RatingGuard

Compliance scanner that audits game builds against COPPA, GDPR-K, PEGI/ESRB, and platform privacy rules, generating store-ready reports for indie and mid-size studios before submission. · Game Compliance Automation

DEAD SLOW · CAUTIOUS

6.2 ShipScore / 10

Time-leverage strongest; need only category-verified, near-zero direct demand chatter.

Condition: Three paying mid-size studios must pre-commit before a compliance rules engine is built.

Part I — The Verdict what the instruments read

01 — The ShipScore breakdown

Control

C6 — own SaaS, but Apple/ESRB rule changes dictate the ruleset

Entry barriers

E6 — no funded rivals, open lane; but App Store Preflight is open-source

Need

N6 — Flibbo $100k proves category spend, zero Reddit/X pull for this

Time-freedom

T7 — scan-and-report productizes well; audit disputes still need humans

Scale

S6 — global studios, but indie/mid-size game compliance is a narrow slice

What the five commandments measure

C — Control	Do you own the customer, or does a gatekeeper stand between you and revenue?
E — Entry	How hard is this to copy once it works? A rival's existence isn't the question — the durability of their advantage is.
N — Need	Is demand proven with money rather than vibes?
T — Time	Can income detach from your hours, or did you buy yourself a job?
S — Scale	How far does it reach without linear cost?

Scored on the evidence below, against CENTS as we've adapted it plus a Buffett-style moat reading of every rival — the same referee for every idea, including the ones we generate ourselves. The verdict follows the arithmetic: we never relabel a score to make it read better, and the weakest commandment is always named. The exact rubric stays in-house so the scale can't be written for.

02 — The pace test — $1M/yr

At $199/mo (assumed category price), you need 419 subscribers for a $1M/yr pace.

Nearest tracked rivals on that curve:

Flibbo

$100k 100%

X · active

DropPop

$28k 33%

Part II — The Evidence the receipts, good and bad

03 — Rival scan — corpus tracks 2 similar

Flibbo	verified MRR $100k · CENTS 5.2 · X-chatter: some (x)	X · active
DropPop	verified MRR $28k (trustmrr)

Flibbo — $100k verified MRR in the adjacent lane — funded attention and distribution you lack.
DropPop — $28k verified MRR shows a working paid motion competitors can extend into compliance.
App Store Preflight — Open-source rejection scanner incl. kids/age checks — drives your core feature to zero price.

04 — Demand evidence

Corpus verifies $100k MRR (Flibbo) and $28k (DropPop) in the tracked similar set — category spend is real.
Zero Reddit signals and near-zero X chatter for compliance scanning + age rating + GDPR-K.
Only occasional App Store age-rating rejection gripes; low engagement, no SaaS buzz.
Launches like AuthentiKid and ASC CLI audit tool show builders circling, none with traction.

05 — Risks

Apple/Google shipping native preflight age-rating checks makes the scanner redundant overnight.
Compliance buyers want liability cover; a report with no legal warranty is weakly valued.
Rules across COPPA, GDPR-K, PEGI and ESRB drift constantly — maintenance cost is permanent.
Indie studios are notoriously price-sensitive; real budget sits with mid-size and up.

06 — Kill switches — what kills this with one decision

Apple App Store Connect / Google Play policy tooling — Free first-party preflight age-rating validation removes the reason to pay.
ESRB/PEGI self-service rating questionnaires — Ratings boards expanding automated pre-checks makes third-party audits unnecessary.
Open-source scanners (App Store Preflight) — A maintained free CLI commoditizes the scan layer and caps pricing.

Part III — The Plan if you insist on proceeding

07 — What this scan can't tell you

Cannot confirm Flibbo/DropPop actually operate in game compliance versus a loosely similar lane.
No data on what studios currently pay lawyers or consultants for pre-submission compliance review.
Unknown whether automated build scanning can detect the SDK/data flows regulators actually care about.

Scores judge the market and business model — not your ability to execute. Verified MRR = independently tracked revenue; reviews/upvotes = platform-reported. Judged 2026-08-27.

08 — The wedge & the next step

Target mid-size studios shipping kids' titles: CI-integrated GDPR-K/COPPA SDK data-flow audit with a signed, submission-ready report.

Cheapest next step: Cold-DM 15 mid-size studio producers offering a free manual compliance audit of their next build; count who says yes.

Not quite it? Spin the model

Business-model variations of this idea, engineered to beat 6.2 — different vertical, audience, model, or wedge. Same harsh scale. Pro feature.

One evidence-backed gap a day, free

Close — but conditional. Every morning the engine files one mined gap, scored on the same harsh scale as this one. Free at 7am AEST, unedited.

Free forever · one email a day · unsubscribe in one click.

Monitor this idea

Weekly re-scan against the live corpus. If the market moves this ShipScore by a point, or flips the verdict, you hear about it. Free while we're small.