Rating Panel's policy for Interactive Movies

[cat]

I'd also suggest making MAGS an attribute instead of a category, most of them are short or medium length games and MAGS should only be an additional search criterion.

[Snarky]

The one example of this type of experience that I remember playing (in the sense that you play a movie, rather than a game) is the AGS Awards. That's in the database as a demo, which may be the best category available but still isn't quite right.

I agree with ProgZ's call for a more extensive and better-adapted classification system, and that at least some of them should be more like attributes or tags than like categories, so that one game could have multiple of them. If CJ or someone gets the time to implement this, we should probably have a discussion about which tags would be useful, and how they should be worded. (Isn't the kind of scripted animation we're talking about in this case what's usually called machinima?)

Let's not let the perfect be the enemy of the good, so the hope for some future ideal system stop us from more immediate incremental improvements, though. This is not an argument over whether the ratings/non-ratings are "wrong" (much as Harg would like it to be), but an example that illustrates Ascovel's suggestion that the ratings panel consider how non-adventure games and non-games should be evaluated, if at all.

[Igor Hardy]

Yes, it might be just enough if there was a category/tag Interactive Movie (or just Movie) - it should clarify such games have a slightly different purpose. I agree that having completely separate rating methods for such gameplay-lacking titles would be messy and not that helpful for people browsing the database (I still think LimpingFish's idea to not give any rating to Life was the best).

You're welcome to disagree with the ratings as we've never suggested they were anything other than subjective opinions based on a set of guidelines.

At the end of the day, we all take away something different from a game we've played or a movie we've seen, whether it's a memorable quote or a catchy tune or some horrible gameplay mechanic or awful voice actor.  We're all critics and that's okay as long as you don't take stuff like the ratings too seriously.

Subjectivity + guidelines is a perfect combo for the database ratings, but I think their value shouldn't be looked at too lightly either.

They are serving as a guide for most people browsing the database (you can even search by the number of cups) - this means the ratings have an important function and serious consequences in how much exposure a game gets.