Using AI to predict video game ratings can help ratings groups like ESRB rate games more efficiently and effectively, while also helping video game creators meet ratings guidelines.

Over 10,000 video games are released every year on Steam, which means that easily tens of thousands of hours are spent on manual ratings reviews. AI can be used to streamline this process, and instantaneously predict ratings.

However, gaining real value is about more than just building AI models. You need to implement those models and predictions in the real-world. What good is a prediction if it’s not acted upon? In this guide, we’ll explore how to deploy our predictive model via Zapier, a no-code automation tool.

1. Building a video game ratings prediction model

To start, simply make a Pro account on Obviously.AI — you get a 14-day free trial, with no credit card needed to sign up.

Once you log-in, you’ll see a dashboard with an “Add Dataset” icon on the left. For this example, upload a simple tabular dataset from Kaggle, which features 1895 games with 34 predictive attributes.

Our goal is to predict a KPI called esrb_rating, which is made of the ratings RP, EC, E, E 10+, T, M, and A.

After clicking to upload a CSV file, you’ll need to verify the dataset, and simply check off that the first row is the column names and that all requirements are met.

Now, we select the column we want to predict, which is called “esrb_rating.” In the background, a series of machine learning models compete to create the most accurate predictions for esrb_rating.

And we’re done! Now, we can also see how various attributes impact the video game ratings KPI. The main drivers discovered by the automated machine learning models were strong sexual content and nudity.

Let’s move on to building a Zapier sequence, so you can deploy predictions in the real world, and predict video game ratings.

2. Building a Zapier Flow

Now, make a free Zapier account, if you haven’t already. We’ll start by connecting Zapier to a dataset in Google Sheets. We’ll select “New Spreadsheet Row in Google Sheets” as the trigger to activate a Zapier sequence.

After selecting that trigger, I simply located my demo Google Sheet, which I titled “New Data.”

This sheet should have the exact same column names and data types as the file I used to make the predictive model (minus the actual target column of “esrb_rating”).

For instance, since my training data had columns like console and alcohol_reference, and so on, I use those exact columns in this Google Sheet.

Next, we’ll select “Webhook,” and then “Custom Request.” This is how we’ll integrate with Obviously AI.

To set up the Custom Request, add in these details:

• Method: POST
• URL: https://api.obviously.ai/user/persona
• Data: read this documentation
• Headers: Authorization | ApiKey {ENTER_API_KEY}

The data field is the most important, which requires matching up the column names in your data with the column names used in your model. Check the documentation if you’re unsure!

To set it all up, you’ll also need your Report ID and API key. Your API key can be found in your account, which gets added as a “Header” in Zapier. To get the Report ID, head to the “Export Predictions” tab in Obviously AI, and click on the shareable report link.

The Report ID is the ID you see in that URL. In the example above, it’s “cff97990–7385–11eb-9a76-af3704ed1fd7.” As you can see in the documentation, this gets added in the bottom of the “Data” field in Zapier.

Now, we can test our Zap, which sends data from our new data sheet to our video game ratings prediction model, and we’ll get the video game ratings probability as an output. With these predictions in Zapier, we can now do anything we want with them.

For now, let’s just update our sheet with the estimated video game ratings. This can be done with the action titled “Update Spreadsheet Row in Google Sheets.”

Then, simply add the highest probability rating created in the aforementioned webhook.

When a new video game is added to the Google Sheet, a prediction for its rating will automatically get added!

Summary

Zapier is a powerful way to automate practically anything in your workflow. With Obviously AI, you can integrate the power of machine learning to create AI-driven workflows, including to predict video game ratings and help ratings groups like ESRB rate games more efficiently and effectively.