Christian Brothers Investment Services, Inc. (CBIS) and members of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR) today released a set of guidelines for retailers in the U.S. to keep Mature rated video games out of the hands of children.

ICCR has worked with Best Buy,Target, Wal-Mart, Circuit City, and other retailers that have policies in place. From these policies ICCR shareholders pulled together the "best practices" to create a set of guidelines. ICCR is now calling for their strict implementation.

The key guidelines are as follows:

• Post video game sales policies prominently in stores and online;
  
• Display signs and brochures to raise awareness among parents and others;
  
• Restrict advertising of M-rated games in youth-oriented media;
  
• Establish an online method of checking the age of buyers;
  
• Train employees on the video games sales policy;
  
• Program cash registers to reminder cashiers about age rules;
  
• Conduct "mystery shopper" programs and other internal audits; and
  
• Separate M-Rated video games from youth-oriented video games.

"Retailers must proactively create and implement clearly formulated, well-monitored and effective policies to ensure the sale of age-appropriate video games to consumers. These policies can help retailers be better neighbors in the communities that they serve, gain credibility with stakeholders, diminish legislative, legal, and reputational risks, and in turn more adequately protect shareholder value," said Julie Tanner, CBIS corporate advocacy director.

Added Cathy Rowan, co-chair of the ICCR Violence and Militarization of Society Working Group and representative of ICCR member Trinity Health: "While we've seen improvement among retailers on this issue, much more work needs to be done. We are urging all video game retailers to create and enforce video game sales policies that reflect the best practices in the industry to ensure that M-rated video games for audiences ages 17 and older are not sold to minors."

More on these guidelines can be found at the respective websites linked above.