Google will be updating the Google Play Store with a new global content rating system that display contents age-based rating. Starting now, developers can complete a content rating questionnaire for each of their apps and games. The questionnaire will help give the apps and games an objective content rating. Thus more clearly displaying if an app or game is more suitable for children, teens or adults. The new system will include official ratings from the International Age Rating Coalition (IARC) and its participating bodies, including the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), Pan-European Game Information (PEGI), Australian Classification Board, Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle (USK) and Classificação Indicativa (ClassInd).
As a developer you will want to hop on your developer console and get to answering those questions in a timely manner. App and games with out a rating will be marked as “unrated” and maybe be blocked in certain territories or for specific users. All new apps and updates to current apps beginning in May will need to complete the questionnaire before it can be published to the Play Store.
A secondary bit of information was also provided in the blog post from Google regarding the review process of apps and games found on the Play Store. We have all seen the stories of some apps falling victim to Google Policies Violations that generally offered little to know information as to what was wrong in the first place. That left many developers, and great apps, struggling to solve an unknown issue. Several months ago Google started to review apps before they were published to the Play Store. The review process involves a team of experts who identify the policy violations. In turn, they are giving the developers actual information pertaining to the violation specifically. Giving the honest devs a chance to correct an issue and not be left in limbo for weeks or months as to why it even got suspended or pulled in the first place.
Source: Android Developers Blog
