In the Gaming Industry, developers and producers face many
problems when designing a game and how it can affect the target audience. They
have to consider ethical, legal and regulatory issues in order for their
product to survive in the gaming world.
Ethics and Morales
Ethics and morals play a big part when thinking about
games because being careless about this situation could cause harm towards
certain ethnic groups, causing danger for the gaming company in general leading
to various lawsuits that can easily be avoided. However some games have been
known to be ethically ‘dodgy’ in how they are creating/displaying the game.
For example in Resident Evil 5 the first trailer shown game
footage of an American protagonist killing off African zombies which doesn’t
seem that bad until you realise there’s no white African zombies at all,
raising racist allegations from people across the globe who point out it’s not
right that it’s just this colour that’s diseased by the virus and getting
killed by a big muscle white American.
-Quoted N’Gai Coral from Newsweek Editor
Eventually Capcom
released another trailer showing a less racist side and also the protagonist’s
assistant, Sheva. However this did not put the controversy to rest as more
people found the game hadn’t been altered much still showing the hero killing
just black zombies. Capcom argued back that the gaming team is diverse and that
they can’t make everyone happy and they’re in the entertainment business - not
to promote something political to the public. A lot of people agreed with
statement saying it’s not racist and is in fact a good game.
Yet in a cut
scene it’s shown a white woman being dragged by a black man who’s infected into
his house, Eurogamer criticized it wasn’t ethically right because of black men
being stereo typed as ‘rapists who come after girls’ during the time when
America was going through Civil Rights. Japan isn’t educated much in this topic
as they see nothing wrong with game nor thought about any ‘racist issues’
during the development which is, from their point of view understandable
because they had nothing to do with the Civil Rights yet it doesn’t give them a
clean slate either because they should researched any problems before
development began so this controversy didn’t arise.
In my personal
opinion after having watched two trailers and various game play that’s been
recorded on Youtube I feel as though there is not an issue. Roles reversed if
Chris Redfield was a different ‘coloured guy’ and he shot white zombies, only,
there may be wouldn’t be as much as a big issue. On the other hand I’m not
disputing that people who feel it is racist is wrong because it’s all personal
opinions at the end of the day, those who see it’s not racist may not look or
feel as though it is compared to those who feel it is.
Another ethically
dodgy game is the newest Tomb Raider that will be released next year. It
focuses on Lara Croft’s past events and how she’s developed to the person she
is now. Having watched the trailer it shows Lara to be dependent on someone
else coming to rescue her because clips show her nearly getting raped and
having a slight mental breakdown, which antagonizes with her initial concept of
being an independable and indestructible
(in a way) female heroine, that many female gamers empathize with and in some
ways wish to be. Having seen these clips it makes some people feel as though
Lara needs to depend on a man which is what the director said he wanted to do,
so it can entice more male gamers to in a way to ‘protect’ Lara from danger yet
annoying female gamers because to them it feels as though people are trying to
say women couldn’t last or survive on their own, without something bad
happening to them in past like rape or without a husband/ male protector.
Therefore other females who think this way will no doubt not buy the game
meaning that the Tomb Raider’s sale of the new game will not surpass older Tomb
Raiders, thus turning the female target audience against future franchise.
“There's
been a lot of negative reaction - people have been saying that she doesn't need
be the survivor of an attempted rape, that using a male threat to make a female
character There's been a lot of negative reaction - people have been saying
that she doesn't need be the survivor of an attempted rape, that using a male
threat to make a female character seem 'vulnerable' is highly sexist and that
it's an exploitative tactic and what not.”
Quoted from ‘Macabre Magpie’s’ forum
on Deadlock Truth
In conclusion I agree with what many other girl gamers
believe and see from Tomb Raider: Reboot trailer and feel it is sexist, and
that its depicts women as a weaker species compared to the male rival. I think
Square Einx, like Capcom, should alter the trailer and take out the possible
rape scene during the capture of Lara Croft. If they do this I would feel
happier about buying the game and playing instead of having a grudge against
the producers for they think is acceptable.
