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.
Good Pizza Great Pizza allows you to run your pizza shop, much to the chagrin of the restaurant along the street. This story-based game gives the player tasks in the form of customers with particular requests, achievements to unlock, and quests to complete. Pizza games have become popular with younger players in recent years, thanks in part to a Roblox game featuring a Pizza delivery service. The game is appealing to look at, with a lo-fi style of animation. An on-screen hand points to what to do next, so the user isn’t left stuck if they can’t read the instructions.
There are several incentives within the game to keep things interesting. Each customer in the shop shows their happiness rating as a percentage. The longer their order takes, or if a mistake is made, their rating reduces. The pizza shop also has a MyPad tablet on the counter, which keeps track of quests, and achievements. It can also be used to read the story so far. It also has the option to watch adverts to gain rewards through the “Sponsor” tab. As the game continues, more toppings and options are unlocked over time.
The reviews of Good Pizza Great Pizza indicate that users are of a mixed age range. A review on the Google Play Store states they have been playing since the age of 7. Other reviews appear to have been written by children, judging by the style of writing and use of emojis in the review.
Privacy:
The TapBlaze Privacy Policy states they do not knowingly collect data from any users under the age of 16. They state that their apps “My Pizza Shop” and “My Pizza Shop 2” are their apps which are expressly directed to children. Good Pizza Great Pizza asks the user for their age when launching the game. The launch page does not state why this information is needed, whether it affects the gameplay or what information is retained.
Find Pixalate's full catalogue of reviews in our CTV and Mobile App Review Page
Screenshots of Good Pizza Great Pizza
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.
