Welcome to Pixalate’s CTV & Mobile App Manual Reviews According to COPPA, a series containing the detailed factors the Trust & Safety Advisory Board educators used to assess an app’s child-directedness.
The educators manually review thousands of mobile apps available in the Google Play & Apple App Stores as well as connected TV (CTV) apps from the Roku Channel Store and Amazon Fire TV App Store using the COPPA Rule factors shown below & make those results available to the public at ratings.pixalate.com.
This post takes a look at a popular mobile app (1 million+ downloads) from the Google Play Store and Apple App Store. Our reviewer discusses how the subjective factors set forth in the COPPA Rule apply to the app and factor into the reviewer's determination as to whether the app is child-directed or general audience (i.e., it is not targeting children).
The teacher will indicate the factors they relied upon in their assessment using the 10 factors shown below that reflect the 10 child-directed factors in the COPPA Rule.
Anger of stick 5 : zombie is a 2D graphic-designed stickman action game where players defend their posts from zombies and enemies who want to destroy them. Players have to clear the neighborhood of zombies and keep the citizens safe. The game can be played online or offline. Players start off with kicks and punches. Eventually, players are able to buy weapons for better stats. The gameplay is entertaining and the controls are straightforward. It also allows players to expand character levels by amassing experience acquired by completing missions and defeating enemies. The visual content of the environment is well designed and the animation has visually appealing 2D unique art style graphics. However, the game does expose kids to a range of violent content that is packed with stabbing, shooting, and gore. Parents or guardians may not feel comfortable with the risk of violent content.
To destroy all enemy facilities and choose challenging levels for boasting rights.
There are advertisements shown in order to receive coins and if the player wants to collect more rewards, such as “Eatventure,” which is child-directed with a mixed audience.
The app is rated E for Everyone 10+ in the Google Play store and rated 12+ in the iOS store. The app is ready to play after giving the app access to email to link your activity and there is no age gate. Even though the app is free to play there is in-app purchasing within the game. There is also evidence with age specification, that children use the app through reviews. In the Google Play Store, in October of 2023, a reviewer posted, “played it since I was 8 years old on multiple devices.” Another Google Play reviewer in September of 2023 stated, “I like this game so much, this was my childhood when I was a kid.”
Privacy:
The developer’s privacy policy states, ”We do not collect personal information and therefore do not use personal information.” There is no COPPA policy.
Screenshots of Anger of stick 5 : zombie
Pixalate’s Trust and Safety Advisory Board was created to bring in individuals with experience using child-directed apps in the classroom to review and assess which apps are child-directed. This manual review process serves to quality check Pixalate’s automated review process. See our full methodology for more information.
Disclaimer
This blog post published by Pixalate is available for informational purposes only and is not considered legal advice. By viewing this blog post, the reader understands and agrees that there is no attorney-client relationship between the reader and the blog publisher. The blog should not be used as a substitute for legal advice from a licensed professional attorney in the applicable jurisdiction(s), and readers are urged to consult their own legal counsel on any specific legal questions concerning any specific situation. The content of this blog post reflects Pixalate's opinions with respect to factors that Pixalate believes may be useful to the digital media industry. Pixalate's opinions are just that, opinions, which means that they are neither facts nor guarantees; and this blog post is not intended to impugn the standing or reputation of any entity, person or app, but instead, to report findings pertaining to mobile and Connected TV (CTV) apps.
