I got linked to this by Nick Gravelyn, and I think it's a fantastic idea that the XBLIG community should adopt: The Independent Game Rating System (TIGRS).

The idea is pretty simple; you, an independent game developer, get to use some simple, attractive images to put on your box art, websites, etc. to convey a game rating similar to the ESRB ratings. From what I've read, it looks like these images are free to use, so long as you follow the guidelines specified on the website. What do you all think? Would you use these ratings for your games?

Rainault:

What do you all think? Would you use these ratings for your games?

I think they look great and would be happy to use them in my games.

Mark

I'd never heard of them before and I doubt most other gamers have. The only impact I can see of this is confusing people even more

Pheel:

I'd never heard of them before and I doubt most other gamers have. The only impact I can see of this is confusing people even more

Possibly, but it does give more of an at a glance rating looking at the box, rather than having to look at the game description for the prepended text ratings, which don't actually look the best.

Unless of course you guys have something planned to overlay the violence, sex and mature ratings on the box art?

Mark

It's an interesting idea, but I'm with Pheel here. Box art space is already very cramped without plastering ratings (and "seals of approval" if we ever agree on that) all over it, and it serves very little purpose. Adult gamers won't care about the rating, and child/parent gamers can see the rating from the description. Unless there's a huge outcry from parent gamers, as in several hundred saying "I would be buying frillions of games from XBLIG if only there was a rating on the front!", then I doubt it would have much effect. In fact it might decrease sales.

The ESRB system works (IMO it's a broken mess but that's for a very different thread) because it's on every game that's on store shelves. I'm an independant developer, so I try to stay on top of what's happening with indie games. I have never heard of TIGRS. I would highly, highly doubt most parents (which would be the only real audience to target this idea to) have heard about it - for all they know the developer made it up in an art program.

Maybe if -everyone- all at once updated their games with it and accepted it, it might work. But it would still be trying to fix a problem that I don't think even exists.

Plus, how many parents actually read the ratings anymore? Just from my experiance going into Best Buy and Gamestop on a fairly regular basis, I can tell you most parents just buy whatever the kid wants with no regard to the ratings. There's still this myth that games are toys for kids, which makes everything suitable for everyone. While it's bad for society, it could be good for indie game developers, in the sense that we don't really need to worry about ratings as they matter less than we may think.

UberGeekGames:

It's an interesting idea, but I'm with Pheel here.

...

But it would still be trying to fix a problem that I don't think even exists.

Agreed. It's kinda useless for us.

I'm kinda flabbergasted at the response so far. As a user I can tell you I don't look whatsoever at the description for the text ratings. It's mish-mashed with the game description, doesn't stand out and is hard to read. The way Nick has it on XBLCG.info is much better, but I think there is room for improvement. Provided Microsoft are not going to change the way the ratings are displayed I think that the developer community need to agree something like this. It's a visual thing & can say so much more than text alone. Yes, finding the right size so it doesn't take up too much space on the box-art will be critical. Anyway, I agree most people may have never heard of it, but the only alternative is the ESRB & I don't see that happening ever. New things take time to get support & recognition, but if you never try or give it a chance then nothing will change. For once stop thinking like developers & geeks and start thinking like your audience & potential customers. Something like this will be useful to them.

Tommy McClain

Box size is already too cramped (not like we're using a physical box, anyway), and users don't even look at the game boxes "that hard" from anything that we can tell. It seems to be basic look > screenshots > play game.

Where would you put the logo? On the "cover art"?  I think simplicity is a virtue, and that it's important to resist the temptation to add more stuff covers.  Besides, these aren't physical covers, to be visible at a glance on all TVs it would have to be huge. (Sure they're different colors, but people have to be able to tell that it's not any old yellow square, it's a specific yellow square.)

I enjoy this image : http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/images/yahoo-vs-google-1996-to-2005.png

I have not (yet) developed or released anything for XNA, so I guess my opinion doesn't count for much at all, but the only time I could imagine using precious, precious cover real estate on this was if the cover implied one thing and the game content was significantly different. (Conker's Bad Fur Day sort of fell into this category.)   Even then the TIGRS logos are so unknown by gamers at large that I'd probably just come up with my own way to convey that information. (Or, if at all possible, change the cover, so as not to raise eyebrows during review.)

