Understanding Contractual, Legal and Ethical obligations in the games industry

Assignment : 

Understanding Contractual, Legal and Ethical obligations in the games industry

Date Started : 17/03/2016

Date Finished : 17/03/2016

Work by : Connor Farrugia

Assignment Summary

This assignment asks me to choose either a single or a series of games that have faced Contractual, Legal and / or Ethical obligations over its lifetime. I have chosen to do this assignment based on the game series 'Pokemon'. I have chosen this because it contains a wide variety of all the types of obligations previously stated.

Game Series Summary

Main Title at the top left and 4 of the Pokemon that can be found in-game.

Pokemon is a game series in which the player is given a creature known as a Pokemon and is tasked with collecting 8 gym badges by collecting and battling there Pokemon. The games can also include a side storyline, For instance the player may be tasked with saving the planet from some form of evil or problem. 

The structure of this game has been used over and over and there are now currently 15 Pokemon games.

List of Pokemon Games :

http://nintendo.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_Pok%C3%A9mon_games

Contractual

What is 'Contractual'

A contractual obligation is one in which something such as a Licence or a Court order is used or issued in accordance to an event or infringement, And the person that the order is against must comply with the Contractual obligation or face possible jailing or fines, So in short, A contractual obligation is the result of a legal obligation not being fulfilled or a misuse of intellectual property.

There are very few - If any - Contractual issues that have been faced against Pokemon as a franchise. It is a very original product. So, As to ensure you understand that i know about contractual issues and such, I'm going to talk about Contractual issues and such that Pokemon has claimed on others, Such as :

http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2015/10/the_pokemon_company_sues_fan_for_copyright_infringement_demands_usd4000_in_damages

The Pokemon company sued a fan for infringing on there copyright for $4000. The fan owns a small cafe and has been running a yearly 'Unofficial Pokemon PAX Kickoff party' And the Pokemon franchise sent him a cease and desist letter, Informing him that what he was doing was infringing on there copyright. He decided to keep doing it and is now being sued by the Pokemon company.

The man was given these charges because he was producing posters that he may or may not have sold to others that had licensed Pokemon deceptions on them, For example, If i was to monetize and try to market this blog post i could be liable for a lawsuit or copyright claims due to the deceptions of Pokemon i have in the images above and below!

Legal

What is 'Legal' Obligations?

A legal obligation is one in which Copyrighted contents and/or health and safety, Causes a unlawful use of a product. And thus possible payments, Jail time, Or product bans. May be used in order to make the company comply. For example, If a company is using a copyrighted product in there creation, Then they can be sued, And after the suing has been completed, A contractual obligation may be put in place. Such as a ban from using a certain deception or such as.

The Pokemon games have had very few public legal issues and thus i'm going to give only a single example for legal issues.

Gambling in Pokemon

There has been many changes in the games media and PEGI which have slowly made gambling not available for children within games. This has caused legal issues for Pokemon as they have had many references to gambling within the games. Such as the picture below :

Gambling Table

Pokemon faced having there games PEGI rating bumped up-to 18 instead of the usual 12-13 and thus they changed and removed all references to gambling within there games, For example. In 'Heart gold' And 'Soul Silver' The Gambling NPC was renamed 'Gamer'.

In the same games, All Slot machines where replaced for a mini-game known as 'Voltorb Flip'

Ethical

What is 'Ethical' Obligations

An ethical obligation is one that will not have any negative side effects forcefully put into the company or product, But the public eye may be negative towards them. For example, If a company discriminates against a religion or race within there product, They may be viewed negatively, And thus the company will have a ethical obligation to change what they have done.

Pokemon has been criticized many times for ethical concerns, From the design of there Pokemon to the core ideas of Pokemon itself. below are 3 examples of ethical concerns.

'Jynx' A racist depiction?

