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Epic Games and the International Age Rating Coalition (IARC) are partnering to add age ratings to all Fortnite content. These ratings will apply to both first- and third-party content starting November 14.
“By implementing the IARC rating system within Fortnite, Epic continues to elevate its commitment to providing families with tools to make informed decisions about which experiences are appropriate for their children,” said Patricia Vance, president of ESRB and chairperson of IARC. “As Fortnite evolves from its Battle Royale roots into a broader ecosystem containing a variety of content from Epic and other creators, it’s especially important that parents have a clear understanding of what their children want to access.”
Ultimately, these ratings will help parents and guardians decide which experiences are appropriate for their kids. Epic plans to add new options to its existing Parental Controls to filter experiences. Additionally, parents can toggle the ability for children to design their own games in Creative Mode.
Assigning IARC ratings will be now be part of the Island approval process for third-party developers. Creators will now fill out an IARC content rating questionnaire before moderators review their Island. Epic will open the IARC questionaire for existing islands on October 16. Islands that are not rated by November 14 will be delisted.
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The overall rating will come with region-specific ratings to account for varying content sensitivities. These will factor in recommendations from the ESRB (North America), PEGI (Europe), ACB (Australia), USK (Germany), ClassInd (Brazil), and more. Participating rating authorities can modify one or more of the ratings assigned based on their own review after it’s been published.
This announcement comes shortly after Epic divested its stake in kid tech platform, SuperAwesome. Epic will keep SuperAwesome’s Kids Web Service age verification tools, but is spinning off its advertising business. These new IARC ratings in conjunction with the age verification tools will help Epic keep Fortnite parent-friendly.
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