It's also a duplication of effort. The existing ratings aren't well advertised (I don't know why), but they're there. So now there's the risk that the user would be confused by the existance of two diferent ratings. (Is the Comminity Game's VSM ratings system what informs the yellow/red/green stickers? Or vice versa? Neither, but that's not intuitively obvious.) It's worse if the ratings conflict. You might not think you deserve a Green TIGR sticker, but what if your reviewers give you all threes on the VSM? You can't easily go back and change the TIGRS sticker to match.

AzBat360:

but the only alternative is the ESRB

No, it's not the only alternative. Another alternative is to leave it the way it is. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

As a user I can tell you that I never look at ratings. I read about the game and play demos. That's how I decide if I want to buy it, not by some arbitrary rating that isn't even consistent. Even the ESRB is pretty meaningless and useless.

I actually use the ESRB ratings a lot. With 4 kids (3 of whom have their own handheld systems and buy games for all the consoles and PCs we have and the 4th will eventually), I rely pretty heavily on the ESRB ratings for games I don't know much about. At a store when asked if they can buy something about a game I haven't read about (and there's lots of those), it's the first thing I check. If the rating seems appropriate for their age and the little I read from the cover seems ok then it gets purchase approval. The game may later be returned once we've evaluated it at home together but the ESRB rating is definitely the first (but definitely not only) filter for finding games for my kids.

I personally don't use it for my own purchases.

And with all that said, I don't really need a rating system for Community Games because I can try before we buy. If the kids see a Community Game cover or game name that sounds interesting to them, we browse through the screenshots and then I download it to try later once their in bed. If I think it seems ok in the trial for them, they have a go at the trial themselves later and then we decide if it's worth a purchase.

So because of the ability to actually play the games, the ratings are pretty unnecessary from my point of view. And I care TREMENDOUSLY about the content coming into my house. :)

Jim Perry:

AzBat360:

but the only alternative is the ESRB

No, it's not the only alternative. Another alternative is to leave it the way it is. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

As a user I can tell you that I never look at ratings. I read about the game and play demos. That's how I decide if I want to buy it, not by some arbitrary rating that isn't even consistent. Even the ESRB is pretty meaningless and useless.

Are you a parent with kids who play games? I do & ESRB is very useful for us. You may not think so, but it does have its place. Would be useful for XBLCG. Just remember not all your customers are the same.

Tommy McClain

The argument I have against this is that most of our target audience won't care about the ratings anyway. In really, parents are the only ones this would be marketed to. Adult gamers won't care about the rating - they care about the game itself. Child gamers won't see IG at all if they have a Child account since all IGs are Unrated, which means they are blocked to child accounts. And even if they weren't, children might not want the ratings on the box so they can try to pull one over their parents.

That leaves parents, in which there are three main groups:
A) Those who restrict their children to a strict diet of EC rating content (Viva Pinata, Lego, and Tellitubbies). They wouldn't go near IG anyway since they either don't have an internet connection hooked up to the Xbox, or are immediately scared away when they see the word "Unrated" near the IG tab.
B) Those that don't know or don't care. These can be added into the group in the first paragraph.
C) Those who take an active interest to make sure the games their kids play are age appropriate. As George illustrated, ratings are largely unnesessary for downloadable content with this group as it's almost always "try before you buy", and even if not there are still the ratings information in the description, which will almost assuredly be read.

From my experience there are very few parents that actually care about the ratings system, let alone know what it means. But that's just what I see from shopping in malls - I haven't seen much data on how it affects downloadable content.

If there is quantifiable evidence that having a ratings icon on the box will increase appeal, then I would be willing to try it. If there is none, then it feels like we are in a room, blindfolded, and wandering around desperately trying to find the door that leads to the promised land of the Most Popular list. ;-)

When you release a game, you only get one shot to make the best first impression you can. There are no do-overs. Once you are off the New Arrivals, if your game hasn't become popular, than in all likelihood it will be lost. (User Ratings may change this, and I'm remaining cautiously optimistic about them, but we have no idea what impact they may or may not have yet). It would be a large gamble either way to have a rating or not on the box.