Jynx's Original design

Jynx is a Pokemon that was first criticized by a 'African American Cultural Critic' Known as 'Carol Boston Weatherford'. She claimed that Jynx was a negative stereotype because of its 'Black skin' 'Over-sized Facial Features' - Such as the mouth, A common racial stereotype. And the Pokemon Seeming reference to 'Drag Performers' 

Her Criticisms caused many changes in the Pokemon games and show. Jynx's sprite designs where redesigned to have a purple face instead of the black. And all episodes of the Pokemon show depicting jynx's original design was cut from airing.

Jynx's New Design

Pokemon are unfairly treated!

Over the lifetime of Pokemon's more recent games, Many Animal rights activists have criticized Pokemon for its possible links to animal cruelty, The most prevalent criticisms come from the group known as 'PETA'. 

They claimed that Pokemon battles resembled cockfighting :

PETA's mock game that pits the Pokemon in realistic situations that animals face. Or something.

On the release of the more recent Pokemon game 'Pokemon Black' and 'Pokemon White' PETA released a mock game known as 'Pokemon Black And Blue' In which the more note-able Pokemon in the franchise are pitted against one another much like in the game but face incredible injury and sustain horrible problems during the game. For example, Pikachu dies very early on.

The Creators of Pokemon have done very little to change there games contents and have only released this statement in reply to the mock game that PETA released :

"Nintendo and the Pokemon Company Take the inappropriate use of our products and intellectual property seriously."

Possible Religious Hatred?

A Jewish civil rights movement known as 'Anti-Defamation League' accused Nintendo of using a swastika in there design of the Pokemon card known as 'Kogas Ninja Trick' :

Possible Swastika in the yellow?

Nintendo stopped production on the card and issues this statement :

'The symbol was not intended to offend' as the symbol is actually the symbol for peace in many cultures and was flipped and used negatively by the Nazi party. Nintendo remade the card in the design below :

No more swastika!

PERSONAL POST - Gaming Music And Sounds

Personal Post

Not part of any assignment or coursework and thus not to be taken as such

Introduction

Are you a music-ly inclined person with a passion for gaming and instruments? You are? Well thats great. Check out my 'tube channel and see if you like it.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0y-uu5lhFscDpwbqY8qh0Q

If you don't like music or instruments, Check it out anyway.

Understanding the use of music within games and the methodology of recording and production.

Name : Connor farrugia

Assignment 1 - Understanding the use of music within games and the methodology of recording and production. 

Assignment summary :

The assignment asks me to 

comprehensively explain use of sound and music in games with elucidated examples and consistently using subject terminology correctly. 

comprehensively explain methods and principles of sound design and production with elucidated examples and consistently using subject terminology correctly.

Both of which are in context to the comparison and contrast of these two songs :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCxv2daOwjQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y97u-U0nvJM

Main work

For this task i am to listen to the prior mentioned songs and compare and contrast them in relation to the below topics :

Halo 2 Main Theme

Mood and opinions

The first song in the list (Halo 2 soundtrack main theme) makes me feel a sense of awesome or power building, The rise of the beat alongside the heavenly singing makes the track a very powerful and keeps me interested. Its a very good track for keeping fans hyped up, By this i mean, The track is so original and outstanding that any at game reveals and title releases, This track can have a audience excited in seconds. It perfectly explains the game in a single song, A long epic journey with a lot of drums and banging. This song is used on the main menu screen where a large scroll parallaxes over the setting and war-zone that the game is set in, The music plays loudly over the screen, Strengthening the scene and empowering the story to new players. Drawing them in immediately.

There are no used voices in this song, Understandably so as i feel that would ruin the feel of the song, The song is about powerful orchestral sounds and thus adding in spoken voice would ruin it. The use of the un-understandable singing voices are used but they are just simply used as orchestral music instead of singing.

The decibel level (I.E Intensity of sound) increases throughout to give possibly symbolize the story-line of a oncoming enemy.

Spikes in the waveform represent increases in volume and/or pitch.

