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 from the Google Play 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.
Incredible Jack is a new take on the old-school Mario-style game where the character jumps to destroy obstacles and earn coins. Jack is slightly less human looking than Mario, and his backstory states that he is a timbergrote that is searching for his kidnapped family members. Players help Jack collect coins and avoid enemies as he moves through the landscape.
Jack is a very child friendly animated character with a bright yellow, blob like body with arms, legs, and a face. He dresses in overalls and a hard hat and moves through a variety of bright and dream-like landscapes. The player is able to direct Jack’s movement, choosing to have him run forward or backward. Players can also direct Jack to jump, swim, and push objects. The associated animations are smooth and easily associated with the screen interactions.
There are some scenes in the introductory story showing demons kidnapping Jack’s children that might be a little scary for very young children but would be very engaging for older elementary aged kids.
Gaming style, upbeat music plays in the background as Jack runs through the different scenes. Different sound effects accompany Jack’s actions, such as little “haha” noises when he jumps, cha-chingnig noises when coins are collected, and explosions when he jumps on bombs.
As Jack breaks objects and jumps on enemies, coins can be collected. After making it to the end of the level Jack is rewarded by finding a member of his family and giving them a hug. After completing the level and finding the missing family member, the player is awarded stars based on how many enemies were defeated and coins were collected on the level.
There are banner ads across the bottom of the screen upon completion of a level. Video ads are played at transitions between levels. There are also optional video ads that allow a player to continue a level after their lives have run out. This allows users to continue without having to restart the level. The banner ads are for general audience products and services, such as cruises. The video ads are primarily for mixed audience games.
Incredible Jack was previously rated T on the Google Play store but has recently downgraded the rating to E10+. It is currently rated PEGI 7 on the Google Play European App Store and 12+ on the Apple App Store. Both the Google Play and Apple App Stores mention the ratings are for fantasy violence.
Reviews support a mixed audience of adults and children playing the game. Many reviews do not indicate anything age wise. There are, however, many reviews from parents and grandparents indicating that their children, some as young as 5 years old, are playing this game.
Privacy
According to the privacy policy, which was last updated on December 28, 2021, users must be 16 or over to play the game. However, this app does not have an age gate enforcing this and these terms are not presented or agreed to when first opening the app or subsequently accessing the game. They do indicate that they collect and share personal information including IP addresses, time zones, social networks, and more.
Upon first opening this app there is a pop-up that asks you to agree to targeted advertising. It indicates that you must be 18 to agree to the target ads but does not indicate anything about the age to play the game. There is not a decline button and it is rather complicated to disagree to targeted advertising.
The privacy policy links in the Google Play and Apple App Store are different. However, the policy linked in the Apple App Store times out and does not load. The policy referenced in this post is the one from Google Play Store, which is also subsequently the one linked within the settings of the app.
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.