In order to make a decision, personally, I would need to see evidence that points to "more people will buy my game if I have a rating on it". If I'm just cluttering up the box art with something that 99% of potential customers won't care about, then it would be pointless to do so. So far I have second hand data that points to the former, nothing that points to the latter, and (braces for impact from chaos theorists) since some data is better than a wild guess, I'm leaning towards the former at this time.

So with that in mind, what is the benefit of having a rating on the box, other than making developers feel more "legitimate" or "cool" to have a rating on the box?

UberGeekGames:

It would be a large gamble either way to have a rating or not on the box.

Why? Is there really someone out there who's going to say "they put this stupid rating on the box, so I'm not going to buy the game"? Seems like the worst case scenario is that the rating does nothing.

UberGeekGames:

So with that in mind, what is the benefit of having a rating on the box, other than making developers feel more "legitimate" or "cool" to have a rating on the box?

To give the people who care, no matter how small the group, a better way to see the ratings than the giant messy text jumble approach currently in place. It's not about making anyone feel more legitimate, increasing sales, or trying to get on Most Popular. It's simply a way that a developer can illustrate to those who care that their game falls into one of these three categories that TIGRS supports.

I'm not saying everyone should do it. In fact, my tweet with this link just asked if anyone had thought of it. I'm well aware people haven't heard of it (I first saw it a few years ago, but it's still relatively unused), but that doesn't mean they won't grow to understand it. After all, it's only three icons that, with a brief look and read, can be easily understood.

My point of view is also coming from me being a public servant in my daily job. So even if 99% of your potential customers don't care whatsoever about the icon on the box, there is that 1% that could be served by that icon. So where's the harm in putting it on the box? Giving your game public ratings serves the public. There's no better purpose than that.

Tommy McClain

I'm not opposed to having ratings on the box art if people want it, but at the same time I don't want to needlessly clutter my box art. I put a lot of time and effort into making every pixel count on my game's promotional art assets, as they are the first line of offense to draw gamers in. So if no one would want the ratings (or just a very very tiny .00001% percent), then I don't think I would do this.

What we need is more information. Perhaps we should start a thread on the Xbox forums asking parents if this would helpful and or encourage them to shop XBLIG? I think there's a Family Gaming forum that might be suitable for that.

UberGeekGames:

I'm not opposed to having ratings on the box art if people want it, but at the same time I don't want to needlessly clutter my box art.

Fair enough, and you don't have to add it. I don't think anyone is suggesting making this a requirement for XBLIG; just something developers can choose to use if they want. Though I personally don't think a little icon in the corner is much clutter.

UberGeekGames:

I put a lot of time and effort into making every pixel count on my game's promotional art assets, as they are the first line of offense to draw gamers in.

The question is do you really need every last pixel? Look at most retail games. Some are nothing more than a fancy logo for the game plus the ESRB icon and then the dev/publisher icons. Box art shouldn't be a billboard or advertisement. I personally find things like what Snake360 did to be ugly by listing features. Show me a cool graphic with the title and I'm good. Plus, as most of you have said, people will download and try the games so is it really necessary to list features on the box art itself? Why not use the description or place that in the trial when they start it up?

UberGeekGames:

So if no one would want the ratings (or just a very very tiny .00001% percent), then I don't think I would do this.

And you don't have to. I guess that's why I'm not sure why such the negative backlash. If you don't want to do it, definitely don't.

UberGeekGames:

Perhaps we should start a thread on the Xbox forums asking parents if this would helpful and or encourage them to shop XBLIG?

I honestly doubt the Xbox forums are a good place for any advice on a matter like this. I'm guessing the number of parents over there is rather small.

Unfortunately a self-policing rating system has little or no credibility - especially with parents where a rating system is most relied upon.

Unless an authority steps up to ensure every game carries the correct rating, the system is unreliable at best, and in many cases intentionally misleading.  Which is likely to cause more confusion, and potentially a greater stigma towards the IG channel than leaving things as-is.