I could hear some form of timbre within the peoples ranges of voices, Alongside the drumming that is later used as a higher pitched backing track, These effects could have been created in a multi-track studio as they are all running simultaneously and thus require some form of heavy editing.

There is no recognizable Foley used within the song, Though they could have quite easily tricked me as some tunes may have been but i cannot be certain.

The loudness of the song is in line with the feeling of the song, It gathers in loudness as the song progress's to make the listener increase in excitement.

The song uses a lot of symbolism as the song represents a mighty battle or a group of heroes and properly portrays the games main themes of battle and warfare.

I belive the entire purpose of this song is to be a powerful intro sequence for the game franchise and to become a recognizable song for fans to listen to.

The title stands boldly as the parallax happens and the music plays.

Experience the main menu for yourself :
http://halome.nu/h2

Copyright

Legally the creators of this song would have had to copyright the song to ensure that the protection of use is in effect and that they can rent the tune out to other companies or uses in videos as well as stopping somebody copyrighting the song and claiming benefits from the sale of the game as it uses the song. These kinds of claims happen on nearly all commercial use of music to ensure that the people who created the music are the ones who benefit from it.

As you can see above Microsoft owns the license for the song and the halo related assets. This means that they can sell the song and claim money on its use.

The money that is generated through the licensing of copyrighted assets are known as royalties, For instance, If a company used the Halo 2 theme tune, Then they would have to pay royalties on that for each use of the track. Microsoft doesn't lease out there assets so unfortunately halo 2 theme tune is not up for licensing.

Compression

Due to the limitations of halo being a Xbox only game, All of the game and assets have to be compressed to save the limited space they can use. This means that the song may have lost its original quality, The recording studio would have been able to record at a higher quality than the games simple MP3 file that it used. They may have used lossy compression or some more efficient engine compression to reduce the size of the assets and thus in turn decreased the quality of the music.

The xbox system, (The only one the halo games are released on) Only accept WMA's at 128kbps bit-rate, This means that all compression's of the music will have to be compressed to fit that file type and bitrate and thus if they are of higher quality bit-rate will have less quality due to the lower allowance.

The xbox's limitations are in place due to the low RAM that the Xbox runs on, Having too many songs or assets running at a certain time can slow the Xbox considerably, Thus, Music will be compressed and formatted to fit within a safe guideline for the Xbox's hardware.

Inside the Xbox, This is very 'dated' hardware.

The Xbox does however have the ability to play the sound out in either mono, Stereo or surround. This is because certain outputs that are connected I.E surround sound system or a headset will change the settings to fit. This can be good as this will ensure the quality of music is at its peak output at all times.

A usual surround sound setup.

The Last Of Us Theme Tune

The second song i have been tasked with listening to is the 'Last of us' Theme tune, This song is fairly different than halo as it represents a game about death and diseases, The song shows as much as it gives of the sense of sadness and loneliness, The song draws in such the same as the halo song but instead of bringing the song to a more powerful and upbeat tune it keeps the song more down and low mood as to represent the games main themes of plaque and death.

The main character killing a known friend due to their transformation.

The frequency's, Hertz and decibel levels all change in comparison to the halo song as they increase and decrease throughout to make areas of the song more dramatic, For example, The below link will send you to a point in the song where you can see that the decibel levels are low and calm, The second link will have a more loader and dramatic part.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssLAf5akbfU
- Part in the song where the music is calm.

https://youtu.be/Y97u-U0nvJM?t=1m40s
- Song increases in decibles.

This song does not appear to include any form of timbre, I can tell this because i am aware the creator of the song used a lot of real life recordings ( Foley ) and is unlikely to use timbre.

The music gives a very 'Spaghetti western' theme, This can be related to the game where a lot of the game is on horseback, a classically western stereotype.

A main character on the main horse 'callus'.

The creator of this music clearly wants the user to image and create themselves an ambiance of before technology, This draws into the game where the plague has devoured modern mankind and people are left in a dystopian universe, a land without modern technology's. 

