Child Appropriate Game Design Project Report: Year One

Abstract

The Children and Age-Appropriate Game Design (or “Child Appropriate Game Design” (CAGD) for short) project explores how ideas about “age appropriateness” shape the way digital games are designed, regulated, and played. In this inaugural report, we introduce the research team and briefly describe: i) the why (rationale) and how (research design) of our study; ii) Year 1 results and key takeaways from our ongoing policy analysis; iii) Year 1 results of our design analysis, which focused on tracking industry shifts and trends in kids’ gaming; iv) the results of our first round of focus groups with Canadian children aged 6-to-12 years; and v) where and how we’re sharing our findings with different audiences (with links to find out more).