Please add a feature that allows for "kid-game specific" ratings.

I suggest the following method: Allow users to enter two sets of ratings for each game, one for grown-ups and one for kids. Then make it easy to filter according to one or the other type of rating in the Advanced Search.

There are lots of people out there (like me) who want to find good games for their kids. But right now it's nearly impossible to find good kids games on BGG using a search. This is because of all the grown-up-centric ratings. It's common to see this kind of thing: "My kids love this game, but I find it boring so I rate it a 4 out of 10."

When you do an Advanced Search filtered according to children's games, you do get a list of games sorted by rating. However, some games have artificially low ratings (grown-up-centric) and some have deservedly low ratings (they are just lousy games). Only by opening up each game's page and reading lots of comments can you tell which case it is.


I think this feature would add a lot of value to BGG. The more we can do to promote kids' games the better. Kid gamers become the grown-up gamers (and game buyers) of the future.

    This is a fine concept, but I'll be honest with you. There's a whole crowd here on BGG who simply cannot conceptualize that there is a difference.

    Part of the problem is the written definitions for each rating value on the scale that many users seem enslaved to. They simply insist that if they don't want to play the game then it gets a 3, in spite of it being glaringly obvious they are not the targeted audience for the title. They see rating it in any other way as somehow destabilizing to the rating system and taking away from games designed for older players. Some are quite passionate about it and staunchly defend their position in threads like these.

    In my opinion all games should be rated based upon each raters opinion of how well they serve their target market. If you aren't sure of how well a game does that (i.e., you aren't six-years-old and don't have young kids in your life) then just don't rate it. Not rating the game is also a concept they have difficulties with.

    God help us all if this site takes off with seven-year-olds -- "Twilight Struggle? No electronic controller? This game SUCKS! It gets a 2."

    A "Fun for Kids" rating would be great, although I'd be curious to see if people could keep their hands off of it when it was appropriate to do so.

    kidgameratings.com

             Sag.

I agree with Sag about how people should rate games in the eye of the target audience, however, most BGGers seem to have a problem stepping outside their own point of view (which is only natural).

I suggest that any game with the "Children's" genre checked off (and that's a problem in that some aren't and some that shouldn't be are) have another of those autopolls. It would look something like this:


For the astute among you, that's a 0-5 point scale with a vote for "not applicable." From that, we could get some interesting and valuable content added to the Kid Corner of the Geek.

    Jeeze, add just one more line for 17+ and that poll would apply to all ages for all games.

    Now I feel bad that I didn't bid your copy of Mississippi Queen: The Black Rose up higher on eBay.

             Sag.

I thought of that, but that would step on the toes of those folk who blindly follow the 10-point scale text descriptions. They might not be able to handle grades of 0-5 and N/A, so I left the original rating scale for "adults."$60 was good enough for something I played with once and would probably never bring out again. :)

This would be a very cool idea as long as voters could do this honestly.

Good point.

Maybe a user should have to "opt in" to the Kid Corner of BGG one time (like you have to agree you're 18 or such to get into the Chit Chat forum the first time). Then, only those people who opt in on the "Account" page would even see these age-specific polls and data. That way, those who don't care about kid ratings would never see them.

Aldie, what do you say?

I've put this idea out before. Glad to see there are others looking to make the push again.

If we can have a sub-division for war-games vs. games in general, no reason we can't make a separate rating for kids' games. There are an abundance of good children's games, like Walk The Dogs, that parents (and other relatives) should know about and consider before plopping down $15 on a cheap "Dora the Explorer Candyland." Those of us who are interested in promoting quality games (vs. the standard Wal-Mart fare) to a wider audience, should seriously consider promoting high-quality children's games that are more likely to inspire future interest in games of all kinds.

I agree. I use Mark's KGR a lot and my ratings there are substantially different from my ratings on this site as I am rating for kids there and for adults here.

It would be great to have both in one place.

And as an added perk ... more stats for Randy !!!

Seriously, the age ranges could be "tightened up" a bit. I'd recommend 0-3, 3-6, 6-10 and 10-12 or even 10+ .

Is there some simpler way to do this -- e.g. a "kid-friendliness" attribute that gives you a few (non-exclusive) options you can check off such as (a) kids love it (b) fun for kids and adults and (c) target audience -- toddlers, preschool, early elementary, tweens.

Personally, after about age 10, we're in matter-of-taste land rather than age-appropriate-ville.

I've long been in favour of such an idea. There are just too many people who rate kids games according to a comparison with some adult games.

I'm all for somehow 1) tracking optimal ages for kids and then 2) assigning a rating to that optimal age; the poll idea is pretty cool, albeit a bit time consuming. I am unlikely to go back and fill this in except for games I think highly of for kids... But any new ones, I am likely to fill out.

