Contractual, legal and ethical obligation in the game industry.

 The gaming industry is shrouded in various issues that every company have to face; such issues occur throughout the development of a new product, whether legal, or ethical.

At the beginning, a games company planning to produce a new game will first of all need to consider what their product could potentially cost. This is an important factor in sealing a contract with a publisher; accurate revision of the time-scale of development is also key. Publisher companies will only invest in developers only if they believe the said product is legible, both financially and time-wise. The risk factor is high for new products. Knowing the time it takes could be very important, as trends in the industry move quickly. Being inexpensive too is considerately helpful if a product fails to sell.

Secondly, game companies will need to take into consideration laws of copyright and trade-marking. Of course, plenty of market research needs to be undertaken to avoid any infringement of the copyright of another business; avoiding lawsuits (especially for new companies) is obviously important. With sufficient knowledge of the industry, and an original product, a company should go about setting their own copyright, ensuring this product remains theirs. Trade-marking a name can be very costly, but it ensures a unique characteristic, and selling point. However, it’s best to trade-mark only the names that are liable for success. It would be a large downfall for a company to pay for trade-marking on a failed product.

Next, a company will need to turn more of its attention towards the contents of the products themselves. First of such issues are the classification and legislation of games. New products content should be able to reach its target audience, whilst remaining true to the recommended age restriction guidelines set by the PEGI and/or the BBFC. For example: elements such as gore or violence should be highly avoided in a game aimed at young teens (Although obvious, it still needs considering, as upsetting a large quantity of people is potentially dangerous).

As well as age, consideration towards the ethnic and social issues needs to be taken. A new product must not by any means discriminate against gender and race; if such product does include it, then it should be kept minimal, and must be carefully monitored by the PEGI/BBFC. When on sale, there has to be enough warning to such content, as to not offend consumers unaware. Sufficient accessibility/options for the disabled need including (Options for subtitles, etc).This allows a slightly larger audience, and provides an equal opportunity to use their product. Getting these things right are important for the same reason mentioned previously: Carelessness can be expensive and dangerous.

Awareness of the social issues of a companies chosen audience is the final consideration to make. Depending on which market it is aimed at, varying risks of anti-social behaviour needs to be taken into account. A new product could have the potential to trigger some acts of violence; if this is the case, blame can be pinned on the company, providing more reason for costly lawsuits.

Types of contract

Permanent contract: Full time work you will always get paid for

Part time: you do less then 16 hours and you get paid

Fixed Term: Work for a amount of time e.g Christmas temporary work or summer jobs

Freelance: works for another company and gets paid by that company

Zero Hours: dont know when you will be working or not working at all for weeks,months or years

PEGI ratings

PEGI (Pan European Game Information) is a game rating system. It is a set of rules that every publisher using the PEGI system is contractually commited. It has 5 age ratings.

3             7              12               16              18

Violence

Bad Language

Fear

Sex

Drugs

Gambling

Discrimination

Online

They also include 8 descriptors which are in the form of images.

 Trademark:
A trademark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business organization, or other legal entity to identify that the products or services to consumers with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source, and to distinguish its products or services from those of other entities.
A trademark may be designated by the following symbols:

• ™ (for an unregistered trade mark, that is, a mark used to promote or brand goods)
• ℠ (for an unregistered service mark, that is, a mark used to promote brand services)
• ® (for a registered trademark)

A trademark is typically a name, word, phrase, logo, symbol, design, image, or a combination of these elements. There is also a range of non-conventional trademarks comprising marks which do not fall into these standard categories, such as those based on color, smell, or sound.

The owner of a registered trademark may commence legal proceedings for trademark infringement to prevent unauthorized use of that trademark. However, registration is not required. The owner of a common law trademark may also file suit, but an unregistered mark may be protectable only within the geographical area within which it has been used or in geographical areas into which it may be reasonably expected to expand.

Whereas patents and copyrights are basically used to protect the commercial rights of inventors and creators of artistic or literary works, respectively, the basic concept behind a trademark or service mark is to prevent unfair competition.

Trademark law protects you, the owner, from competitors stealing your identity or using a name or symbol so similar that it could cause confusion for your clients or customers. By identifying a product or Pservice’s source, a trademark or service mark also serves to protect consumers from deception. Trademarks are registered for specific goods or services within individual subjects known as classes. It is possible for others to register identical or similar marks as long as it is in a diferent unconnected class. For example Swan rental cars, Swan matches and Swan Electricals. These are 45 classes to choose from.

 ELSPA: Entertainment and Leisure Software Publisher's

ELSPA was responsible for introducing the video games ratings to the UK. The first voluntary age rating system for any entertainment medium, the system system has proved extremely successful. During its time over 95% of all leisure software products complied with the ELSPA voluntary code. Over 60% of all games given an ELSPA rating by the Video Standards Council (VSC) were rated as suitable for all ages (i.e. given a rating of age three and over). With more mature titles, the VSC would refer the game in question to the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) for rating.

Market & Industry Trends

AAA Games
AAA Games/Triple A Games are basically games that have a very high budget, usually to help ensure a successful game.
Simply games that everyone has atleast heard of. People have been known to argue for hours about which one of the many AAA games are best, therefore each AAA game must be up-to scratch to impress as many people as possible, especially fans who gone as far as to argue for it.

When a AAA game disappoints fans, the entire series can develop a bad reputation quickly, although some AAA games have also been ridiculed for being far too similar to the previous games before it, just adding in some minor features or updating the graphics. 

Franchises

A franchise is basically a massive series of movies, or games that have grown popular over time. franchises usually have T-shirts, coffee mugs, models, collectors editions and similar.

Just like triple AAA games, the expectations are very high, and so is the budget, Franchises have the great advantage of having many dedicated fans who will likely buy any game that has the franchise title in its name.

Financial

A budget is basically the amount of money that is acceptable to spend on the game in question.

More popular games like Call of duty, Halo or Fifa often have a high spending budget, as they safely make a lot of profit as well. Since the reason for companies to create a game is to make money, the budget is important, as a high budget could either cause the producers to lose money if the game does not sell well enough. However it may cause the game to be vastly improved than if it were to have a minor budget, and therefore sell a lot of copies, and making them much more money.

This does not mean however that all games must have a large budget in order to become popular, some of the simpler games with lesser budgets have become very renowned and has made a major profit.

 DRM
   DRM/Digital Rights Management is a way of restricting the second hand market. Console games now come with passwords or codes they must type in in order to get access to certain features within that game, this may be multiplayer access, special weaponry, armor, level packs, or simply cosmetic features.
This is mainly to prevent people from making fake copies and buying second-hand games, as if they do so, they are unlikely to get the full experience the game would normally offer.
The same codes are available to buy with DLC, making sure the game developers or producers get a full payment, or atleast a fair amount toward the natural price.



Royalties paid to developers:

While a payment to employ a trade mark licence is a royalty, it is accompanied by a "guided usage manual", the use of which may be audited from time to time. However, this becomes a supervisory task when the mark is used in a franchise agreement for the sale of goods or services carrying the reputation of the mark. For a franchise, it is said, a fee is paid, even though it comprises a royalty element.

To be a franchise, the agreement must be a composite of the items:

• the right to use a trade mark to offer, sell or distribute goods or services (the trademark element)
• payment of a required royalty or fee (the fee element)
• significant assistance or control with respect to the franchisee’s business (the supervisory element)

One of the above three items must not apply for the franchise agreement to be considered a trade mark agreement (and its laws and conventions). In a franchise, for which there is no convention, laws apply concerning training, brand support, operating systems/support and technical support in a written format ("Disclosure")