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 game which is available from the Google Play and Apple App Stores. 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.
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Bad Piggies HD is part of the popular Angry Birds franchise, using its familiar characters and animation style together with a new approach. Rather than hurling animals as far as you can, this game requires the user to create wheeled carts to propel your piggies to the finish line. The building is straightforward, using the provided parts and highlighted squares to show where the pieces can go. This almost has a feel of Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, or Minecraft, but on a more basic level.
The Angry Birds franchise has been popular with children for a long time, with toys, themed crazy golf courses, and their own Netflix series and films. Any game using this theme is bound to be a hit with youngsters.
Bad Piggies features several incentives to maintain motivation to play. Users can gain access to hidden loot crates by watching adverts. At the end of each level, a rating out of 3 stars is awarded, with the chance to replay to achieve a higher rating. In-app purchases are also available to receive more spare parts for your builds.
Bad Piggies HD has over 600 ratings on the Apple App Store. The reviews include statements such as “childhood classic”, “this game was my life when I was younger” and “this was practically my childhood”. The Google Play Store shows similar feelings in the reviews there. The app is rather 4+ and PEGI3 on Apple and Google stores, respectively.
Privacy Policy:
When launching the game, users are asked to agree to the Terms of Service, and attention is drawn to their Privacy Policy. Users are then asked to confirm their age to ensure an “appropriate game experience”. The developers’ privacy statement claims that their games are made with adults in mind. It is unclear what they do with the information gathered from the age gate.
Screenshots of Bad Piggies:
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.
