Identify, explain and discuss in groups of three
(recorded) or as a written document, the contractual, legal and ethical
obligations within the games industry – using specific industry examples.
A contract is a legally binding or valid agreement between two parties. The law
will consider a contract to be valid if the agreement contains all of the
following elements:
1. offer and acceptance;
2. an intention between the
parties to create binding relations;
3. consideration to be paid
for the promise made;
4. legal capacity of the parties to
act;
5. genuine consent of the parties; and
6. Legality of the agreement.
An agreement that lacks one or more of the elements
listed above is not a valid contract. It’s not necessary for all the types of
contracts to be written down but it very useful to have something written down
to ensure that the agreement will not break down. At a written contract all the
members related to the contract are obligated to sign the document to make the
contract valid.
http://www.lawhandbook.org.au/
There are different types of contracts:
Employment contacts: Every employee has a contract with their
employer. In every contract all the terms of it all included. These can vary
depending on the agreement between the two parties. For an employment contract
this can be the salary, his/her duties and responsibilities, the right and the
employment conditions.
https://www.gov.uk
License Agreements: This writing
agreement is between an owner of a property or an activity that gives the
permission to someone else to use the property. This property can be real,
personal or intellectual. Additionally, this type of agreement is used in
industries such as technology, biotechnology and publishing and is a large part
of intellectual property law, mainly in terms of copyrights, trademarks and
patents.
http://www.investopedia.com/
Confidentiality Agreements: It is a contract between two or more parties also known as NDA. The
terms of the agreement are maintained in secrecy between for the parties who
are included in the agreement. This agreement protects nonpublic business
information. This type of agreement is mainly signed by businesses which
negotiate with each other about doing business together.
Collaboration Agreements: It is an agreement that have been made between two or more companies for
the conditions of a project. Each company depending on the terms of the
agreements has commitments about the projects that include different sectors
such as funding, the marketing plan, the termination of the agreement etc. http://contracts.onecle.com/
Every
gaming industry has to face a lot of different issues during the development of
its product. Companies have to consider seriously the laws related to copyright
and trade-marking. Companies have to
ensure that the copyright own and remain to them. Additionally trade-marking is
something really important for the success of the video games. It’s the key
which will bring mores sales because it’s the unique characteristic of the
game. Sometimes trade marking is very
costly for the companies.
Secondly
the legislation and the classification of the video games are very important
for the development of video games. The
video games have to reach the target audience. This means that if a game has as
target audience children under the age of 16, violence cannot be included in
the game. PEGI
Nowadays,
every video game in Europe has age ratings which are decided by PEGI the Pan-European Game Information. PEGI was launched in spring of 2003
and replaced a plenty of national age rating systems. PEGI is now used mainly
in Europe, in 30 countries (Austria, Denmark, Hungary, Latvia,
Norway, Slovenia, Belgium, Estonia, Iceland, Lithuania, Poland, Spain,
Bulgaria, Finland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal, Sweden, Cyprus, France,
Israel, Malta, Romania, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Greece, Italy, the
Netherlands, Slovak Republic and the United Kingdom) and it is supported by the
major console manufacturers, including Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, as well as
by publishers and developers of interactive games throughout Europe. The age
rating system was developed by the Interactive Software Federation of Europe
(ISFE).
Age ratings are used
to ensure that the entertainment content of the video
game is clearly labelled by age according to the
content they contain. Age rating gives information to the costumers,
especially to the parents to
decide if the game is the suitable product or not. The PEGI labels appear in
the front or the back side of the game’s package indicating one of the
following pictures.
PEGI 7
The
content of the games is for all ages. If there is any violent is in a comical
context land in this participate cartoons. The child should understand that the
game is complete fantastic, unreal. Also in the game should not be included
sounds and pictures that are scary or have bad language.
PEGI 12
In
this category should be included games which can be rated also at 3. The only
difference is some scary scenes and sounds which are more suitable for this
category.
PEGI 12
In the category over 12 there are some sights of
violence and have as protagonists more realistic characters like human-looking
or animals. Generally the environment of the game is more realistic,
nature. Expresses which include bad
language must have not sexual content.
PEGI 16
This
rating is for games which include violence or sexual content but as it is in
the real life. The hardest bad language that can be found is tobacco and drugs.
Also there can be criminal scenes.
PEGI 18
The
adult rating is applied because the level of violence becomes hard. Gross
violence is a common phenomenon but the violence that it is included makes
people have a sense of revulsion. Behind at the package of the game there is an
analytical description about the type of violence that it is used. This can be
bad language, fear, drugs, sexual, discrimination, gambling and online gameplay
with other people. The age rating is not related with how difficult is a game
and what skills are required to play the game. In UK there is also the Video
Standards Council which is the second PEGI administrator and checks the high
age games against the PEGI criteria.
The
Video Standards Council was established in 11th of July of 1989 due
to concerns of the Government about video industry. VSC regulates standards for
the videos and the video games industries have a Code of Practise which ensures
that the movies and the video games provided to the market follow the high
standards.
http://www.pegi.info ,http://www.videostandards.org.uk/VSC/, http://www.asa.org.uk
There
have been a lot of ethical and religion issues at video games. These can be
ethnical and religion issues and the creator of the game have to be careful and
to be ready to face them every time. These ethical areas that should be
considered when creating a game are the discrimination, drugs, racism, drugs,
addicts and children.
http://lowndesgamingscriptwriter.blogspot.co.uk/
Case Study of video Games
Residence Evil 5
A racial
ethnic issue took place when the trailer of Residence Evil 5 was announced. The
scenario of the game is a white man who is trying to kill black poisoned people
who are supposed to be zombies with the objective being to save the humanity. A
lot of people used this scene and denounced the creators that they had racist
intentions. Nevertheless, if you look clearly at the game you will see that
this does not exist. Residence Evil 5 is a game settled in Africa which is a
place inhabited mostly by black people. So, its normal the people who will live
in this place of the game to be black. Also a lot of people thought that is
racism that the black people attack to the protagonist using a lot of times
ancient weapons claimed that the creators of the game want to likened them with
ancient people. They didn't read the scenario which says that the black people
attack because they are poisoned. Additionally, about the fact with the old
weapons like spears which are used from the black zombies to attack to the
protagonist, we must think that a lot of tribes in Africa use them nowadays for
hunting or other activities.
ASA
ASA is the Advertising Standards Authority in UK and its responsibility to
regulate the advertisements across all the media. It was established in 1962 by
CAP and its job is deciding about the complaints and checking the media before
do something misleading or offensive about the advertisements.
ASA is also responsible to decide about the advertisements
related to video games. An example of ASA’s rules is that the video games which
are for people over 18 years old cannot be advertised before 9 p.m. That’s why
at 9 p.m. is children’s bedtime.
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