Don't Download This....

The previous post reminded me of a song about piracy although in this song its about songs but you can still relate to it.

The Legal Side of The Issue

This is the third and final issue we will be looking at and that is the Legal issue. First we have to ask yourself what is a Legal issue? A legal issue are issues that affect the gaming industry like privacy, jailbreaking, plagiarism, and contractual.

One example of a contractual legal issue is one that happened quite recently is the legal battle between Activision and Infinity Ward over the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare franchises. It started with Activision firing the two heads of Infinity Ward for holding meeting for other publishers. However in Infinity Ward’s defence Activision didn't pay the studio their $500 million royalties for the game. The whole dispute was settled privately outside of court, mostly all of the Infinity Ward staffs quit Activision to form Respawn Entertainment.

The legal battle between Infinity Ward and Activision 

Another example of this is when retired American baseball player Curt ‘Bloody Sock’ Schilling started up and founded his own gaming company 38 Studios naming it after the number on his jersey. He was given $75 million from the state of Rhode Island with the promise of 450 jobs by the end of 2012. It had 2 game projects in the pipe line one was the Kingdoms of Amalur a RPG game and the other Copernicus a MMO game. The first and only game released was Kingdoms of Amalur on February 10 2012. The game did poorly and the studio couldn't maintain the loan and had to file for bankruptcy. The problem with this was that all those people who left their old life and moved from Rhode Island to work in Massachusetts would now have to go back home with no money and disappointments among their faces.

Logo of the now defunct 38 Studios

Piracy has been a big issue in the world of gaming. When someone pirates a game it is not only illegal, but also you are taking away hard earned money from the developers and the people who put their blood sweat and tears into the game. Although technologies is improving and furthered itself as it is getting easier for people to jailbreak/modify their games console/handheld so they can get free games. One way they tackle this situation is they actually give away FIFA disc for free but would charge a couple of pennies from players if they want new strips or injury updates. This method prove to be successful as 10% of Korean household downloaded the game for free and they made more profit online than sells from stores.

Don''t pirate any games 

Regulatory Issues

On our second agenda we shall now be looking at Regulatory Issues. First off what is regulation? Regulation is a legal provision that creates or constrains a right, limits duties, or responsibility. The reason why games needed this ruling is because the games have now evolved a lot from back in the days, as more games become more violent, bloodily, and gory. Some games like films have even been banned from certain country, so for the gaming industry to prevent this from happening just like in films they've implemented a regulatory standard for games.  

The three most popular representative in the gaming industry are; TIGA, UKIE, ESA

TIGA (The Independent Game Association) is a non-profit trade association that represents the UK's gaming industry. They include “independent games developers, in-house publisher-owned developers, outsourcing companies, technology businesses and universities.”

UKIE (UK Interactive Entertainment) are the only trade bodies that are for the UK’s interactive entertainment industry. They support the interests and needs of a positive image for the video games and for the interactive entertainment industry.

ESA (Entertainment Software Association) the most popular trade association out of the three. They focus fighting against piracy and censorship; also they run E3 and support ESRB. Most of the top game publishers are a member of ESA. e.g. Capcom, Square Enix, Namco Bandai Games, THQ, Ubisoft, etc.

In the early days for the US games were rated by their producers and publishers, until in September 1994 when ESRB was created, for the American rating system.

ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board) they are responsible for giving an overall age and content rating. E.g. alcohol, violence, sex, and language.

ESRB's rating system

In the UK all the ratings were done by BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) and they were solely legal for rating video games. Then in the summer of 2012 PEGI replaced BBFC and became the sole system for age classification for video games for. Also from 1984 to 2009 due to a minor governmental law error the sale of an age restricted game wasn't illegal.

PEGI (Pan European Game Information) they are responsible for giving age and content ratings by logos and every game has to go through PEGI before any of it hits the stores.

PEGI's age rating

PEGI's content rating

Issues of the Ethical Kind

Ever since games have been developed there lied 3 lingering issues among the gaming world which was ethnics, regulatory bodies and legal. Today we shall be looking at ethnics in games. Ethnic are rules of principles and conduct of a group or society.

  

The first game to suffer a great deal of controversy was an arcade game called Death Race originally named Pedestrian (1976).  The public protest about the game because it promoted violence in which the players were encouraged to run over ‘Gremlins’.

Screen Shot of Death Race

Keeping in the theme of violence other games such as Mortal Kombat and Manhunt has been covered in controversy. Mortal Kombat is a bloodily and gory fighting game in which the main controversy was the games ‘Fatality’ finishing move, as it was a very graphical way of killing an opponent.

Sub-Zero's Fatality finisher

With the psychological horror game Manhunt the goal of the game is where the player are encouraged to kill off their opponent in the most graphical and goriest way possible. The controversy came when it was linked up to a murder case. The victim’s mother accused the killer that he was obsessed with the game and had been playing the game before the murder.

One of the gruesome ways of killing

Another game that has been taking the heat of controversy is the 3^rd person action shooter ‘Resident Evil 5’. The game was deemed as being racist as the game depicts a white protagonist going to a small African village and starts killing off infected African people.

The white Protagonist fighting off African Zombies

In the 1^st person shooter Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. In the optional level ‘No Russian’ the player plays an undercover CIA agent joining a group of Russian terrorist in where they partake in an airport massacre. The player has the option to skip the level without getting any penalties and even if the player decides to play through the game he/she will not get rewarded with any achievement or trophies. 

The Massacre of the No Russian level

In the upcoming 2013 reboot Tomb Raider game. The game shows that Lara Croft has been taken captive by scavengers on an island as they attempt to rape her. Where she has to be forced to fight for herself or die. Just the sound of ‘attempted rape’ caused an outrage of controversy throughout the public and media. 

Lara trying to get away from her captors 

Hello

Well welcome all to my blog. This is my first ever blog :D YATTA!!!!
Wow I just realized that i'm talking with no one but myself... Yeah...