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 * Discrimination: Discrimination or prejudiced based on race, gender, age, or any other reason. Includes the promotion of discrimination, especially the belief that some people are superior to another. It might include the stereotyping of the members of some group, or the belief that genetic or inherited differences produce the inherent superiority or inferiority between people.  * Discrimination: Discrimination or prejudiced based on race, gender, social class, age, or any other reason. Includes the promotion of discrimination, especially the belief that some people are superior to another. It might include the stereotyping of the members of some group, or the belief that genetic or inherited differences produce the inherent superiority or inferiority between people.

http://www.miriamruiz.es/art/OpenRatingSys.png

First Draft

  • [http://www.miriamruiz.es/tags/vocabulary.gz First draft] of the ?DebTags structure for the rating. Please note that this is just a draft, and also that many tags are still missing, especially those related to educational software and the skills needed to play a game.

Rationale

Things that you might not want your kid to see

  • Violence
  • Bloodshed and Gore
  • Nudity
  • Sexual Content
  • Sexual Violence
  • Alcohol / Drugs / Tobacco
  • Discrimination
  • Language / Bad Words
  • Gambling
  • Fear
  • Religious Issues

Things that you might consider positive and valuable

  • Edutainment (Skill development is an integral part of product)
  • Informational (Contains data, facts, resource information, reference materials or instructional text)

  • Classify the games according to the skills needed to play them, taking into account the development stage of the kid

Tags and Facets proposed

Violence

  • None: No kind of violence appears in any part of the program. The package does not contain any violence, nor does any kind of reference or apology of violence. It does not refer to violence as a possible way of solving conflicts and no kind of fight or usage of weapons appear.
  • Minor: The package includes violence that do not result in bloodshed or death, and the violence itself is not the goal of the game. The violence shown is not especially cruel nor sadistic, and it is not encouraged or promoted. Violence might be a core part of the program, but in a very light kind of way, like platform games in which the character must jump over other characters or shot at them to make them disappear.
  • Minor (optional): Minor Violence, but it can be removed. The program allows the user to remove the violence of this kind through the program configuration, command line switches or similar means, without hurting functionality or gameplay severely.
  • Non-Realistic: Non-realistic characters commiting acts of violence. Non-realistic characters are shown commiting acts of violence that might result in bloodshed or death, but are not especially cruel nor sadistic. Violence itself might be the goal of the game, or take an important part in it
  • Non-Realistic (optional): Non-realistic characters commiting acts of violence, but it can be removed. The program allows the user to remove the violence of this kind through the program configuration, command line switches or similar means, without hurting functionality or gameplay severely.
  • Realistic: Realistic characters committing acts of violence. Realistic characters are shown committing acts of violence that might result in bloodshed or death, even though they might not be especially cruel nor sadistic. Violence is a core part of the program, and the characters themselves might be shown or not, as long as the program shows the violence in a way that is felt as real. This might include first person shooters in which the characters are designed to look as realistic as possible, realistic car races in which the purpose is to act violently against other cars, flight simulators with a violent goal such as bombing or fighting with a realistic look and feel, etc.
  • Realistic (optional): Realistic characters committing acts of violence, but it can be removed. The program allows the user to remove the violence of this kind through the program configuration, command line switches or similar means, without hurting functionality or gameplay severely.
  • Towards animals: Violence is directed towards animals or non-rational living species.
  • Towards human-like beings: Violence is directed towards rational or human-like species.
  • Towards other players: Violence is used against other players.

Sexual contents

  • None: No sexual contents of any kind appear in the game.
  • Innuendo: No sexual contents appear directly in the game, but they're suggested.
  • Nudity: Graphical depictions of nudity.
  • Nudity (optional): Graphical depictions of nudity, but they can be removed through the program configuration, command line switches or similar means, without hurting functionality or gameplay severely.
  • Non-Realistic: Non-realistic depictions of sexual activity.
  • Non-Realistic (optional): Non-realistic depictions of sexual activity, but they can be removed through the program configuration, command line switches or similar means, without hurting functionality or gameplay severely.
  • Realistic: Realistic depictions of sexual activity without violence of sexual nature.
  • Realistic (optional): Realistic depictions of sexual activity, but they can be removed through the program configuration, command line switches or similar means, without hurting functionality or gameplay severely.
  • Violence: Violence of a sexual nature or references to it.
  • Violence (optional): Violence of a sexual nature or references to it, but it can be removed through the program configuration, command line switches or similar means, without hurting functionality or gameplay severely.

Relationship issues

  • None: There are no other characters or players in the game, or there is no communication among them.
  • Cooperation: Encourages the cooperation among characters to achieve the goals.
  • Competition: Encourages competition and healthy rivalry among characters.
  • Individualism: Players play on their own and characters are not encouraged to interact among them.
  • Domination: Power relationship based on domination of some characters by others.
  • Manipulative: Relationships are based in mistrust and deception. Manipulative behaviour is encouraged.

