Task 6

Task 6
Contractual, Legal, Ethical and Professional
Explain and illustrate the contractual, legal, ethical obligations and professional bodies within the games industry.

Contractual issues

Employment contract
These contracts display the terms of the individuals employment. It contains things such as what the company expects you to do and what the company will do for you, such as wages, job roles and working hours. Game industry employment contracts are the same as normal contracts but are more likely to include benefits and confidentiality.

Development agreements
These agreements are split into 3 main parts and details the terms of development to the hired games developers. The 3 sections are Terms, ownership and warranties
Terms - This sections details the wages, timeframe and if there are any royalty rates.
Ownership - This section states who owns the IP. The publisher or the developer are the two options
Warranties - The developing company has to agree to not use any other companies or persons source code  and the publishing company is told it has the rights to ask the developers to create the game desired.

Licencse agreement
For example, if a movie company wanted to make a movie of the game Fallout 3, they would have to establish a contract to be signed by the company and Bethesda, who own Fallout 3, to agree on the terms of the license. In this case, the contract would state which parts of Fallout 3 the movie company wants to use and would also state the movie company only has the rights to create a movie, nothing else such as a new Fallout game. The contract also states which part of the world the movie will be made in and the terms such as the time limit for the agreement. Most usually last for no longer than 5 years.

NDA and confidentiality agreements
Non-Disclosure Agreements are where companies want to do business with a second party, but have to disclose a secret such as technology used or how they intend to make it. These secrets must be presented to he their party and to complete the NDA, the second party will have to agree to keep all the information secret or else the first party will have to take the second to a court of law in order to resolve the issue as the second party could begin to ell other parties the first companies secrets.

Collaboration Agreements
There are a lot of indie games being created today, or hobby games, that need a very important agreement to resolve or prevent any ownership problems. Most of these indie gaes fail and never generate any money and this is mainly due to ownership issues. It's all down to who owns what. There are also problems generated of who does what and who actually is going to earn something. Collaboration agreements contain the terms on how these indie games are managed, so everyone knows what they are doing, what they own and whether they will get anything from it. Some of the other terms in the agreements are:
- Who owns the IP
- How the game is supposed to be used
- Management of income
- Timeline of agreement
- How the project will end if necessary

Legal issues

Copyright
Copyright is used to protect any kind of artistic creation or anything created through labour to protect it from being stolen and used by somebody else. An example of something within the games industry being coprighted is concept art. This is because somebody could easily see your work, draw your characters and scenes for themselves and call it their own before the original author does. Copyright is an automatic right, therefore there are no forms to fill or fees as once the product or work has completed and been created it is automatically yours, but a record of your work needs to be created to prove it is your own work and stop it from the kind of theft mentioned above.

Trademark
Trademarks can usually be found on logos, videos or sounds. These usually contain a "™" Which stands for trademark) to distinguish goods or services of a particular sources from others. Trademarks are registered for goods and services to state that this product is the original, so nobody can copy the name and service of another company. An example within the games industry would be the Fallout 3 logo. There is a small R within a cirlce next to the 't'. This R also represents trademark and identifies the product as a genuine original.

Patent
A patent is mainly used by inventors and it is done so to state that the creator has the rights to the product and nobody else is allowed to build their invention and sell it. If an intvention is patented, just like any property or business, it can be sold or bought depending on whether the inventor wants to do with it. Patents however are not accepted worldwide, meaning if somebody was to patent something in the UK, other countries in America or Germany for example would not be affected. Patents would stop the invention from being created in the country of origin and stop any others from being imported 

Registered designs
These are literally how the finished product looks and are applied for the the Intellectual Property office. Once registered, the British 'Design right' is immedietly applied which gives the product protection for 15 years, so the design cannot be copied by other games companies and used on their products. An example of registered designs would be the design of the Xbox 360

Gaming ethics
Violence
The vast majority of video games established today contain many various forms of violence. It is well known that first person shooters are very popular in this era and they usually contain people or creatures being killed. Since many people are exposed to this kind of death everyday, it can be assumed that playing violent video games can cause one to become more violent themselves in reality, so many ethical problems persist with violence as a theme in video games.

Ratings
It is the law in this era that games MUST be rated before being available for purchase. This is mainly due to the violence in games and whether it is acceptable for children to use the game. They are usually rated 3+ if the game is acceptable for children and contains little to none violent aspects. 12+ if it contains a few small bits of violence, 15+ if it contains quite a bit and 18+ if it contains a lot. These are to prevent children from playing them, so if a game is rated 12+ and a 6 year old wants to play, they cannot. However, many underage people today still play these highly rated games as they can be bought through parents for example or other ways. The group PEGI (Pan-European Game Information age rating system) was established in 2003 and has ratings on every game. It is widely supported and is very reliable to parents, so they won't buy a really violent game for their children.

Education
Games today contain a lot of information, some of which can be educational and some games are even designed specifically for educational purposes. These games can be used to teach children maths  for example, however violent games - if taken too far - can teach people how to use weapons for example which is very negative.

Stereotypes
The games industry usually focuses more towards men as men have been found to play games more often than women, but some people take this as stereotyping against women. Some games also contain stereotypical aspects. An example would be Grand Theft Auto 5 and this game has been known to portray women quite badly

Addiction
People have been known to spend a lot of time on video games in this era, and some people can become addicted to it. Once addicted, the individual can miss out on activities within their community so they would miss out on valuable experiences.

Professional bodies

UKIE
The association for UK interactive entertainment bring a positive image towards and great interest to games and interactive entertainment industry who build up their membership. It is the only trade body for the UK's interactive entertainment industry. It aims to ensure members within the games industry have the right economic, social and political environments for them to thrive and cause great growth within the industry.
Their website: http://www.ukie.info

IGDA
The International game developers association aids any kind of game developers and is the largest non-profit organisation that does this. Their main mission is to "Advance the careers and enhance the lives of game developers". Their 4 aims are to:
- Make changes within the industry and speak out on any issues
- Connect members with their peers
- Promote constant improvement
- Expand the global community of game developers 
Their website: http://www.igda.org/

WIGJ
Women in Games Jobs is also a non-profit organisation that attempts to get women more involved with the games industry as there are not a lot of women involved at all compared to the amount of men. It also tries to make the games industry more appealing and attractive to women to increase the size of the industry and get an equal mix of males and females involved and remove barriers to these games developement jobs for women.
Their website: http://www.womeningamesjobs.com/

BAFTA
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts supports and promotes any kind of entertainment media such as videogames, TV or films, by rewarding those who create them with special trophies to recognise achievement. They are the "leading charity in the UK supporting the art forms of moving image". These kind of ceremonies where various creators are awarded happens annually and is televised around the world. It is also extremely well known. They mainly believe that the developers behind art or entertainment media don't get a lot of recognition, so publically award all those developers who usually don't get known for all their hard work.
Their website can be found here: http://www.bafta.org/

MEF
Mobile Entertainment Forum is a global trade association for mobile phone orientated games developers and its head quarters and set in London. It aims to aid the games industry through mobile gaming and helps many mobile phone developers. It also provides reviews for various softwares for mobile phones. They are a reliable source and provide detailed reviews for hundreds of products to help people decide whether the product is worth downloading or buying.
MEF website: http://mobileentertainmentforum.org/