Sorry if I came off as sounding overly negative - that was not my intention! I'm always open to new ideas about improving our games. I just am not sure if this is a good idea or not, and was putting my thoughts out there to stimulate discussion, and brought up some of the potential flaws I saw with the idea to see what other's opinions are. I know this probably won't ever be a requirement for XBLIG and a strictly opt-in arrangement.

Nick Gravelyn:

The question is do you really need every last pixel? Look at most retail games. Some are nothing more than a fancy logo for the game plus the ESRB icon and then the dev/publisher icons. Box art shouldn't be a billboard or advertisement. I personally find things like what Snake360 did to be ugly by listing features. Show me a cool graphic with the title and I'm good. Plus, as most of you have said, people will download and try the games so is it really necessary to list features on the box art itself? Why not use the description or place that in the trial when they start it up?

I agree with that to an extent, but I think there are several stages to getting a sale:

1) Browsing the Marketplace. The first thing the customer sees is your box art and game title. You need to make this stand out, and immediately give them a reason to go to step 2.
2) Getting information on a game. So now the name and box art have the customer interested. Here is where good, descriptive screenshots and a smartly worded description need to "seal the deal" to get to the next step.
3) Downloading the trial. Now you can use whatever means you can in the trial to show why this game/app is worth your hard earned points.

So the first line of defense is your box art. Take for example my latest project, GameFinder. It's not immediately apparent what exactly it is (it could be a game about a stockboy sorting new games, for all the customer knows at this point), so I combined a nice rendering of part of the store with a cool visual stylization, with a brief tagline that clarifies what the app is for to draw browsers in. I spent an entire day in Photoshop getting everything just perfect, and tried to utilize every last space to maximize the visual appeal. Having a rating box in there would mean rethinking the entire design of the box art - I'm not certain if I could fit it in and maintain the same look. That's what I was referring to about maximizing your box art.

Nick Gravelyn:

I honestly doubt the Xbox forums are a good place for any advice on a matter like this. I'm guessing the number of parents over there is rather small.

*sigh* You're probably right. We need focus groups! :-)

DarkSquirrel:

Unless an authority steps up to ensure every game carries the correct rating, the system is unreliable at best, and in many cases intentionally misleading.

I disagree. There is no requirement to have a rating and I highly doubt anyone would find it beneficial to lie about a voluntary rating. Of course there's always room for it and creators could definitely point out when games are lying about this in either peer review or playtesting. There's a potential even to roll that into the "gross misrepresentation" category. By using a logo that says "Family Friendly" on a game that isn't, I would consider that a gross misrepresentation of the product and therefore a game could be failed from peer review potentially.

UberGeekGames:

Having a rating box in there would mean rethinking the entire design of the box art - I'm not certain if I could fit it in and maintain the same look. That's what I was referring to about maximizing your box art.

Unfortunately I can't look at games in peer review or playtesting due to my current employment, but I would think it possible to find a space in a corner where the icon could go. That said, since it's an app, maybe there's no need for a rating.

But you're right; it does depend on the product. For most games, just by looking at the collage on xblcg.info, you can see that almost every one has space where they could fit the rating should the want to.


I'm personally not even sure I want to use it. I originally tweeted it just to get an idea of who had heard of it and hopefully to stimulate this very discussion. Looks like mission accomplished for me. Whether or not anyone winds up using it, I think it's worth considering something like this as XBLIG becomes (hopefully) more popular and you get more and more parents. While George takes the time to trial every game, I'm sure some parents would appreciate an up front rating that they can see at a glance. Granted with screenshots, description, and the text ratings they can also gauge that, but a lot of parents are likely used to having a rating right on the box like the ESRB so I think there's a potential to make certain people happy.

Nick Gravelyn:

Of course there's always room for it and creators could definitely point out when games are lying about this in either peer review or playtesting. There's a potential even to roll that into the "gross misrepresentation" category. By using a logo that says "Family Friendly" on a game that isn't, I would consider that a gross misrepresentation of the product and therefore a game could be failed from peer review potentially.

For the review process to be effective the guidelines would have to very strict and well defined.

