[casual_games] Slow death for the current generation of casual games? (Bugs, Parental Controls & Game Explorer)

[Matthew Douglass]

The Games Explorer is capable of handling ratings from a number of different
services - currently the GUI tools let you choose from CERO, ESRB, Office of
Film and Literature Classification, PEGI, PEGI w/ BBFC and
Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle.

 

If you get the latest DirectX SDK there is a help file  specifically for the
Game Explorer installed.  You also get the Game Definition File Editor which
gives you a nice GUI for creating the .GDF files that you need to package
with your executable.

 

Matthew

 

From: casual_games-bounces at igda.org [mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org]
On Behalf Of Daniel Kinney
Sent: Tuesday, December 19, 2006 11:54 AM
To: IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List
Subject: Re: [casual_games] Slow death for the current generation of casual
games? (Bugs, Parental Controls & Game Explorer)

 

Forgive my ignorance, but how are the ratings handled in international
versions of Windows? ESRB is a U.S. entity, is it not? Since casual games
utilize the Internet as a distribution vehicle, would developers and
publishers be required to get certification from International ratings
boards as well, like the U.K.'s Elspa?

Even at a reduced rate from each ratings board, this would still add up to a
hefty fee for the developer. This is beginning to sound a little absurd...
someone please tell me I'm wrong.

Best Regards,
Daniel Kinney



On 12/18/06, Dave Selle <Dave.Selle at wildtangent.com> wrote: 

 

Hi Everyone, 

 

Just dropping you a bit of cheer before the holidays.

 

But seriously I want to raise some issues with our game community that we
are seeing currently in our network which will become acute in the very near
future for many developers. 

 

Overall I also am very interested to hear in general what is happening with
Vista preparedness across the industry and what issues you may be
encountering. Here are some of the things that *we* have learned: 

 

==Casual Games Vista Bugs==

 

About 80% of the games we get from third party developers have some kind of
issue with Vista. 

 

Just under half of that number are "severe" issues that will significantly
impact a user's ability to play the game. In our network, these will have to
be pulled once our OEM partners start shipping Vista on new consumer
machines. Outside our network, these will die a slow but equally inevitable
death (if nothing is done to fix them) as consumer adoption of Vista marches
forward. 

 

The issues are mainly in two areas: 

 

*	Installation/save games
*	Sleep/Hibernate resume

 

In terms of Installation, many games write config files or save game data
into the program files area. In Vista this are gets virtualized per user.
Depending on what data is written users can lose save games or in some cases
will not be able to run at all as a non-elevated user after the initial
install. One thing that you can do now in XP to check is to run in a limited
user mode on XP. If your game installs and runs fine in that mode, 90% it
will work in Vista also.

 

The other big one is sleep/resume. Sleep behavior is turned ON by default in
Vista, so everyone with a new PC will be experiencing this. Furthermore,
Notebooks are the fastest growing segment of the PC market and there it's
not just a nice to have feature. Many games do not recover well, or at all,
when coming out of sleep mode. 

 

==Parental Controls & Vista==

 

And finally, even if you fix your bugs there is one other issue looming
which could significantly limit accessibility to your games under Vista:
Parental Controls. 

 

Vista comes with a robust set of Parental controls based on games' ESRB
ratings. And as we all know, relatively few casual games currently are ESRB
rated because few developers have seen the ROI for the cost and effort of
going through the submission process. Vista will certainly change this
equation, especially for new games. 

 

Under Vista, as soon as *any* level of parental controls are set for games
all unrated games will be hidden from the game explorer and require a lot of
extra steps to access them. That's right: your games can just go "poof" and
effectively disappear in Vista. 

 

The best defense against this particular threat is to get out in front of it
and get your games ESRB rated. After the New Year comes and the Royalty
checks start coming in I would strongly encourage all developers to consider
this investment in the future of their games. 

 

Any other big Vista issues that folks are seeing out there? 

 

Here is wishing everyone a happy and successful holiday season! 

 

Best,

 

--Dave 

 

 


WildTangent 
David Selle
VP, Content Acquisition & Developer Relations
 <mailto:dselle at wildtangent.com> dselle at wildtangent.com 
 
<http://maps.yahoo.com/py/maps.py?Pyt=Tmap&addr=18578+NE+67th+Court&csz=Redm
ond%2C+WA+98052&country=us> 18578 NE 67th Court
Redmond, WA 98052
tel:
<http://www.plaxo.com/click_to_call?src=jj_signature&To=425-497-4538&Email=d
selle at wildtangent.com> 425-497-4538 Error! Filename not specified.
fax: 425-497-4501
mobile:
<http://www.plaxo.com/click_to_call?src=jj_signature&To=425-894-0707&Email=d
selle at wildtangent.com> 425-894-0707 Error! Filename not specified.
www.wildtangent.com 

 


 


 <https://www.plaxo.com/add_me?u=30065769524&v0=1992267&k0=339952630> Add me
to your address book...  <http://www.plaxo.com/signature> Want a signature
like this? 

 


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