Skip to main content

Regulatory, Legal & Ethical issues in Games, Animation and VFX


Regulatory, Legal & Ethical Issues in Gaming


Regulatory

Ever since the beginning of video games, there has had to be restrictions on who can play what. These are now known as age restrictions. In the majority, these are well used and fair. However, there are problems. There are different policies all around the world depending on which country you live in, and difference policies for all states in the USA (The ESA).

Legal

Ratings of Games

PEGI 3+ games won’t have a violence descriptor but may contain “Tom and Jerry” slapstick violence if it is not considered disturbing.
PEGI 7+ games flagged with a violence descriptor may include “non-realistic violence towards fantasy characters” or “implied violence”.
PEGI 12+ will have the Violence descriptor to signpost “violence towards human like characters” but this must be non-realistic so that bodies don’t remain when killed. This may also include violent sports like boxing providing there is no blood.
PEGI 16+ games are flagged for “violence towards human characters” who react to being shot as they would in real life. This will often include blood and bodies will remain once they are dead.
PEGI 18+ games are flagged for including violence towards humans that may make you “wince” or your “stomach churn”. This includes gross depictions of heads, arms, and legs being removed by way of chain-saw or shotgun. It also includes sexual violence such as rape and mass killings of civilians.


Developers of games are definitely affected by legal issues. Lawsuits could set-back, or even bankrupt studios for as small as saying one wrong word.
Ethical


The main areas that ethical debates revolve around are:
Violence (Graphic, physical, sexual, non-physical)
Rating (how regulation is applied?)
Education(do games educate? Should they be relied upon?)
Stereotyping(Age,race,gender,disability,class)
Addiction(how do gamers become addicted? What does the industry do to help this?)


It becomes the responsibility of both the industry and the consumer to be aware of the issues in gaming and act accordingly.
Legal & Ethical Issues in Animation
Legal
Copyright and Ownership


Globally, copyright laws deal with a very basic yet important issue – who owns the idea, characters, shapes, objects, graphics.
Trademarks and Branding


Trademarks and branding are synonymous terms, as both refer to giving your business a unique name and ethos that stands you apart from your competitors in hte industry that your business belongs to.
Defamation and Causing Disrepute


When the reputation of an individual or an organisation is damaged – so much so that livelihoods are lost – then defamation has occurred.
Ethical
Intellectual property
Nondisclosure
Image content
Business ethics
Trust
Privacy
Truth
Data Protection


Privacy is a big thing in animation. For the members of staff involved in the film, and the high ranking businesses. Somebody has the role of keeping their personal lives safe and not to broadcast any of this information.

Regulatory Issues in Visual Effects
Regulatory
Unpaid overtime
Miscalssification of employees
Illegal usage of billing purposes
Non-existent transferable healthcare benefits and savings plans
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sculpting a Character in Mudbox

So today I have been using Mudbox to sculpt a character. The character itself is a turtle with its shell on. So to start off I decided to work on his skin first and within this I was using two main tools the first being the imprint tool and the second being the smooth tool. I started off with a stamp that comes with Mudbox and I would just stamp the area I needed to give it a bumpy area on the skin. I would then smooth off the more harsh areas so it doesn't have any major jagged lines on it. After doing this for a while I started to notice that it was giving off quite a stone texture to the skin which I started to like after a while. However when it came to the feet I changed it up a little as I smoothed the toes a lot more than the other parts of the body which makes them stand out more and when it comes to texturing this guy I can add more detail to it by changing some of the colours around. Next I started on sculpting on the shell which I made look very unique as I made some v...
Post a Comment
Read more

New Model/Concept Art [Loki's Helmet]

So this is my next planned model once I get both Doomhammer and Mjólnir finished and textured. So this piece being from the Marvel Cinematic Universe I need to get it to look very nice proportion wise. The helmet itself I think is going to be very tricky due to the amount of overlapping layers and as well as some unusual features. Those being the horns on the helmet which I think the only hard part for those is when they will curl back in towards the helmet. In this version of the helmet I will be adding a little something from the comics and that being a blue gem that in the comes he always had in his crown. I drew both a front facing and a side view for a all round basic look at the helmet in which it will help me make it easier to get the shape done correctly. I would be doing the back of the helmet however with it being very plain just from the side and the front view will suffice for what I need to get this helmet modeled correctly. After all of the modeling I will need to...
Post a Comment
Read more

The 12 Principles of Animation

1: Squash and Stretch - this is how rigid or soft and object is. So an object will never just take one size so if you drop a ball from a height when it hits the floor it get squashed down and stretch out the sides of it. 2: Anticipation - An action that tells the viewer what will be happening next. So if someone is shooting a gun the anticipation of the person squeezing the trigger of the gun tells you that they are going to shoot it before the animation is even there. 3: Staging - Presenting your idea so it makes sense. This could be just how the area around the objects so in the film Monster House every house has either a picket fence or a wall however the monster house itself has no wall or fence which gives it a sort of feeling of dread and then house looking all dark. 4: Straight Ahead and Pose to Pose animating - Straight ahead animation is the process of animating each frame in order. Then you have pose to pose which is where you draw three key frames then go back to draw...
Post a Comment
Read more