For instance is Math Sniper a Family Game simply because it's educational?  As a parent I find the game inappropriate for the age group it appears to be teaching.  Having one or two inappropriately rated game undermines the system, what games do parents trust?

I think this is a really bad idea for the wider acceptance of community games. User will now have to contend with two different ratings systems, one being much more subjective than the other. This not only confusing but will probably lead to people thinking that CG is even less respectable than they already think.

Oh and my ultra-violent-fps-sex-dating-sim-adventure game will be rated family, I have now completely ruined the reputation of this rating system and consequently every game badged with it. Not good, it would be too easy for someone to undermine the system.

Thats just my thoughts on it; I'd steer clear.

Edit: Don't mean to sound overly negative. I can just see this blowing up in our faces though.

The issue seems splittable into three issues:
1) Will a rating on the box art increase sales?
2) Will a rating on the box art provide a significant enough public service to justify modifying its design?
3) Is this specific rating system good enough?

If a child is interested in a community game, the parent likely won't just look at the boxart, see there's no rating, and say 'no'. If they're even considering a 'no' based on content, and not blanket forbidding all community games because they're not officially rated, then they'd read the text description and/or look at the screenshots. If there is a rating, they might decide 'no' based on that alone without reading the description or looking at the screenshots (including parents who can't operate the xbox well enough to navigate to the text description.) So, I'd imagine the rating would lose us more sales than it would get us, unless the game is the lowest age rating.

Ignoring sales, how much can a boxart rating help parents? Not much, unless they were unable/unwilling to look at the screenshots or text description/rating. At a store where you have to make the decision before you leave, and there's only the box in your hand and the word of the child/clerk to aid you, a rating on the box has more power. When you have multiple high-res screenshots, a description and rating that passed peer review, and are at home and have the power of the internet to research a game, a box rating is much less important. I think the content of a game is usually complex/varied enough that a trinary rating is overly simplistic and may not reflect a parent's views of appropriateness. The current rating system in place is already sufficient, the text formatting and the difficulty in accessing it on the xbox is its primary flaw. Incidentally, this is a great example of something to file a Connect issue for. What if the ratings were displayed on the UI while browsing thru boxart?

Regarding TIGRS itself, I don't really like the implication of the green/yellow/red color scheme, it's overly evocative of "go, caution, stop" traffic lights. Would I want my game with 'adult content' to be insinuating 'stop'? Not if I want to sell it.
The fatal flaw with these honor-system rating labels is that parents won't trust them. ESRB ratings are trusted for three reasons: they're independently issued, they're on virtually all games, and they appear to come from an authority. Also, many stores won't stock highest rated games (AO for ESRB ratings) and some console makers (Nintendo and I think Sony) won't even allow a highest-rated game to be released. TIGRS doesn't have an 'untouchable' rating that's universally castigated, it's hardly on all independent games, they're not issued independently, and the game company putting it on their boxart likely won't approach the ESRB in authority status (although Nintendo is close).

Make the implications of your boxart point toward the rating and it'll be more effective (in helping parents and sales) than an actual rating on the boxart.

FiveSidedBarrel:

User will now have to contend with two different ratings systems, one being much more subjective than the other.

What other rating system? The little 0-3 text mess that's jumbled into the description? That's also set directly by the creator? I'm not sure why those numbers mean any more than what's on the box art. While other creators can say what they think the game was rated, ultimately that's only used to fail the game if enough people believe the ratings need to be higher; it doesn't actually change the ratings that game gets.

FiveSidedBarrel:

Oh and my ultra-violent-fps-sex-dating-sim-adventure game will be rated family, I have now completely ruined the reputation of this rating system and consequently every game badged with it. Not good, it would be too easy for someone to undermine the system.

But why? Besides trolling, what good would come to that creator by doing that? No parent is going to buy based solely on the rating; the idea is that if something is rated Adult, a parent looking for their 8 year old kid can skip over it without having to dig any deeper than the box art. Sure someone could try to undermine it just to troll, but there's really no benefit from undermining a completely voluntary rating. They could just not use it and be just as well off.

Here's another way to look at this idea: