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

[Alex St. John]

To be clear the Vista issue is that if you want your game to appear in the Vista Games Explorer, you subject it by definition to Vista's broken parental control system which will hide your game if a parent sets any level of parental protection if the game has no ESRB rating.  If the game is NOT registered as a Windows game explorer game then it will not be subject to parental controls but Vista users may be confused about where to find the game.  Most obnoxiously however is that if a consumer tries to launch a game which Vista has imposed parental controls on, Vista will offer to delete it as well.   
   
  In March at the GDC we sponsored a session titled "Surving Vista" at the GDC which was heavily attended by MS folks where we raised the issue.  The feedback that it was broken appears to have been ignored.
   
  http://www.gdctv.net/basic/index.htm#wildtangent
   
  At WildTangent we have lobbied the ESRB EXTENSIVELY for a reasonable rate for casual games to little avail.  The ESRB is largely composed of members from big game publishers that are happy not to face competition from small low cost downloadable games.  The best we could accomplish was to get a batch rate for bundles of casual games, so we get ESRB ratings for all games we distribute with the PC OEM's but it's certainly an issue that will broadly impact all casual developers with the launch of Vista.  
   
  *To answer an earlier questions Flash and Shockwave games frequently have problems in Vista mostly related to installation and uninstallation.  
   
  -Alex
   
   

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