Calling all kid's app/game developers!

Solar2D General Questions/Discussion
#1

We know that GDPR and COPPA make it a challenge to add interactive features to games targeted to the under-13 year old audience. Our partner, SuperAwesome, is compiling requests for an update to their kidtech platform which is used to enable rich engagement functionality for kids apps (using the necessary parental permissions).

They have reached out to us and would like your input on what you need, to make sure their latest update captures all of your needs.

Basically, they are interested in what kind of features you would like to be able to support in your apps, such as logins for kids, adding chat or geo-location features (think Pokémon Go) or other things that would need parental permission to do.

Here is your chance to help mold the feature set.  If you don’t mind, please respond with features you like, as well as roadblocks and difficulties, that you have in implementing more parental control in your apps, such as GDPR compliance forms, implementing parental gates, etc. Where do you struggle? What would you like to do.

Please reply to this forum post and discuss your needs and desires.

Thanks

Rob

#2

I suggest that they make their service available to all developers by removing the minimum MAU amount of 100k in one of their main markets (UK, US, AU).

#3

The ability to track stats or share data between apps would be nice.  We have a catalog of learning apps and it would be nice if they could share purchase data or stat data between them.

Also would love a way to login and communicate with some kind of backend on our server, but we’ve been too nervous with all the privacy stuff to implement that.

#4

Hi, this is Roy! I’m a Product Manager at SuperAwesome. 

Sharing data between apps and tracking stats is tricky, we’ve had lots of fun legal conversations around this! What do you use for data analytics?

What do you mean by “would love a way to login and communicate with some kind of backend on our server”?

#5

Hi Mike, 

We don’t have a minimum MAU amount of 100k. We are working with developers as we learn more about the market and are constantly tweaking the pricing for maximum flexibility.

#6

Since GDPR’s release we actually don’t use ANY data analytics at all expect those already backed into iOS/Google Play.  Getting parents consent at load is not an elegant user flow so rather than doing that we just removed all analytics.

As far as communicating with a backend each of our apps tracks stats for a user (progress, # right, # wrong, times played, etc) that can be reviewed by a parent.  It’s basically a report card.  The problem is this is all stored local, and if a user resets their device all their stats are cleared.  Giving parents an option to create a login and then storing this data on a backend would be great, but we just don’t have the will to program that all from scratch so if something like that was included in SuperAwesome we’d definatley look at it.

#7

When I tried to sign-up for your service I was told via an email in January of this year that you had a minimum MAU amount of 100k. I was told that it is to ensure the revenue is worthwhile for implementing AwesomeAds. Please PM me with your contact info so I can finish the sign-up process.

#8

Hi Mike,

This is Ben and I’m the commercial director over here at SuperAwesome.  I’ve PM’d you my details, let’s connect and see what we can do to move the conversation along.

#9

Sharing in-app data with parents we hear about often. We plan to work with Corona to figure out how we best solve this problem. If there are any other developers who face similar issues, we would love to hear about it!

#10

Hi @kbradford.  It would be great to connect on this.  My email is ben.hoppe@superawesome.com.  Do you have any availability for a call this week or next?

#11

Hi Ben. I’m Ben too.

Before we talk about new issues and feature, how about the most important issue today on iOS? How can we deliver Superawesome ads now that Apple has made it very clear that all apps in the kids category cannot contain analytics and ads.

Superawesome has been championing that you’re the go to ad network for serving ads that adhere to COPPA and GDPR-K, but how can we move on in iOS when we can’t even serve ads.

https://www.macrumors.com/2019/08/20/apple-delays-kids-app-changes/

I read the above about Apple’s delay in their stand, but it’s just a delay. Ultimately, it will be enforced hard later so big kids app publishers can make the necessarily changes to their apps and business model.

Ben.

p/s Congrats on getting Superawesome into the list of approved ad networks for Google’s Designed for Families program.

#12

A login feature, and features to help with managing subscirptions that can be shared across apps would be great.