Gustavo Santaolalla, Creator of the music!

Foley artistry is also used to help push this narrative, The creator of this music, (Gustavo santaolalla) recorded most of the sounds and music within his home, This creates a more man made and more old-timely feeling song.

Compression

This music is likely to be uncompressed, This is because the platform on which this game was released (PS4) Uses blu-ray cds as its games, This also developers to leave things uncompressed and thus higher quality while still having a lot of room to spare.

The PS4 has little to no limitations when it comes to specifically made games, For instance, Unlike the original xbox, the PS4 is unlikely to feel stressed under the weight of the game it is running, And thus allowing developers to push their game to the limit, Keeping sound quality high among other things.

An average blu-ray disk can hold up-to 50 GB. This kind of space allows bit-depth / Rate to stay high and the resolution of the song to stay high too.

An unplastered Blu-ray disk.

Film notes

Name :  Connor farrugia

Film notes on : 

 Survivor

Main character :

Kate abbot

'The watchmaker' (Assassin)

Other characters :

Bill

Motivations :

The main character is trying to save the country as she is sure this man is a danger, She is then chased by a assassin which is certainly proof he is.

The bad guys are terrorists and thus don't actually have a plan revealed to the audience, We just have to believe they are motivated because they are terrorists.

The main terrorist is not doing this as a political reason such as usual terrorism, He is going to play the stock exchange by betting in reverse to make over 100 billion dollars after the stocks are re-opened in the exchange. This comes as a shock to some viewers as it isn't a political movement as expected and for a short time the watcher is under the impression that the watchmaker will not do the bombings, But after agreeing on receiving on half the billions he is surely off on the flight immediately.

Plot twist/s? If any :

They have an inside man in the agency which is trying to cover up the operation and ensure the terrorists win. This man is incidentally the master assassin and blows up a restaurant full of the security team members.

The main terrorist is not doing this as a political reason such as usual terrorism, He is going to play the stock exchange by betting in reverse to make over 100 billion dollars after the stocks are re-opened in the exchange. This comes as a shock to some viewers as it isn't a political movement as expected and for a short time the watcher is under the impression that the watchmaker will not do the bombings, But after agreeing on receiving on half the billions he is surely off on the flight immediately.

All of the attacks are not bombs and instead gas balls, They are filled with coolant and the gas and when shot they explode. This explosion can be extremely large and the one to be used in New York is said to be 4 times more powerful than the one in England. As always the hero 'Kate abbot' saves the day by pushing the watchmaker over a building before he shoots and explodes the bomb.

Sam wasn't dead at the end, We are left to assume kate is let off the hook for saving so many people and having sam to vouch for her but this isn't fully explained.

The watchmaker kills the man who created the bomb being informed about the blast radius of the bomb.

Story-line :

Start:

Warzone and fighting. Helicopter crash,  2 survivors, Captured soldier / English fellow 2 of em', 1 man is regarded as nobody and killed. Second person is kept alive as he has worth.

Middle:

'Kate abbot' is a security expert and is required to screen and check people entering their country when a man comes in who seems suspicious She investigates him and she is told off for going to far. It turns out that that man is really a 'bad guy' and she is hunted down by a assassin to stop her investigating further by the supposed baddies. She has to evade capture and work out the terrorist plot in time. The terrorist plot is to bomb areas and make them seem to be gas bombings, A attack on a residence goes fine and unnoticed as a terrorist attack and as the terrorist goes to move to JFK airport in america for a second bombing he is killed later on by Kate abbot.

End:

The watchmaker is pushed off the edge by Kate abbot and the plot is stopped, a team of american police then travel to the top of the roof and ask Kate to freeze, Making the viewer momentarily belive she will be once again framed, But in the end Sam is still alive and the viewer is able to piece together that she will be let off, Kate is informed she has saved over a million people and smiles as she looks over the edge of the building,

Film storyline : Survivor

Name : Connor farrugia

Film Story-line : Survivor

For this story-line review i shall be splitting the review into three parts! I will first talk about the beginning of the story, The middle and then the end. I shall talk about any plot holes i find within the story too.

