Task 4 - Contracts, Legal and Ethical Obligations

Contracts

Employment

Employment in the games industry will usually need the employee to have certain qualifications and/ or past work experiences depending on what type of job they are searching for. They would have expectations of what you are capable of doing and how hard you are willing to work which would also lead to which type of role you would receive such as a head artist or just a regular artist. This would also lead to how much you will receive for doing the job money wise, which would obviously increase over the amount of time you are doing the job and how much effort and time you are putting into the work you do. Also, vacation periods will be discussed which regards how much time you are actually allowed to take off work, a work schedule and the amount of vacation time you are entitled to.

Development

The development agreement is where a publisher wants to hire a development studio where a contract will have to be signed which includes rules and regulations restricting the developers to what they can and can't do. The Intellectual property will be discussed such as exclusive rights and the corresponding fields of law; this includes Copyright, Trademarks, Patents and Industrial design rights. False actions made could lead with one party suing the other in a court situation. There would be certain warranties in the developing company such as the development team are not allowed to use certain assets such as codes and art that was already created and developed. If they did, then it would end up with the publishing company getting sued even when it was the development studios fault since they used assets that were not their own.

License

License is basically the process of when a company want to create merchandise for a certain game such as plushies, t-shirts, pens and other stationary type of stuff. This would go through the process of a license agreement where the company that created the game and the company who want to create a product for the game and sell it, they would have to discuss and work out terms of agreement. There will most probably be certain restrictions of what can and can't be done which the licensee will have to follow.

NDA

NDA is basically an agreement not to spread any confidential information about the product that is being worked on. If any crucial information is leeked to the public or another company, then the worker will be sacked and will be sent to court to discuss what will proceed onward. Obviously, depending on how crucial and important the information or images leeked are, the punishment will vary or may not be as bad.

Collaboration

Collaboration is the process of where multiple developers come together to develop and put together a game. A collaboration contract, it will involve general questions about what the game will contain and consist of. For example, it will include what genre the game will be, What platform the game will be for, A general flow of what elements the game and games story will have and much more. A good example of collaboration in the games industry is the Pokken Tournament which is a collaboration between the makers of Pokemon and Tekken as Pokemon and the characters that are used but it has the Tekken fighting mechanics, graphics and play style.

Legal

Copyright

Copyright is an exclusive legal right where the aim is to protect the authors original work. It stops other people who attempt to steal the work and either claim it as their own or use it without the creators permission or credit. Copyright can can last from 50-100 years after the death of the original creator. However, the creator may not actually have the authorities to use copyright on their own product because they made have sold the rights to another company. The copyright law allows people to have the work that has been created to become instantly copyrighted which removes the source of the stolen idea/ post which makes the process a lot more simple as no complicated long system has to be used which benefits the creators a huge amount. If a person gets a copyright when the work is actually there own and they can fully prove this, they can get a copyright registration which allows the product and creation of the idea is easily shown. Some good examples that copyright is used on are: art, music, songs, books. website etc.

© - This symbol basically means copyright and it is used next to things that contain copyrighted content.

Trademark

A trademark is very similar to the copyright process but it is used less on art aspects and products but it is used mainly on names, logos and phrases. A trademark will protect the creators ideas or logo from be stolen by someone who is pretending to act that they are the owner. This also comes under people that want to create merchandise for a certain logo, which means that they will have to get in contact with a company and discuss a licensing agreement. If no contact was made, then it could lead to legal action where the owner can sue the person attempting to create merchandise that is trademarked. Once the original creator of the logo register the design, then the product can become a registered trademark. An unregistered trademark is obviously where the original content has not been trademarked by the original creator which means that they do not have many rights.

There are 3 types of trademark symbols which symbolize different things which are:
Registered trademark which is shown with this logo - ®
Unregistered trademark which is shown like this - ™ 
Unregistered service mark which is shown like this - ℠

Patent

A patent is something where a creation/ invention is registered, which is again very similar to the process of both copyright and trademark. It means that you recieve the sole right to stop other companies and anybody from creating, using or selling your work without the permission of yourself. This is active for a certain time period and expires after a while and if it isn't renewed/ registered, then your work is allowed to be used by others but only for commercial use.

Registered Design

Registered designs is where you can register your own design you have created and allow it to be protected from other people/ companies that try to fraud and claim it is their own. A registered design will make sure that nobody can use your own work without your own permission which means that you have proved that you own the work as you showed the proof that you have created it and that you own it.