In a lot of games of games nowadays you’ll see various
advertisements being displayed, that the public don’t really give much thought
about them. My opinion to this at first was they use advertisements to make
games that revolve around cities or include a city, like Bioshock and Judge
Dredd, more realistic to public’s eye- not to actually advertise their services
to the world. Also even though it’s not legal, loads of young children play
over-aged games like Call Of Duty, Borderlands and again Bioshock where
sometimes in games like these you’ll see an advertisement for the military.
This can actually plant a seed these young children’s minds because they
haven’t been exposed to what war is all about, to them because they play first
shooter games ect, they themselves think it’s a game and don’t look at the
bigger picture that going to war is all about being blinded by your country’s
conscience, and having to fight the battle between life and death ultimately
becoming survival of the fittest regardless of your comrades or even your
family members- emotionally scarring you for life. I don’t think these kinds of
advertisements should be in any games because of this reason. Stopping under
age children from playing these kinds of games at home is impossible and not
something that can be easily done but refusing money from local business when
designing a game can, even though it could mean a lot of money is lost in the
industry- yet it would mean not a lot of people will be the delusional thought
battlefields are playgrounds in a sense.
Advertisements are literally plastered everywhere in
technology these days sending a lot of people into an ‘outrage’ because we
can’t go somewhere technological without being swamped in advertisements. Take
Youtube for example if you’re not a heavy gamer. Before you could just watch
any video in peace without your computer freezing or crashing and full
concentration would be on the clip- but no! Now we have to suffer like we do
when watching the tv, viewing advertisements that are taking away at least 30
seconds of our precious time and life to try and sell people more goods, when
all we want to do is watch that wonderful video clip- dream on! Also I have
noticed since the advertisements plagued Youtube and other movie like
Animecrazy, Animeoan, BBC I Player, a lot of the time the hardware does slowly
down adding to fuel of making people go berserk. Now on online gaming they’re
injecting more and more advertisements into these things sending gamers into
frenzy. It’s not ethically right to be continuously pestered by companies we
don’t like or don’t want to buy from
because their sales have gone down, don’t get a lot of recognition or
like the ‘Go Compare!’ person wants to annoy you with their horrible music and
rhymes.
It isn’t fair that our gaming experience is going to be
ruined furthermore by advertisements.
The patent, filed July
and granted November of last year, goes into more detail about how this would
affect the user experience. The filing suggests that gamers could be warned of
an impending advertisement by a warning message, or by slowing down gameplay.
The filing also suggests that game content could effectively be rewound at or
prior to the end of the ad, presumably in an attempt to ready up the player in
case the gameplay broke off at a critical point.
Online multiplayer
games are specifically mentioned, confirming that Sony is at least considering
the approach to both online and offline games. During online games, the patent
has clauses for the display of the same advertisement to all users
simultaneously, and different adverts for one or more players.
Taken from James
Holloway, ‘Sony patent could see games interrupted by compulsory ads article’
The responses to this advert were:
This is the worst idea
I have heard of lately, as a gamer if this were to take off I would boycott the
game!
Is there no sanctuary
left where we are free from blatant advertising?
Advertise somewhere
else, do not interrupt any games!!
M
Quoted from-Michael
Simpson
Sexuality is another big conflict in games because designers
don’t appropriately display the sexually diverse characters correctly through
image, or their role in the actual game isn’t ethically correct to begin with
or they just don’t have a proper depth meaning they don’t flesh out in the game
like they should. Developers don’t necessarily think about these things and go
with the stereotypical white, powerful American/Asian guy that’s a Mary Sue
with possible fetish for maybe ‘cuddly cat’.