Beginning

The opening scenes start with a helicopter ride over the top of a unspecified war-zone, The helicopter appears to be some form of medic vehicle as a soldier on the ground asks for assistance. The helicopter appears to be low on fuel and the pilots speak about leaving the area and then returning, During this time some form of missile or RPG round hits the side of the helicopter, Bringing it down to a crash and the passengers are then taken by terrorists. 

We then watch them be evaluated and then one of them burned alive. This scene is then cut and we are brought to London to meet our main character, A women known as 'Kate Abbott' is starting her first day as a security expert for a British border.

She is tasked with ensuring that any 'gas and/or chemical specialists' are stopped at the border and questioned about a un-shown attack that pertains to a gas explosion, Due to her investigations she comes across a man who is linked to gas/chemical materials and whose travelling motives don't match up.

Middle

The man who is stopped at the border turns out to be a man who intends to use gas bombs to first blow up a apartment building and then kill millions of people in a 9/11 like gas bomb that activates on the final count of new years. 

When Kate goes to investigate this man she is ushered away by her supervisor 'bill'. He informs her of the unlikeliness of this man being a threat and he is let through, Kate continues her research into this man throughout nights later and is found out when she questions too far, Her supervisors become suspicious of her actions and threaten her with being fired if she continues this. 

The man she tried to stop speaks to the second enemy of this film, He appears to be the smart businessman front to this supposedly 'Terrorist' operation. He is informed by our gas expert that Kate will be a problem as she is onto him and may find out about their operation, The businessman then recruits the world famous 'Watchmaker' a expert hit-man to kill Kate Abbott so their plan is completed without issue.

Kate albott in the meanwhile is going to a restaurant to eat with her associates and steps out to get a present for a fellow employee of hers, During this time the watchmaker appears and walks towards the side of the building and then presses a button on his phone, Exploding the restaurant killing all the people inside and injuring Kate who was opposite.

The watchman realizes Kate is alive and then chases her through a building and down some alleyways towards the road. When he loses her he informs his associate he lost her.

After a lot running around, She comes across bill, Who tries to kill her but is then shot by Kate. This is recorded and Kate is framed to look as-if bill had been shot by her and purposely killed, Alongside the fact she ran form the bombing she becomes a prime suspect for the searching of the culprit of the bombings.

Kate runs around for most of this movie and i shan't talk much more about that as all she does is make her way to bills home in the end, She follows a trail of clues to get their while avoiding the police.

During her small adventure the bad-guys of the film blow the apartment building using a large sphere filled with explosive gas, This may have been a test but nether the less they blow up the building. The bad guys talk about the power of the next explosive and how it shall be 4 times larger in new york city and then they go off to new York to complete that attack.

Before travelling to new York the watchmaker realizes that the man he has been working for is not a terrorist per say - He isn't doing this for any political agenda he is doing this because the stocks will boost straight after the attacks and he will be able to make a lot of money by doing these attacks, The watchmaker refuses to go and complete the new York bombing unless he receives half the payment, Equaling 50 Billion. Once this deal is accepted he fly's out to new York.

Kate by this point has followed the trail and is also heading to new York to stop them, She takes the flight and luckily escapes the police by using a 'Gypsy' taxi that doesn't follow the law and thus wont report her for the crimes she is said to have committed.

When she arrives at the site for the bombing (New york city centre) she realizes by a TV channel that the bombing is going be done inside the large ball that sits atop the countdown and will rain fire down onto the people below. When the gas expert is seen by Kate she proceeds to follow him to a building, Killing a attacker in the process.

Kate sees the gas expert go into a building alongside the watchmaker, She follows them in and asks a hotel guard which floor they went, The criminals setup the gun and leave to the roof to shoot the bomb when Kate arrives into the room, When she realizes the room is empty she rushes to the roof.

