Google Announced Content Rating Approval Rating System for Apps

[dgstorm]

It's funny how often Google will make a change to their services or products and not bother to tell anyone about it, or will wait for sometime to do so. The latest example is that there is a new content approval rating system in place for the apps on the Google Play Store. It has apparently been in place for several weeks. The new rating systems match the respective country/region they are in, thus you will see the familiar ESRB in the US, and PEGI system in Europe, etc.

On top of this, Google also announced that they actually have a team of Googlers in place who manually approve the apps. This is another big shocker as this is something Google seemed to shy away from for years.

You can check out the full details at the source link here: Creating Better User Experiences on Google Play Android Developers Blog

 

[akhenax]

They should do the same thing for Youtube videos.

 

[alicia78]

Agree, but Ratings on Apps suits developers ...a lot....but the big question is that it will effect apps traffic/ downloads or not.?

 

[grenefroggie]

Probably not.

 

[Jonny Kansas]

Won't matter to me either way and I don't recall my mom ever worrying about ESRB ratings when buying me videogames when I was a younger lad. I've got all safe search filters off. I'm a grown man and can handle it. Haha!

I guess, in the world we live in today, it's probably a good thing for parents that actually have the time to try and keep their kids innocent as long as they can.

My five-year-old stepson came home using the word "douchebag" in the first couple months of kindergarten. He didn't learn that word from us. Every little bit helps I guess, especially if you can set the filters on their devices and they can't change them.

 

[grenefroggie]

My parents always asked me why I wanted a certain game. They are aware of how the ESRB works, though it was relatively new, my parents taught me common sense. I knew when I was shooting someone in a video game that it wasn't real and that if I shot someone in real life it would kill them. My parents made it really clear what was expected of me.

Today's youth seem to be a lot less reliant on common sense. Either they aren't taught or they just don't know or they just don't care. ESRB ratings are useful, but only when one of the head honchos responsible for the ratings isn't an executive of various games like GTA V.