In Persona 4 the antagonist who’s gay actually has a better
back story then most other homosexuals in other games. It talks about his
struggles as teenager on whether he’s hetro or homo and to some it can be
difficult to realise what you are personally, eventually making you sympathise
with that character. This is because of public’s stereotyping with males being
gay are actually weak minded or suffered from something horrific in that past
to make them that way, this isn’t the case. The character in Persona is rebel,
one who proves and fights or his freedom listening only to himself when in
reality he’s actually scared of what other people think about his orientation-
which is true in real life for both male and female. In order for him to become
stronger person he overcomes this fear of showing that he’s gay to public and
gives off the vibe that he doesn’t care what they think, thus making him
mentally stronger and again it happens in real life.
Another from the same game actually wants a sex change from
a female to a male because she believes that her world is male dominated so to
speak. Sometimes in certain hobbies or things I’ve done I have felt it’s overly
dominated by males because a lot of the females tend to go for other things
making out your weird female and suppose it happens to males as well. Even
though the girl doesn’t change gender it gives another thought to public about
how we treat people like this and how it fits into ourselves and how we feel
about the sexually diverse issues.
A lot of games from 7+ revolve around the protagonist taking
part in violent scenarios which many parents feel this has an impact on their children
and other people. Yet developers have set our punishments if the gamer were to
commit too much violence, like killing people that are innocent or just killing
to many living creatures. In Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time if you kill too
many chickend or pick on one for example, all the chickens in Hyrule no doubt
appear out of nowhere and come to kill you.
Assasin’s Creed makes you start
from the beginning of the mission if you kill innocent citizens or too many of
them and in other games like Grand Theft Auto and Simpsons Hit & Run, the
legal forces will be on your tail to hunt you down until you pay or up or the
game ends. I think it’s a good idea for making sure there’s a consequence if
one was too kill just for sake of bloodlust on a game. It gives the parents a
peace of mind and media will stay of the gaming companies backs for longer
instead of trying to sell out a story that’s full of rubbish.
When buying a new game that’s finally been released after so
long and you quickly run home in order to play it, you don’t really want to
find out the game you’ve just spent all your money on has disk-locked content
that will only be released if you go to a certain place, spend more money or
just won’t be released at all. It’s really annoying and not ethically right. As
the public you pay for your franchise then all of sudden you can’t have part of
it- even though you’ve paid for it? This would then lead to piracy in the
gaming industry that does burn holes in their sales. In order to gain a little
more money is to stop this disk locked content nonsense allowing more people to
enjoy the whole game- hopefully decreasing piracy.
Bibliography
(Accessed 03/10/12 at 20:17 for racist quote on Resident Evil 5)
(Accessed 03/10/12 at 20:34 for information on the controversy of Resident Evil 5)
(Accessed 03/10/12 at 21:29 for sexist quote on Tomb Raider: Reboot)
(Accessed on 08/10/12 at 11:16 for Resident Evil Image)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpIWhAAiNRc&feature=related
(Accessed on 08/10/12 at 11:24 for Resident Evil 5 Extended Trailer)
http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?
um=1&hl=en&biw=1920&bih=957&tbm=isch&tbnid=M5NI17poJ1LnfM:&imgrefurl=http://snarkerati.com/gaming-news/tomb-raider-sequels-already-on-way/&docid=yIcPZo8iiMfBBM&imgurl=http://snarkerati.com/gaming-news/files/2012/07/lara-croft-new-tomb-raider.jpg&w=550&h=300&ei=rqdyUJ7YD8KL0AXz7ICIBw&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=670&vpy=479&dur=602&hovh=166&hovw=304&tx=91&ty=92&sig=101385217601668269356&page=1&tbnh=103&tbnw=188&start=0&ndsp=45&ved=1t:429,r:21,s:0,i:138
(Accessed on 08/10/12 at 11:18 for Tomb Raider: Reborn Image
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3HfmcDRbn8
(Accessed on 08/10/12 at 11:21 for Tomb Raider: Reborn Trailer)
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