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 Amazon Fire TV 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.
Bike Race Real Motorbike Games - Highway Moto Racer is a simple-to-play game that would appeal to both children and adults. It is easy to play with the Firestick remote, you just have to move the bike right or left to avoid other cars on the road. Players can also brake to slow down or stop, but there is no need to accelerate as the game does this automatically.
This is a true endless runner-style game, only ending when the bike crashes into another car. There is no finish line to cross and you are not racing against other cars, you can simply drive forever.
The graphics and animations are sophisticated, cementing the mixed audience appeal to all ages. Younger players will appreciate the realistic graphics while older adults will appreciate that they aren’t cartoony or overly childlike. The animation is presented from the viewpoint of someone riding the motorcycle, helping players feel immersed in the scene.
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There are limited sound effects in the game, with the main focus being on the driving and accelerating sounds of the bike. A short crash sound can also be heard when the game ends by hitting another car. Rock-style music does play on the menu and home screens but stops during gameplay to focus on the bike sounds.
Upon finishing a drive, coins are awarded based on the distance driven, number of near-miss crashes, maintaining a high speed, and driving in lanes of traffic going the opposite direction. These coins allow you to unlock bike upgrades and new game modes, such as weather or day/night mode.
This app claims to be ad-free, and while there are no external advertisements there are plenty of internal ads within the game. A pop-up selling extras such as unlocking other bikes appears each time you open the app or navigate back to the main menu. It is a bit difficult to navigate around and close using a TV remote and would be very easy for children to accidentally make a purchase.
When selecting a bike to drive, small windows with ads for other games appear on either side of the bike. These advertisements appear to be for other apps by the same developer. Clicking on them results in opening the app store on the Firestick with a prompt to download these apps.
This app does not include any information in the description about an expected audience. It is rated “Guidance Suggested” by the Amazon App Store. This rating indicates that the app is suitable for most users but “may include account creation, location detection, user-generated content, advertisements, infrequent or mild references to violence, profanity, or crude themes, or other content not suitable for all ages.”
While there are many star ratings for the app in the Amazon App Store, there are only a handful of written reviews. Most of the reviews are short and make no mention of the age of the player (single-word reviews like “super” or “ok” are prevalent). There is one review mentioning that it is a “great game for kids and adults.”
Privacy
There is no privacy policy shared within the Amazon App Store. Under user privacy, it simply states, “Developer has indicated that this app does not collect or transfer user data to third parties.” However, while playing the game a pop-up gives the option to unlock the full game by allowing Bright Data (who is not the game developer) to “use your device's free resources and IP address to download public web data from the Internet.” There is no age gate on this app or upon toggling this setting on to determine if the users are adults and able to consent to this.
Find Pixalate's full catalogue of reviews in our CTV and Mobile App Review Page
Screenshots of Bike Race Real Motorbike Games - Highway Moto Racer
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.
