Assignment 3: Understanding contractual, legal and ethical obligations in the games industry.

BTEC National Games Design

Assignment 3: Understand contractual, legal and ethical obligations in the games industry.

Unit 13: Understanding the games industry

Assessor: Caitlin McReynolds

Student: Shay Wragg

Case Study Negative Publicity: Manhunt

Manhunt is probably one of the most controversial games in history as the game is revolved around brutal murders. The aim of the game is to advance through the levels (scenes) and getting the highest score at the end of each scene, the player is scored on 'stars' one is for completing the scene, one to three is for the brutality of each 'executions' and the final one is for completing the scene within a time limit.

Manhunt is a stealth based game, the player has to sneak around using shadows as cover to hide from enemies. The player must catch enemies off guard to execute them. As the player is cored off of executions, there are three levels of execution, level 1 'hasty' are quick and not very bloody executions, level 2 'violent' are more gory executions and level 3 'gruesome' are over the top executions that kill enemies in extremely violent ways. 

The player can use a range of weapons through-out the game such as plastic bags,  baseball bats, crowbars, knives, shards of glass and other sharp objects as well as firearms. The player also can use painkillers to replenish health and has a stamina bar.

When developing the game some of the employees of Rockstar Games were hesitant about production as they were worried about the amount of violence within the game, a former Rockstar Games employee Jeff Williams said ''There was almost a mutiny at the company over that game''

The murder of Stefan Pakeerah 

On July 28th 2004, a boy named Stefan Pakeerah was murdered in Leicester, England by his friend Warren LeBlanc with a claw hammer. Authorities found a copy of Manhunt in Warrens room and some of his friends said he was obsessed with it. Experts say he played the game so much that ''it blurred lines between reality and the game for him''. The victims father also said "They were playing a game called Manhunt. The way Warren committed the murder this is how the game is set out, killing people using weapons like hammers and knives. There is some connection between the gake and what he has done." 

Rockstar Games, Take Two interactive and several companies involved such as The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) and the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers' Association (ELSPA) argued against cases towards the game by saying "We sympathize enormously with the family and parents of Stefan Pakeerah. However, we reject any suggestion or association between tragic events and the sale of the video game Manhunt. The game in question is classified 18 by the British Board of Film Classification and therefore should not be in the possession of a juvenile. Simply being in someone's possession does not and should not lead to the conclusion that a game is responsible for these tragic events. 

Despite this, the Pakeerah family hired a lawyer named Jack Thompson (who previously feuded with Rockstar Games over the Grand Theft Auto series) and sued Rockstar Games and Sony for £50 million with a wrongful death claim and ultimately Manhunt banned and removed from shelves in New Zealand, Canada, Germany and the United Kingdom.

Personally i understand that Manhunt contains extreme violence and graphic content and it's very tragic that things like this happen but i completely agree that the developer, the game is not to blame. The game is clearly age rated 18 and is meant for maturer audiences, as well as the fact that the only evidence pointing towards the game is that it was found in the murderers possession. For someone to be so easily influenced by a game and to actually go out a commit any crime "because of the game" must of had either a mental condition or are extremely immature and therefor obviously cannot be trusted with and 18+ video game. 

Conditions on video game publishing

After a game is developed, it is sent to companies that are responsible for rating the game. Companies like The BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) and PEGI (Pan European Game Information)rate video games and clearly label on the case of the game what kind of images are in the game, some of these are:

• Violence 
• Bad Language 
• Fear - Scenes that may scare some
• Nudity, sexual behavior or references
• Drugs - Game refers to or depicts drug use
• Discrimination - Game contains depictions or materials that encourage discrimination
• Gambling - Game depicts or teaches gambling
• Online game

They also give the game an overall age rating.

On the companies website they also state: "Most games (49%) are suitable for players of all ages there are many that are only suitable for older children and young teenagers. There are also some games (4%) that are made for adults only (over the age of 18).  The BBFC also have a say in this decision.

Source: http://www.pegi.info/en/index/id/23

So clearly Manhunt has to meet these expectations and therefor should of not been banned in the first place.