End

Before kate arrives on the roof we are shown some pre-chatter between the watchman and the gas expert where the watchman asks for the size of the blast radius, Once informed he kills the gas expert and then proceeds to setup his shot.

Kate arrives on the roof and shoots the watchmaker, A fight takes place results in alot of slamming and pushing around before the watchmaker is pushed of the side of the building, Clinging for dear life, Kate waits for the final second of the new years countdown and then says 'Times up' before slamming on his hand and letting him fall. This final action concludes the film storyline but just after we are revealed that sam is alive, (Sam helped her get to the roof by helping her in bills house searching for clues). Sam stands to point the viewer to the possibility that kate will get off okay and he informs her of how she has saved millions of people. Wrapping up our film.

Concept art - What is it?

By: Connor farrugia

Concept art - What is it?

Concept art is a design or art piece/s created by a company or designer that wishes to portray or put into images ideas for a game, Concept art can be characters, Machines, Worlds, Any part of the game can be concept art.

Concept art is occasionally different from the final product in-game as the concept art is a only a design and is subject to change during creation if the creator wishes a different look or function.

Below i have listed a game, A concept art picture and explained what that portrays and the final product in-game.

Game: Dungeon defenders 2

This game is a simple tower defense game in a cel shaded art style.

Concept piece

This is the forge that appears at the start of each level and closes during the combat phase.

Final product

As we can see there where a few small changes but all in all it is similar. The concept art does not always accurately represent the final product, Designers regularly change their mind later on during the creation process.

Game: World of warcraft

World of warcraft is a widely popular/infamous MMO game, 3D Half cel-shaded Half exaggerated.

Concept piece

As we can see here, Blizzard (Creators of WoW) uses a very detailed concept art designer. This is a area in the game-world.

Final product

As we can see they went for a more simplistic design. Not very similar at all. Another example of a changed mind.

Game: Diablo 3

Diablo 3 is a top down dungeon crawler. Also made by blizzard.

Concept piece

This is a character with each Armour piece designed seperatly and all together to show how each piece will look, They also have small animations for the feet designed to show movement.

Final product

Here are the 4 Creations that the character came to be.

Game: Starcraft 2

Starcraft 2 is a Strategy game, 3D top down view.

Concept piece

This is a design for some kind of malformed soldier.

Final product

They are extremely similar Almost identical just made a different way.

P3 Be able to create digital graphics for a computer game following industry practice

Name : Connor farrugia

P3 Be able to create digital graphics for a computer game following industry practice

What will you need to consider before creating my digital graphics:

File extensions

File extensions are the handler that the operating system uses to read the information, Diffrent file extensions affect the actual information, For example JPG is a smaller file size but at a lower quality whereas TIFF has a higher size but a higher quality. When saving files i will need to consider this and ensure my file sizes are kept accurate and smart.

Resolutions

Resolutions are the number of pixels in a width and height ratio (1080x360). The more pixels that are displayed the less visable the pixels become and thus the quality appears improved. This will have to be considered to ensure the game is of high quality.

Artistic styles

Artistic styles are the form in which all the art and sprite is created and thus the style. The style has to be considered so objects and things don't look out of place within the game.

Compression

Compression is ensuring the overall file size for the entire game and all its assets are kept small and saved in a small file to ensure that the size is compressed and appropriate.

Bit rate

Target platform

Ensuring that all file sizes and picture sizes fit the target device, For example a small image for a phone. and a large image for a operating system.

Plan

Asset management. Storing files and retrieving files. Naming them and workflow.

Time management

Deadlines how long to do diffrent things

Software interface

What im using on what.

Assest management.

File format compression names and backing up. Export file path.

Workflow

Referance images, Optimising, Bit depth

Menus

Open saving new import export edit.

Image settings

Size resoloution width height colour mode background,

Drawing tools

Tool options brush pencil smudge line square circle triangle freeform single pixel opacity.