementation, and what are the areas for improvement. There is no need to only present a rosy picture of policy implementation. ICCR recognizes the challenges in this area and believes that providing a balanced picture builds credibility.

It's good to see a group taking this issue seriously and making recommendations that actually make sense. In particular I think that the ESRB releasing the mystery shopper results by chain would help to dispell the belief by some that they are more concerned with protecting their members than the public. Brian Crecente

Retailer Comparison Chart [ICCR]