Task 4 - Contracts, Legal, and Ethical Obligations

Task 4 - Contracts, Legal, and Ethical Obligations

Legal 

The legal side of the game industry is very big nowadays, companies making sure what their company produces stays as theirs. Copyrighting protects anyone else from using what is produced by the company such as artwork. It gives them the legal right to print, film or record the artistic or musical material that was produced for a certain number of years. Artwork and music that is created is the most popular thing that is copyrighted, for example, in a game like Mario you can use Princess as much as you can't use the Mario theme tune. Some artwork in games falls under the 'scenes a faire' doctrine which limits what can be copyrighted, things like the scoring system, lives, coins/money as well as sky and ground.

Similarly, trademarking is big in the industry. A trademark is a sign or symbol that is recognisable and identifies a product or type of service (although trademarks used for services are usually called service marks). The trademark usually identifies a business organisation or legal personality. The trademark of a company can usually be found on the company building as well as the products they sell. In the game industry, the trademark will be the company logo for example the symbol for Electronic Arts is EA inside of a circle.
A patent is a license giving someone the right to exclude everyone from making, using or selling their invention for a certain amount time. An example of this was recently when Nintendo took out a patent for the NX, they refused to release what they were working on until the patent was finalised, this stops anyone else from stealing the designs and the selling them of with their logo as their own.
Registering a design is like a trademark and Patent, it is a recognisable design or product that you register as your own meaning that nobody else can use it.

Contractual

During a contractual agreement, the contract usually has to iron out all the details of what happens to the designers or the creators of an idea if they decide to quit or move to another company. In the case of Martin O'Donnell who was a composer for Bungie who created the Halo's original sound track and essentially all the sound that was produced on the companies behalf. After being fired in April 2014 "without cause" he filed 2 lawsuits, one against CEO Harold Ryan over 'unpaid benefits' which earned O'Donnell just over $95,000 and another lawsuit against Bungie claiming a breach in his contract. He will be receiving 192,187.5 shares of vested Bungie common stock as well as payments form the profit share plan, this amounted to over $140,000. 

Most of the time, game publishers will hire development teams to create the game. The development agreement outlines the details in the deal between the two companies. There are three main parts that need to be highlighted, the first is 'Terms' this simply says how much the development team will get paid, the deadline and if there will be any royalties. The next is 'Ownership', this one clarifies if the publisher of the developers own the IP. Lastly the 'Warranties' which means that the development company cannot use anybody else's source code and it swears that the publishing company has asked the developers to make this individual game. An example of this is when activision hire either Infinity Ward, Treyarch or Sledgehammer games to create cal of duty and they have been doing so since 2003 until present.
If a publisher wants to create a game that is based on or from a movie, then the publisher and the IP owner for the movie file a contract discussing the terms, The contract defines that the publisher has the right to make a game that is linked to the film and that game works on a platform of their choosing. It also outlines where in the world the game will be released and that the publisher wants worldwide rights for the game but the licensors can charge more for that. And lastly it highlights how long the contract will be valid for.
Non-Disclosure agreements are confidential agreements between two parties which disclose that there is a new idea or invention then the other party cannot tell anyone else about it, without consequence. If the second party does break the agreement, then a lawsuit will probably be filed.
In a collaboration agreement which is usually between a group of people who own an indie company, it establishes who owns what if the game was to flop and the company was to dissolve, who owns the artwork or music from the game that was published. The agreement shows clearly how the project is managed, who is in control of the IP, how any income from the game is handled and how the termination of the project comes about. 

Ethical 

Violence is becoming more popular in the game industry and not for any good reasons, as more games come out that promote violence like GTA V, Call of Duty, Titanfall as well as countless others has caused mass outrage among people throughout the world as they say that it causes people -who are vulnerable to games like this- to lash out. Video games have heavily been the centre of controversy within the last 10-20 years because of the amount of violence portrayed on screen. A test conducted in the US showed that as many as 97% of kids who ages ranged from 12-17 play video games which contributes to $21.53 billion in the video game industry. Over half of the top 50 selling videos contain violence and with that comes games like Diablo III, Overwatch, 'Call of Duty: Black Ops'. The violence in video games has been the blame for school shootings, an increase in bullying as well as violence towards women, the argument is that violent games desensitise exposed kids while they are playing games that require you to kill one another and then reward then for doing so.

Along with this age rating for games has been introduced to try and steer kids away from games like this, despite that games like 'Modern Warfare' and 'Mortal Kombat' are still being bought by children as young as 12. The Pan-European Game Information (PEGI) age rating system was introduced in 2003 used to tackle what games adults are buying for their children. Some people are worried that the age rating system doesn't stop underage gamers from playing violent games. 

On the other hand there are many games that have been brought out to try and educate younger gamers. Educational games can be considered as a serious game as they take some of the entertainment out of the game and throw in the learning aspect. Games like Dr. Kawashima's Brain Trainer on the Nintendo DS have been introduced to keep people educated.

Stereotyping is another controversy within the games industry, the idea is that games focus on targeting men rather than both men and women. Men are more prone to play video games on a regular basis and so to target a male audience is well justified. A survey was conducted to see how many women are in games showed that 48% of women in america have played a video game but only 6% of them consider themselves gamers, while 15% of men consider themselves gamers, this has risen though with women rising to 9% and men to 33%.

By playing a certain game or type of game for such as long time can cause some players to become addicted to gaming, health issues can come with that like loneliness. It is become a major problem in recent times with more kids staying off school and more adults not leaving the house in order to play the newest game. 

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent
https://spark.adobe.com/page/9fF5C/
http://venturebeat.com/2015/09/04/ex-bungie-composer-marty-odonnell-wins-epic-legal-fight-with-former-bosses/
https://gamerant.com/why-marty-odonnell-fired-bungie-248/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_of_Duty
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_controversies
https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-DS/Dr-Kawashima-s-Brain-Training-How-Old-is-Your-Brain--270627.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_and_video_games
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_European_Game_Information