Content Ratings

[gruso]

I think I can say without disrespect for any faith, that being offended by that would be ludicrous!

I agree with placing a warning on "mature" games (sex/drugs/language/extreme violence). It should just be a small icon, voluntarily attached to the preview image.

 

[amnesiasoft]

I doubt the ESRB/PEGI/OFLC etc. would look at games for the Pandora

I'm pretty sure they'll look at any game if you pay them what they usually receive. They don't generally rate things for free; at least, the ESRB doesn't, I couldn't say about the others.

We could always do what the Xbox 360 does with XNA content. Just have three ratings, Sexuality, Violence, and Language.

I've certainly got nothing against that method so long as somewhere we've got something descriptive about what each rating means. If what each rating means is left up to the user, all we've really got is a completely arbitrary number that has little actual meaning.

And really, the argument against a rating system is a little silly. Just because we'd like to assume most people have an inkling of common sense, and are capable of being reasonable about things like this doesn't mean they are. On top of that, having a quick, consolidated place to check out the games potentially offensive content is a lot easier than reading through a series of comments (especially if they end up at the YouTube level). It even gives people the ability to filter out things they don't want, some people aren't fond of large levels of violence and gore. Others are not comfortable with sexuality/nudity, while others still don't like swearing. While I personally think all those people are overreacting, but that's them, not me.

Personally, I'd say consider it "unrated" until there is a sufficient number of community votes about the game's content. In addition, as is usually done in regards to parental controls on most other things, treat "unrated" as if it's the most offensive level of content. Then you encounter no accidents, allow the community to regulate itself rather reasonably, have a consistent means of looking up a game's potentially offensive content, and we tend to avoid offending anyone accidentally.

 

[DaMummy]

the only warning sign the panda should have is NSFEOP, meaning not safe for easily offended people, and if you are, you really have no reason to be on the internet, which must be the only way to find out about the pandora

 

[fischju2000]

the only warning sign the panda should have is NSFEOP, meaning not safe for easily offended people, and if you are, you really have no reason to be on the internet, which must be the only way to find out about the pandora

I'm sure that will go down well for the commercial developers looking to bring their games to a professional platform. The Pandora Appstore needs some kind of content rating system, to at the very least look more professional.

 

[mali]

I'm not familiar with this stuff. How is this handled in real life? Isn't the creator of the software responsible for the content, in the first place? If the Pandora Appstore isn't considered being a publisher, it can make the original creator liable for the content. In practice it would mean, that the legal terms of the Appstore would contain a notice the creator of a software has to agree to, that explicitely states that the creator of a software is obliged to declare mature content.

 

[Rockthesmurf]

I don't really see the point of having some random person give his personal opinion of the suitability of a given application for a given age range.

The Pandora has a web browser, browsing the web is a portal for receiving content that is unsuitable for all ages, having a page that flashes up 'You must be 18 to enter here, okay?' doesn't strike me as something that works in any way shape or form.

If titles cross the line then I'd imagine that would be pulled from the App Store, but I can't see this becoming such a big/regular problem that we need to have some rating system in advance.

Steve

 

[Jourdy288]

I'm wondering what my game would be rated as? It has no bad language, no boobs (or other nudity) and no violence.
...

It was a game I was working on earlier, but I thought I might work a Pandora angle into it somehow.

Rated as?

D.

Well, it might offend a couple people :lol:
But if, as Wolenber brought out, it'd likely get 1/3 in violence (dynamite vests).

I wouldn't put that in the 18+ section unless those dynamite vests cause people to die in a horrific shower of blood, gore, etc.

I think I can say without disrespect for any faith, that being offended by that would be ludicrous!

Considering all that goes on in these forums, the final level should take place here :lol:

@Flori_Musicali
I was referring to being useful in the ratings department.

I'm just thinking we should have something instantly recognizable, not as intrusive as a splash screen, but not something you'll have to squint to find in order to recognize content that could offend people/their kids.