As a dad, I really like the idea of having a Kid's Corner. Perhaps the way to do this is attach the poll to you being a member of a Guild called Kid's Corner. Then I could see all sorts of content that could be attached to games, publishers, etc. based on guild memberships. Targeted advertising could be done as well, which might help the BGG revenue stream.

There ya go Scott, free consulting advice (well perhaps a nice chunk of GG as payment hmmm?)

Cheers all and Happy Father's Day!
Paul

I do not want anything too complicated but I would like something in this direction.

Many people here play with non-homogenous groups and we are not always sitting around playing with our same age friends. I do like to know which games are popular with kids and I think the BGG community has a lot of input to provide. With all the experience the people here have playing with people of different ages and non-gamers it would be a shame to allow it to be pushed elsewhere with the argument that it is not the focus of this forum.

Rather than optimal ages (which seem arbitrary/unreliable to me), I'd rather see categories defined more functionally/by required skills --

e.g first games = no prior experience/skills necessary

preschool games = must be able to count and recognize colors, letters and numbers but no reading or math required

early elementary = may require simple addition and minimal reading

tweens = players should be able to read/add/subtract/multiply/divide

Then users select from the category that matches the kids' skill sets rather than their ages.

I agree, rated for playing vs. kids would be good. Nothing complicated is needed, but something that *excludes* people who rate only for themselves would be great.

Certainly true, but I'd think (hope, anyway) the very inclusion of some feature to distinguish between "this game's merits in general" and "this game's merits for kids" would suffice to encourage people not to judge kids' games by adult standards.

Here's where these sorts of discussions start to make me nervous. Actually, I want to hear how kids' games rate by adult standards. I'm an adult who will be playing such games with kids. I want to buy games that kids will enjoy but, honestly, my worse case scenario is games they'll love and I'll hate, because then I'll either have to play them or keep saying no. And it's not as if there aren't games we can both enjoy.

Riffing off the BGG rating system, my kids game rating system would be:

5 -- So fun I don't need a kid to play it.
4 -- I'll recommend this to a kid who is asking me to play a game.
3 -- I'm perfectly willing to play this game if any kid asks me to, but it's not something I'd choose/suggest.
2 -- If I'm fond of the child and s/he really wants to play this particular game, then I'll grin and bear it most days.
1 -- Please don't make me play this.

If you combine this with the age range voting that we've already got, I think it would be just about perfect. If you're looking for a game for a five-year-old, you'd look for something that is "recommended" for that age in the current poll, and then look for the highest rated games on the scale above.

The only difficulty I see is that I can't think of a game for ages 2-3 that would get a 5 under this scale. I need a kid to play Go Away Monster! or Candy Land Castle, but I think that they are really great games for my two-year-old. So I'd give them a 4 on the scale above. But there is really nothing that she can play appropriately that would get a 5 on the scale above. That's probably fine, though, you'd still be able to tell the relative merits of the games, which is really what the numbers are for.

However, once you get past the toddler games, yes, this scale would work. Games like Loopin' Louie and Duck, Duck, Bruce are designed for kids, but play well with just adults; I'd give them both fives on this scale.

A related thought- some games designed for adults actually play very well with kids. Diamant isn't designed for four-year-olds, but they can play it very well without any rule modification. I'd like a way to designate it as a "children's" game, even though it wasn't designed to be.

I agree there should be some recognition of the issue of 'games kids will love' vs 'games kids and adults will love playing together'. I did not enjoy Ninja Galaxy, but the theme was enough to hook my boys into several plays. I have also been dragged through dozens of plays of The Cinderella Glass Slipper game by my little girl. Yuck.

Mark does a good job of highlighting this on KGR. As well as the overall rating and comment, there is a box marked "Adults Too (Adults will also enjoy playing this with kids.)"

Fair enough, but I was trying to get more at ratings that wholly fail to take into account the fact a game is meant for kids. It's certainly desirable for the adults that make up the overwhelming majority of BGGers to know whether or not they like a given game that might be for kids, but at the same time it's not really desirable for a game expressly designed for children to be judged uniformly harshly solely because adults hate it if kids do really like it.

Of the various suggestions here, my favourite is the auto-poll.

There's a Comments space for Comments, after all

I do think this is important, especially for gaming with younger kids. When young kids are gaming, it's likely an adult is going to be there participating.

Good idea!

I would love to be able to get some kid friendly ratings here at BGG! I use KGR quite a bit and would continue to do so for more info on children's games. But, it would be good to find games you may not have realized were good with kids here on BGG because people could now add ratings for it.

Please mark me down for the YES column.