Ethics

Violence
In video games, violence is used in higher aged rated games such as Call of Duty, GTA, Mortal Kombat etc. They contain scenes and gameplay aspects of where physical and verbal violence is used which is practically fine as happens inside of a game and not real life. For example, Call of Duty is known as one of the most popular FPS games out there which involves guns which is violence as guns have to ability to be able to kill somebody in the real world. In the multiple campaigns, they involves strong language, general fist to fist combat and discipline. Mortal Kombat is filled with bloody and gory cut scenes and it also contains physical combat with brutal attacks.

The violence that is portrayed inside of the video game world can lead to other types of violence being dragged into the real life world. This usually happens because the age rating policy is not follow and underage people play games that they are not old enough to play. This obviously depends on how mature the person is and how they act which means that some people just play the game to have a bit of fun but some people become so obsessed and addicted which means that they think that its okay to bring video game violence into the world such as physical and verbal abuse. They're has been multiple stories of where people have been severely injured due to aspects that have been taken from video games.

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/gta-5-14-year-old-boy-kills-father-brother-inspired-by-violent-character-trevor-1442418
In this link, you will see a story of where an underage person who played GTA 5 killed his father and brother because he was somewhat "inspired" by a character in the game known as Trevor who is one of the most outrageous characters withheld in the game as he is involved with physical and verbal violence, crime, sexual violence and prostitution and much more.

Rating
Rating in games links fairly well with the violence subject as this is what guides parents and the player to show if the person who wants to play the game is mature enough and can take it as a literal game and have fun. Rating is calculated judging from what content is present within the game. This includes mostly violent aspects such as blood/gore, physical abuse/ combat, offensive verbal content, sexual activity and a few others. Age rating is basically a guideline showing that only an 18 year old should be entitled to play the game because they are mature enough to play it, or they are at the legal age of being able to have sexual activity without getting to immature with it leading to it getting out of hand. Usually, the process goes as a person gets older, they mature up and learn from mistakes and take gaming to a more casual level where it can't affect in real life situations.

Games are rated using the PEGI rating system which is only used in Europr as the age rating of each games are used as either 3+, 7+. 12+. 16+ or 18+ which shows that the games are evenly spread out as violence can come in games at different levels where a game such as Pokemon contains a  very low level of violence where as a game such as Mortal Kombat contains a very high standard of violence and physical activity. Also, it is illegal for a game to be sold directly to someone who is underaged but it is not illegal for the buyer of the game to allow someone underaged to be able to play the game but the underaged player would usually have to supervised by the buyer ensuring that nothing gets out of hand.

Education
Some games have educational impacts where the player will actually learn new things whilst playing the game. Although games a usually aimed towards allowing the player to have fun, there are few games where you can learn new things such as historical subjects, words and much more. For example, when I used to play Pokemon as a kid, I learned new words from playing the game which I never understood at first but afterwards, I knew what they meant. There are also some puzzle aspects and strategy aspects which are also withheld in the game which I guess also counts as an educational aspect.

There a video games which also are specifically for education and brain activity and a good example for this is brain training. This is a classic game which was made for the Nintendo DS platform where it would be filled with all sort of puzzles and questions which would attempt to help keep the brain active
Stereotyping
In the gaming industry, stereotypes range verily. this could be so many possible things such as racial, gender, minority stereotyping etc. Stereotyping can offend many people and it can inflict an affect on people making them think that all people are like that; for example, a black person such as Franklin from GTA V causes trouble with people and says slang language such as "dawg" and "homie". This could affect people as this stereotype tries to tell us that all black people act the same when that really isn't the case. This also includes the type of accent used, the speech pattern, what they do within the game and the actions they make. Another stereotype used in game commonly is the body figure of a character. For example, most characters we see have a "perfect" type of body figure which could make people jealous and annoyed as it is the general thing we see in most games and it would make people think I want to be like that character which could lead to serious things that could have in real life such as eating disorders.

Addiction
Video games can become very addicting depending on a certain number of things that is used within the game-play. For example, determination could be a fact that a game could become somewhat addicting as there could be a level that you can't complete or get the best score on so you retry it again and again until you finally complete it. There are different types of games that could include this such as osu! which is a rhythm game where you could be playing a certain beat-map for hours/days/months/years attempting to beat a song or get a really good score. Another game that could include this aspect is Minecraft as you play for long periods of time trying to improve at whatever you do to become the best player in the game.

Addiction is mostly seen in competitive gaming as its for competition of being the best or getting the best score. For example, say if you're playing a game of Domination in Call of Duty and you're on a 10 kill-streak. and you get called downstairs to be talked to or for tea and then you won't get off the game because you're on a kill-streak and don't want to die. This could also happen in non competition where you are just playing with you're friends and you just don't want to get off the game because you're having fun. This could lead to having real life problem such as oversleeping, being late, Being obsessive, missing meals, losing friends and more.