And yes, Mali, I do think that the creator needs to take responsibility for his/her own content, so we ought be able to rely on them to place warnings, legal advice, etc. in their descriptions. What I'm still aiming for is a warning you see that:

A. Isn't intrusive, doesn't get in the way...
B. WILL be noticed!

I agree with placing a warning on "mature" games (sex/drugs/language/extreme violence). It should just be a small icon, voluntarily attached to the preview image.

C. Isn't hideous.

I take it you disliked the one I made earlier, and I guess I can understand that, since it breaks rules A and C..

I'd like to see somebody make a warning and put it in our application shop.

 

[moxie]

I still don't understand this at all. And before we go and talk about responsibilities and children and families and stuff, I'd like to point out that I am a married middle-aged father of two boys and a holder of christian beliefs (although possibly not the same as any other person who claims the same). I have children to protect from the evils of the net (and the nasty video games - I've read it in the paper, it must be true!), and I totally fail to see how any ratings system ever would help me with that in any way. Hiding in the corner? I simply do not get it.

Hiding in the corner when surfing the appstore, but proudly surfing the rest of the web in front of the family? I really cannot comprehend either of these two attitudes, really. Will you blindly be downloading apps from the store, and then run them the first time together with your grandmother? Or - and this might be a possibility in the light of comments along the lines of "for obvious legal reasons..." that are not at all obvious to me - are everybody who wants a rating something-or-other american?

I propose this: Every game on the store should have an honest description of what it is. This means that the potential downloader might decide for himself. Really, really "nasty" stuff (Hentai, Custers Revenge remakes, Goatse image viewers) might be put under its own category, so that along "emulators", "games" and "Office tools", there is also the category "NSFW". Of course screenshots and suchlike should be decent (at least in the non-NSFW categories), but that is in the end self-regulating. Nothing more than this will ever be upheld or reliable.

Why? Well, main reason: Who sets the standards? If you're american, anything that shows a nipple is indecent and damaging to children, whilst, say, swedes have a rather more relaxed attitude to body parts. If you're german, anything red that comes out of human bodies will corrupt society for ever, and DONT MENTION THE WAR! In strongly catholic countries, making fun of the pope is Very Bad, whilst in some more...close-knit...protestant churches the pope is, literally, the Antichrist, and the rest of us just thinks it is fun. The Japanese make it kind of a family hobby to poke fun at organised western religion at all.

Who decides whether a given game has a violence level of 1 or 5? "Sexual content"? In the end, unless you've rated the game yourself the only way to check whether you think this is OK (for yourself, for your kids, for family viewing) is to actually play it through yourself...or have a written description to read and judge from that.

The reason it works (at least somewhat) with the PEGI and ESRWhatever people is that they are standards bodies with proper guidelines who do these kind of things professionally (or at least in theory). That means that even if you don't agree with their breakpoints or levels, you can at least trust them to be fairly consistent from case to case. We won't get that unless ED employs somebody to test and rate all games - And who would that be?

 

[amnesiasoft]

That last paragraph of yours, that's why I said have an explanation of what each level means somewhere so it's not completely arbitrary.

 

[moxie]

That last paragraph of yours, that's why I said have an explanation of what each level means somewhere so it's not completely arbitrary.

Ah. And this meaning of each level will be decided upon by...me? You? Consensus on the forums? :lol: :lol: :lol: :rolleyes:
Not to mention the practical interpretation of said levels.

 

[Clean3d]

TIGRS is a free to use ratings system in which developers rate their own content. I think it would fit the Pandora Appstore well.

http://www.tigrs.org/

Personally, I think the option of having games rated would be nice. I don't think developers should be forced to use ratings, but some folks may find them useful.

 

[Chip]

As previously stated, content ratings are neither necessary nor desirable. In fact, they do far more harm than good from OP's perspective.

If you rate your content, then you are responsible for it. You have to rate all of it, and if something slips through at an improper rating, it's your fault. Apple catches flack all the time because some app or another is "too offensive". They have no excuse either, since they've chosen to vet every app store entry. If an app makes it to the store, it has Apple's seal of approval on it. If you twist it around a certain way, you could even use this approval process as evidence to support the claim that Apple supports shaking babies.

