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By Mark Pattison
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON (CNS) — An analysis of major nationwide
retail chains’ marketing practices for violent video games shows
the stores are at least behaving better than the characters in those games.
The eight major national video-game sellers — Best Buy, Blockbuster
Video, Circuit City, Game Stop, Sears/Kmart, Target, Toys “R”
Us and Wal-Mart — all have policies in place against selling M-rated
(for mature) video games to those under age 17, according to a report
from the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility issued Nov. 21.
“It is estimated that 80 percent of all video games sold are done
so during the holiday season,” said Nadira Narine of the Interfaith
Center on Corporate Responsibility in a Nov. 21 letter to member institutions.
“We ask parents, grandparents and consumers to be extremely careful
when selecting video games as gifts.”
The center is a coalition of 275 faith-based institutional investors that
has followed the issue of marketing practices for video games for the
past five years.
All eight retailers display their M-rated sales policy in their stores,
and they all place signs about the video-game rating system in their stores.
All of the stores instruct their cashiers to identify any M-rated games
and ask buyers for identification to prove their age.
Still, when the Electronic Software Ratings Board sent young-looking mystery
shoppers in June to try to buy M-rated games, only 68 percent of cashiers
asked for ID, up from 65 percent last December.
“Sixty-eight percent of the time is not good enough,” said
Julie Tanner, corporate advocacy coordinator for Christian Brothers Investment
Services, in a Nov. 29 telephone interview with Catholic News Service.
“The question for retailers is what are they going to do to improve?”
All eight chains conduct audits to ensure that identification is requested
from customers wishing to buy M-rated games. Best Buy conducts audits
each month, the study said. All eight chains conduct both an employee
training program and ongoing employee education, according to the study.
None of the eight will sell games rated AO (adults only). All have assigned
responsibility for video-game policy compliance to senior managers. Toys
“R” Us was the only chain of the eight surveyed that allows
customers to play M-rated games inside the store and doesn’t have
a process to collect data about video-game policy compliance by store.
It also is the only one of the eight that doesn’t offer additional
training during holiday and other peak sales periods and doesn’t
participate in the Entertainment Software Ratings Board Retailers Council.
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