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This is a long one folks....
Just saw this, please excuse me if Im barking.

Just check out the link below from gamsutra. You may have seen it already.
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=12314

*1 Arent alot of the famous ESRB million dollar projects violent, sex filled and antisocial?
RPG- lot of fighting and killing
FPS- see RPG
3rdPS- FPS from a distance
LS- life saver.....wait thats a candy not a game style. Nope lotta killing here. Except for the games that arent bad that Im sure someones gonna post.

*2 Now arent alot of the casual non rated games mostly puzzles, sidescrollers, and even these have some violent listings?
Side scroller- Can you spelL M A R I O?
Puzzle- There arent enough numbers to place a count on how many of these exist!
2d games in general, Nuff said.

If MS confines their PC market to only ESRB rated games (murder death kill games)a whole lot of the clean family fun games will be overlooked.
The supposed purpose for this Game Explorer system is for "parental control" or something like that. Hmmmm, I cant download and install Zuma

deluxe for my kid since it isnt rated by ESRB. Darn looks like Ill just have to download and install Halo 2.........

No more Happy Hippos (im sure a game exists with that title somewhere), only shooting and war and vampires and zombies and WW2 and GTA and

wrestling......and maybe some Crash Bandicoot (if Naughty Dog ever takes back control of that mad marsupial

But seriously, wheres the logic in this? Protect kids by limiting them to million dollar games?
Try this: Study alot of commercials and movies that are coming out or have come out and youll find that (and this is a secret):
***SEX AND VIOLENCE SELLS*** just one example; AXE body spray...nuff said. (tip- look in a few game magazines and youll see it there too.)

Im not bashing ESRB games at all. Ive played plenty beat many. (Im over 17 so shove a sock in it if you were gonna say anything!)
But aside from being slightly threatened as a struggling indie developer, I see game development beginning to bottleneck. Its a very uncomfortable

feeling. A world with no indies? Only dazzling HD graphics with ancient gameplay? Thatll only work if the companies take a gamble and start hiring

some of us; catapult games into the next century.... wait this is the next century!

Dont be too alarmed. Indies cant dissapear. Linux, Macintosh anyone? And think.....Im a technician and have been servicing and updating computers

that are STILL RUNNING WINDOWS 98!!! Thats nearly a decade old and theres are still hardcore users out there. So our XP market and below aint

goin nowhere at least for a decade or so. Stick with XP until its completely unusable as a freedom-of-development system. namely until everyone on

earth goes Vista. A nice system.......of control that is. "The Microsoft has you Neo"

TGC please finish up FPSC DX9 version, I only have a few years of XP freedom left!!!!

"Was that over the top...I could never tell!"

My understanding of it was that games have to be specifically installed and told to be handled by the Game Explorer if you want to use it.

If you install a game on your system, you can still browse to it and run it regardless of if it's part of the Game Explorer or not.
It's kind of an extension to My Documents (one-click access) but for games and with MS's restrictions applied.
If you want to access files on your computer, you're not restricted at all.

The Game Explorer will access any games it recognises.
Where this database of "what is a game" or more specific titles to store is beyond me. It is however the responsibility of the system administrator if s/he has activated parental controls, so set the age rating on any game that does not have it defined in the Game Explorer Description File.

As only around 5-10 games currently support GDF, this means you'll be setting quite a few. While Microsoft seems to have added a database for basics like downloading box-artwork for games without compatible icons, it doesn't support system ratings, update website, game website, etc. So the rest has to be added manually.

One good thing though is the GDF is loaded from the game directory not somethnig in the registry. Works alot like a .manifest does for .NET applications really. It's mostly non-essential data tied directly to that app. So you can write your own GDF for any game.

well, there are always flash games it doesn't detect!

still bugs me. Ive seen a 3d flash game, I think but come on, learn 3d flash to slip under an MS radar?.....that sounds like a cool idea right there

great now I have to learn how to write GDF for each game as well as the game itself. This still puts a little more trouble into the lunchbox of indevelopers.

as long as it doesnt become impossible to the point of having to build an entire engine from scratch on another platform. still bugs me.

sorry about all the skips in the lines, I didnt realize till I read it again. typed the whole thing in notepad to make sure I got it right and i still got it wrong....*sigh*

anyways, sorry bout the complaining. life is starting to squeeze again. and I dont mean in a pleasant way

The playstation 2 network is better than the conclusive designs from Xbox live. Therefore create an opportunity of being superior.