However, if you wash your hands of oversight completely, you cannot be held responsible. There are any number of public software repositories on the internet with no approval process or rating system. Google's Android app market is essentially a free-for-all, with no oversight for objectionable content. Google allows anyone to post apps, and it is up to users to apply their own judgment whether an app is "objectionable" or not. By doing this, Google cannot be blamed if someone uploads "Nun-Raper 3D" to the app market and someone's head explodes from moral outrage. Everything in the app store is user-generated content, which is neither vetted nor censored. It's just like the rest of the internet - hell, it's just like the real world.

 

[fiori_musicali]

I was referring to being useful in the ratings department.

And I was referring to the way you present yourself to be useful in any department, so you might as well use a wildcard in place of "something like that".

The thing is, at 15 years of age you don't know shit about life, so you're not the guy I would pick to decide on such ratings.

 

[lvlinux]

I agree with those that have said that a full blown ratings system isn't necessary - I think it would only cause confusion. I think that honest descriptions are the best thing and that it should be a general understanding that anything offensive should be mentioned.

And I definitely think it should be called something other than the "appstore" - just about anything is better than that.

 

[Tempel]

TIGRS is a free to use ratings system in which developers rate their own content. I think it would fit the Pandora Appstore well.

http://www.tigrs.org/

This.

I was not intending to wade into, and potentially disrupt, this much-too-entertaining thread, but TIGRS seems like a good idea for this. It could be incorporated into the app store submission process as an optional step, using something like the rating-box generator they already have. Furthermore, I'm sure they'd be ecstatic to have such integration with a small, independent app store, and would perhaps be willing to help integrate it.

As so many others have said, the key is self-applied content descriptors; TIGRS could do that while also making it easy for parent-types to quickly spot the things they care about.

 

[Jourdy288]

OK, before I get yelled at more, what about having the community rate content *BRACES TO BE HIT AGAIN*

 

[darien]

I don't think ratings should ever be done without an in depth review so that people can read the points as a sort of Rosetta Stone between reader and reviewer.

 

[Kramy]

I think we're (as in the scene) big and clever enough to monitor things ourselves on a case by case basis.

Would it be possible to add tags for games?

Solitaire -> Casual, Cards
Flair Solitaire -> Casual, Cards, Boobs

:lol:

Most Pandora games would fall under Everybody, Teen, or Mature, I'd think. Most under Teen probably.

 

[amnesiasoft]

If you rate your content, then you are responsible for it. You have to rate all of it, and if something slips through at an improper rating, it's your fault.

Hence the reason my proposition involved just leaving the community to rate them as opposed to anyone from the OP team doing so.

And as for the general objection of "Well, the submitter can just put it in the description," sure, that's great in theory. But then we really on a single person who may or may not decide it's appropriate. On top of that, if they've got a short story worth of description text, it could be rather easy to skip over the part where the developer said "Oh, and you get to eat babies in a photorealistic manner." My previous proposal for a system allows for the community to be able to keep this information accurate, gives people browsing a quick overview of any potentially offensive content in a consistent manner (This probably being the most important one). And for those who don't care about a rating system? Well, they can just ignore it, it basically gives everyone what they want, as the existence of a rating system itself in no way restricts your ability to use things. If you don't have a problem with people having sex with the person they just killed while reciting every single swear word ever uttered, then you can go download it, if you don't, then you can see that this game has that and isn't for you.

Alternatively, yes, TIGRS sounds like a fairly nice system too.

 

[Dunny]

I think we should have ratings, with graphic descriptions (including screenshots) on the front page of each app's entry.

So we could have "contains moving imagery of a sexual nature - buggery, blowjobs and penetrative intercourse. [pics] Also contains foreplay [pics] and body parts that detach explosively [pics]"

The images and text would help the prospective downloader to make an informed decision as to whether or not to download. Do I want a bit of sex in my game today? or just a few pics of boobs?

I think we really should strive for an app store you can be proud to browse with your grandmother. "No, grandma, I'm not downloading that. Auto-erotic asphyxiation is offensive, as well you know!" "Seems to me he's eating an orange, dearie. Is it a game about fruit?" "No, he's not. Trust me... Well, maybe."

D.