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Null141 days ago

This isn't something that would work at all. Not only are ratings subjective, someone would have to play through every single game listed and rate each one in a logical manner, which would cause another massive issue, like having every single game taken down until Hell (or Naraka, or the Abyss, or whatever underworld you prefer) freezes over, that way they can all be rated. Then, we might as well be waiting for the Apocalypse, because they have to be put back up again, after all.

You've also got to take non-game media that's hosted here into consideration as well. Who's going to rate all of that? How much longer will it make the backlog for things that need to be rated?

And then, if you get the ERSB involved, who the hell is going to pay $1500 per item to get it rated? Especially considering that all media on the site would have to be rated-- and you cannot ask people who make free things to pony up $1500+ to get their things rated so they can be hosted here.

So yeah, no, something like this just ain't gonna fly.

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redonihunter141 days ago

Not as a global rating.

But you could have a datasheet, for lack of a better word. You would collect all the information about the usual topics that are relevant for making something considered a higher age rating than 0.

The ratings criteria for specific countries are known, so from that datasheet a rating can be guessed. There will be some uncertainity and inaccuracy and even some dishonesty, but that is an issue for all ratings and reviews and the like.

But you would not collect that information actively. You would collect it by volunteers that just give an extensive rating after having played a game. There are people that like to do such things. Giving reviews. Combine the review with a questionaire for sensitive topics and you get a collection for that datasheet to calculate region specific rating estimates. You can even weight that rating's accuracy by previous honesty and accuracy of the reviewers.

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Null141 days ago (1 edit)

I am still against the idea. Not only is it overly complicated, but you just admitted that there is a probability of dishonesty and inaccuracy. Probably extremely high, if you're talking about volunteers. Which is yet another reason why indies should not be given the same treatment as anything commerical. 

Plus, once again, every developer who has ever listed something here will still be waiting for the end  of the world, since all of the games and other media would have to be removed, played/read/looked at, reviewed (probably with a great deal of bias,) rated (with most likely a large amount of inaccuracy, and dishonesty) and then be listed again.

So, still no support at all from me.

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redonihunter141 days ago

As far as I know, Steam uses just that. Because having an official rating is very costly. They just use a big questionaire and guesstimate a regional rating from the answers.

In most cases the only important decicsion is, if a game is adults only or not. Nuances, if a game is for 6, 12, 15, 16 are not all that important, but some parents might care, if a game has a 17, 16, 15 or 12 recommendation.

I have doubts that there is much incentive to lie for a developer when filling out and submitting such a questionaire. Be it for Steam or for any indie ratings board.

But I would guess that some developers would be grateful to have a "global" age recommendation for their game. On the other hand, no one will care all that much and if the dev has some level of professionalism, the game will be on Steam anyway and have their age recommendation.

What might be interesting, is some kind of online calculator. For developers to get an assessment, while the game is not finished. The aforementioned questionare plus calculation for different regions. That would be doable. And should that fly, and people would refer to that thingy a lot, it might be expaned to the ratings board in this suggestion.

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Rob DVD137 days ago (1 edit)

For anyone who wishes to adopt this idea as their own, is to keep in mind the costly nature of getting a rating from other ratings bodies. Also, ITCH needs to give publishers more comprehensive options when marking their products in the mean time, also allowing an outside payment processor of the publisher’s choosing to bypass PayPal and Stripe all together 

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