Visual and graphical issues

  • Shocking: Images appearing quickly on the screen and directed at the player. The "shock" component relates to images appearing quickly on the screen and directed at the player. The program might involve bright things popping up on screen and any form of aggression that could be perceived as directed towards the player.
  • Gore: Acts of violence that are sadistic, cruel or bloody. Involves realistic or non-realistic characters commiting acts of violence that result in bloodshed or death. Blood, death or the mutilation of body parts might be shown, or especial delight is taken care to show the bloody aspect of the violence.
  • Gore (optional): Acts of violence that are sadistic, cruel or bloody, but they can be removed through the program configuration, command line switches or similar means, without hurting functionality or gameplay severely.

Social issues and sensitive themes

  • War: Armed conflict against an enemy .
  • Horror: Provokes intense and profound fear.
  • Cruelty: Violence is driven in a gratuitous way. The characters express their aggressive drives in a completely gratuitous way.
  • Death: Permanent loss of a character, with all the emotional charge implied.
  • Breaks Social Values: Violently breaks commonly accepted social values. Transgression is violently breaking commonly accepted social values, like advocating crime, encouraging murder and so forth. The program might reward acts of violence, especially against humans (as opposed to monsters), innocents and not in self-defence, or even immoral acts might be mandatory,
  • Genocidal: Deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group.
  • Gambling: Promotes gambling, or gambling is a core element.
  • Religion: Religion, sacred matters or religious institutions. Religious matters play a core and major part in the program. The goals or main usage of the program involves taking into account the supernatural, sacred or divine, or the moral codes, practices and institutions associated with some religious belief.
  • Politics: Political matters play a core and major part in the program.
  • Alcohol: Promotes or encourages the usage of alcoholic drinks.
  • Tobacco: Promotes or encourages the usage of tobacco.
  • Drugs: Promotes or encourages the usage of other drugs, apart from tobacco y alcohol.
  • Unsafe Sex: Promotes or encourages unsafe sexual acts.
  • Bad Language: Promotes or encourages the usage of insults, crude language or bad words. Might include verbal violence, harassing, despective talking, verbal aggressions or verbal violence in general.
  • Discrimination: Discrimination or prejudiced based on race, gender, social class, age, or any other reason. Includes the promotion of discrimination, especially the belief that some people are superior to another. It might include the stereotyping of the members of some group, or the belief that genetic or inherited differences produce the inherent superiority or inferiority between people.

Cognitive skills needed to play the game

  • Sensorimotor: Infants are born with a set of congenital reflexes. This stage marks the development of essential spatial abilities and understanding of the world.
  • Preoperational-Preconceptual: Is marked by egocentric thinking and animistic thought. Around 2-4 years.
  • Preoperational-Intuitive: Children start employing mental activities to solve problems and obtain goals but they are unaware of how they came to their conclusions. Around 4-7 years.
  • Concrete: This stage occurs between the ages of 7 and 12 years and is characterized by the appropriate use of logic. Important processes during this stage are:
    • Seriation (the ability to sort objects in an order)
    • Classification (the ability to name and identify sets of objects)
    • A child is no longer subject to the illogical limitations of animism
      • (the belief that all objects are alive and therefore have feelings).
    • Decentering (take into account multiple aspects of a problem to solve it)
    • Reversibility (numbers or objects can be changed, then returned to their
      • original state)
    • Conservation (understanding that quantity, length or number of items is
      • unrelated to the arrangement or appearance)
    • Elimination of Egocentrism
  • Formal: This stage commences at around 11 years of age (puberty) and continues into adulthood. It is characterized by acquisition of the ability to think abstractly, reason logically and draw conclusions from the information available.

Physical and coordination skills needed

  • Locomotor: Movement of the body from place to place. Physical abilities such as crawling, walking, hopping, jumping, running, leaping, galloping and skipping are examples of this. This type of movement involves gross-motor skills.
  • Nonlocomotor: Movement of the body while staying in one place. Physical abilities such as pushing, pulling, twisting, turning, wiggling, sitting and rising are examples of nonlocomotor movement. This type of movement involves balance and coordination skills.
  • Manipulative: Movement that involves controlled use of the hands and feet. Physical abilities such as grasping, opening and closing hands, waving, throwing and catching are examples of manipulative movement. It involves motor skills and hand-eye coordination.

Skills that the game helps to develop

  • Spacial: Useful to develop spacial vision.
  • Coordination: Useful for improving hand-eye coordination skills.
  • Mental: Aids in the mental development by encouraging reasoning, problem-solving and creative thinking.
  • Multitask: Useful for developing the capacity of taking care of different tasks at the same time, and managing different events that take place simultaneously.
  • Strategy: Useful for improving analysis, strategy and planning skills, as well as deductive capacity predicting events. Develops problem-solving skills.
  • Leadership: Helps to develop the capacity for setting goals and making decisions on how to achieve them and how to manage the resources available.
  • Responsiveness: Useful for developing quick decision making and improving speed in taking decisions.
  • Social: Useful for developing positive social skills such as team play, team building and collaboration and social interaction in general.
  • Creativity: Improves the creative expression and to become problem solvers. Develops the imagination in a constructive way.
  • Music: Useful to improve the sense of music, rythm, or musical skills.

Educational purposes for which the game can be useful

  • Languages: Useful to learn languages.
  • Technology: Useful to learn technology.
  • Geography: Useful to learn geography.
  • History: Useful to learn history.
  • Science: Useful to learn science.
  • Maths: Useful to learn mathematics.
  • Programming: Useful to learn computer programming.