Unit 13 - Understanding the Computer Games Industry: HA3 Task 4 - Contracts, Legal and Ethical Obligations

Contractual Obligations:

There are many forms of contractual obligations within the games industry. One type of contract is the employment contracts. The very purpose of these contracts are to lay out the terms of an employment. They explain what the employer expects of the employee and what the company itself can offer the employee. They can contain many clauses. Examples of clauses found in these contracts include Confidentiality, Benefits and the inability to compete with the company while in their employment.

There are also Development Agreements. These are when a game publisher hires a game developer to create their game. The development agreement sets out the terms of the deal. The warranties are where a developer must promise not to use or exploit someone else's game source codes and the publisher in return has to promise that they have the right to let the developers make the game.

The ownership is set out to decide who owns the IP. It can be owned by either the publisher of the developer. The terms of the Agreements explain details such as how much the developers will be paid for their work, how much time they will be allocated to finish development and to decide if royalties are to be included, if so, how much will be granted to both parties involved.

There are also licencing agreements. These are used when a movie is to be made into a game. The owner of the movie IP and publisher layout a contract which sets the term for the license. This contains what the publisher exactly has the rights to and what these rights can be used for. An example of rights are that they may only be allowed to publish the game for the Wii, but not for the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3. Another detail discussed in the agreement, is what territories the publishers are allowed to publish in. The aim is usually world rights, but due to its nature, the most money is charged for that privilege.

The final and one of the most important things contained in the agreement is the length of the discussed contract. The average contract lasts 5 year, though they can be shorter or longer.

There are also NDA Agreements (Non-Disclosure Agreements) and Confidentiality agreements. These agreements entails one party in the agreement disclosing a secret to the other party involved in order to do business with them. This secret has to be kept and this is agreed by the informed party. If the agreement is violated, legal action is taken against the violating party.

A final example of Contractual Obligation are Collaboration Agreements. These are the most frequently used contractual agreement's within the games industry particularity in the mainstream sector. However, within the Indie aspect of the industry, don't need agreements such as these. They are more in need of agreement's that cover ownership of a game and its IP and compensation if a game is to fail. Since it is common for indie games to fail, compensation is the most important aspect. Collaboration agreements sets how an indie project is made or controlled and who owns the IP to the game and/or its series.

Legal Obligations;

One main part of legal obligations within the games industry, is who owns and what happens with a game IP (Intellectual Property). Intellectual Property is the referral term for creations of the mind which can set many exclusive rights to be recognized and acknowledged by the law. Who ever owns an IP has rights allowed to no other to use certain assets. Examples of such assets include Symbols, Phrases and works of a artistic nature.

The importance of IP was first realized by the Paris Convention of the Protection of Property which took place in 1983. They were followed by the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, which took place in 1983. These were the first to acknowledge and take into account Intellectual property in other peoples work.

There are a few types of IP rights. Examples include Trademarks, Copyrights, Patents and Registered Designs.

A Trademark is a symbol or word/s that are legally registered to represent a company or product. Trademarks are usually granted from 7 to 20 years, and due to their limited nature, are renewable.
Different trademarks are separated into different classes, with there being 42 separate classes.

A Copyright is the exclusive legal right to publish or print a artistic, literary etc work. It usually protects work created by its author and rarely deviates from this pattern. The person who has the copyright has to have had some form of contribution towards the creation of the copyrighted work. The nature of copyright is unlike other forms of IP rights. It is considered an automatic right. It is uniquely unable to be acquired at the Intellectual Property office. Upon completion, a copyright is the complete property of the owner, with no dispute in that regard.

A Patent is when a licence is set a right or title for a set period. These are granted by the government to an inventor which allows the inventor certain rights, such as the ability to prevent people from selling their inventions without express permission form the original creator. Upon the patents issue, the creator owns the product which allows them to use it like any other business asset.

Finally, a Registered Design is the protection of an objects appearance. These can be applied for at The Intellectual Property Office if someone would want a Registered design. When registering a design, you are essentially protecting the external appearance of an object.

Ethical Obligations:

Ethics are principles of a moral nature that decide a person's behavior and their interaction with society. Morals themselves are standards of behaviors which can be described as a sense of right and wrong. Within gaming, Ethics are important. They can take many forms such as violence
against women, the glorification of drugs and the implementation of sex within video games.

Violence within games has occasionally caused ethical concerns. Studies have been taken to see if violence within games directly affects a persons behavior due to the increasing complexity and graphical fidelity of violence with games which gives the violence a more realistic look that could affect individuals and is theorized to influence them negatively. Examples of games controversial for their violence include Grand Theft Auto (particularly for the infamous torture scene), Doom (for its realistic depiction of violence for the time and for displaying satanic imagery) , Mortal Kombat (So violent for the time, its release caused the need for video game ratings) and Call of Duty (For may scenes, especially the 'No Russian' mission in Modern Warfare 2 which despite its optional nature, was scrutinized heavily by the media).

Ratings within games has been regarded as a good ethical choice within the games industry. The addition of ratings to games allows parents to buy their children the games they feel appropriate for them and also prevents the direct sale of games to underage customers. However, parents can still buy children higher age rated games, which means the system is still far from perfect. The ratings board in Europe is the PEGI (Pan-European Game Information) system. This game rating was created in 2003 and is now the single game rating system in Europe. The system is supported and used by game companies such as Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo.

Education is another Ethical choice within the games industry. Some games have a focus on learning and can also have a plot with a deep underlying moral or message that can teach children. However, gaming is generally considered to be a negative ethically towards education. Examples include people believing that if children are exposed to violent video games , they are being taught to be violent. Some violent games can have educational positives, such as the Assassins Creed series being set historically, and due to this, has in-game databases which describe the people and places of the time. The information contained within has been researched extensively and is in most cases accurate with the occasional inaccurate date or name.

Gaming has been criticized for playing up to stereotypes. One such of example of stereotyping is the lack of leading female protagonists. While there are exceptions to this such as Lara Croft and Samus Aran, they are few and far between. Women are often described as having one dimensional personality's in games. One example of this issue being brought up was in 2013 when Gamespot reviewed Grand Theft Auto 5. The reviewer Carolyn Petit stated that GTA V was 'Profoundly Misogynistic'. This was listed in the negative points section of the review breakdown, and was implied as the reason that GTA V was given a 9 instead of a 10. This was released to backlash from the gaming community. Petitions were put up to remove Petit from Gamespot and she was subjected to hate campaigns which focused on her personal and private life.