P5E

P5E-Legal/Ethical Issues

When making my video game I need to think of possible legal and ethical issues before my game is released on the market. One of the biggest legal factors I need to get right is the age rating of my game. The age rating of my game will be a 16 due to it having strong language in it and a decent amount of strong violence. The definition of a sixteen is applied once the violence in a game reaches the same as it looks within real life, there would also be an element of bad language as well since my game includes all this. Therefore, it makes sense to make sure it is at the right rating just to be safe. Another thing that will have to be done is that I will have to make sure that the trailer that I create doesn’t give false impressions about the game, so for example if the trailer has loads of different clips of the game in it and then I change the game and take those bits out of the game this could cause problems. This is because if someone buys the game based off what they saw in the trailer and then I do not update the trailer I have given that person a false impression and that means that I have made someone buy the game based off something that isn’t even in it, in other words I have mislead them.

Another legal factor that I need to keep in mind is Copyright, this could include things such as product advertising, certain areas of the game (if it is based off a real place), the script and the story as well as other things such as the music. For things like the script and story I will need to make sure that it isn’t identical to any others from past games otherwise it will lead to the creators of that game claiming that I have copied it without their permission. The same applies for things such as product advertising and music, unless someone asks me to put it in the game for them I will otherwise have to ask them permission before including it as for things such as music I will need to pay the artist for their work before I can include it in my game, this is also known as royalties. As for product advertising it would be the same concept, although usually it would be the other way round as the company would ask me and pay me to include their brand so that would be the least of my worries when it came to Copyright.

I have to also make sure people are not offended by the way the characters in my game are portrayed and represented. For example, if I have a character that is from a certain race, religion or gender then I cannot use stereotypes to describe the character as that would be offensive to that group of people and would give the wrong perception to everyone else about someone in that certain group. I have to be careful with how I have certain characters that I create, the women in my game can’t always be seen as the ones needing rescuing and need to offer something in my game to suggest otherwise. My game doesn’t just need to avoid stereotypes; it also needs to represent a wide range of different people. Britain where my game is based is full of all different cultures and beliefs and this needs to be shown in my game as it would be unfair to just have a group of white characters who are all Catholics or Christians. I need to include all groups such as Muslims, Hindus, Jews and so on. That way everyone will be receiving a fair representation.