Back in August of 2016 one of our writers opened up about his fear of VR’s perception and how the existing ratings system would be influential in that. At the birth of VR’s gaming ecosystem, a couple games got an “M” rating from the ESRB right off the bat, citing “VR interactivity” as a significant factor in the evaluation. The platform’s immersive and hands-on nature was clearly going to muddy the water when it came to ratings across different cultures and it didn’t look like companies had clear guidelines in place just yet.
Now, one of the biggest players in the VR scene has made a transition to a system that will potentially provide more accurate and informational takes on what a VR game presents as it relates to specific regions and cultures.
Announced today on their blog, Oculus is transitioning to ratings provided by the International Age Rating Coalition (IARC) which is the same system used in the Google Play Store and Nintendo eShop. The IARC is fairly young, having been formed just in 2013 by the ESRB and other international rating organizations. The coalition was created as a way to easily apply ratings to digital content with region specific standards around the world. Whether you’re requesting a classification retroactively for content already in the Oculus Store or adding something new, a questionnaire will be presented to you and it works atop an algorithm tailored to provide accurate ratings for the regions it can be accessed in.
What does this mean? Initially it makes things easier for developers to get ratings up for territories foreign to them, but it makes things a bit easier for consumers as well because it “provides consumers a consistent set of familiar and trusted ratings that reflect their own cultural norms regarding content and age-appropriateness” as explained in the blog post.
Existing titles will need to complete the IARC rating process no later than March 1, 2017 to avoid removal from the Oculus Store.