Another argument against video games is that a lot of professionals, parents and researchers agree that video games increase violence among children. A study in 2014 published in Psychology of Popular Media Culture revealed that 90% of pediatricians, 67% of parents agreed that video games influence children to be more violent. Also "Over 1,000 studies including reports from the Surgeons General Office, the National Institute of Mental Health and studies conducting by leading figures within our medical and public health organisations - our own members - point overwhelmingly to a causal connection between media violence and aggressive behavior in some children."

Source: http://videogames.procon.org/ 

My argument for these facts is the fact that the CHILDREN should NOT be playing violent video games, this whole 'study' is irrelevant due to the fact that there are companies dedicated to telling parents that "This game contains mature content" as they're actually purchasing the game, and in actual fact if the child is young or the parent is aware that there child is easily influenced then it comes down to bad parenting. 

And in my opinion if my child is an appropriate age and i trusted them to play these types of games without committing murder then by all means i would let them.

Case Study Positive Publicity: Grand Theft Auto V

Despite the controversy from the Grand Theft Auto Series nobody can say that it has been unsuccessful. The Series has accumulated millions of fans through-out the years as well as millions, even billions. The Latest installment, Grand Theft Auto V was probably the most popular with around 2-3 years of hype. 

The game was announced with a trailer in 2011, this sent gamer's all over the globe into a frenzy and everyone was talking about GTA V. A couple of year's later GTA V was about to be released and the game was being advertised everywhere, on billboards, transport even in times square in New York City. By release the game had 3.5 million pre-orders in the US alone.

In the first 24 hours of GTA V being on the shelves it made over $800 million in sales which was record breaking.

In 2014 the game had generated $1.98 billion in revenue. The game was also released on next-gen consoles and PC causing even more excitement and shipping 10 million more copies. As of the 3rd of February 2016 the game had shipped over 60 million copies across all platforms.

Some things that made GTA V special were: 

• Online Multiplayer
• Heist Missions
• The realism and graphics of the game
• A groundbreaking three different playable protagonist story line
• It was based in the fictional city of Los Santos (Los Angeles)
• It was another Grand Theft Auto game.
• GTA Online: Heists as well as free content updates

Here are a list of awards the game has one:

• 31st Golden Joystick Award
• 5th Annual Inside Gaming Award
• Spike VGX 2013 Award
• Slant Magazine Award
• Time Magazine Award
• Best Xbox Game (By several reviewers)
• Rockstar Games and Rockstar North were named best developer by Edge
• BAFTA: Academy Fellowship Award
• 10th British Academy Video Game Award

Although there has been some controversy with the game due to graphic scenes or sexist references and even a stabbing over a copy of the game, it has reached an extreme amount of success and has pleased millions of people worldwide and set a new standard for video games forever.

Here is the next-gen launch trailer.

Assessment 2: 3 in one gaming - The making of Maths Machine (Option 1)

BTEC National Diploma in Games Development
Unit number and title Unit 72 / 22
Start date: 15/2/16
Deadline: 29/2/16
Assessor name: Wayne Gallear
Student Name: Shay Wragg

Assessment 2: 3 in one gaming.

Task: You are an apprenticeship games designer working for a small games developer in the east midlands.

Your manager what’s you to create a 2D platform game to demonstrate your game development skills.

Option 1 - Maths Maze Game

Maths Machine

Maths Machine has no plot,the aim of the game is to progress through rooms and solve an GCSE C Grade maths question, the game isn't necessarily hard but meets the assignment criteria. Note the Maths Machine is NOT a finished game and is a work in progress.

Target Audience 

Maths Machine is aimed at aimed at C Grade GCSE Students or anyone that enjoys maths.

Process

First off i worked on my protagonist the ''Maths Machine'', i started by creating the sprite for him. 

The sprite is 32x32.

I also designed a walking animation for the character but i ran into a bug that mixed up all of the sub images and therefor chose to scrap the animation. This was the first bug i ran into.

I then created the object for this sprite, i added collision events with the walls and key press events so i the player could maneuver the sprite.

NOTE: When creating the game i designed most of my sprites BEFORE the objects, i have put the sprites and objects together for reader convenience. 

Next i designed my wall which again was 32x32.

Then i created the wall's object which had no events but was made a solid, so the player would not walk through it.

I then went on to create several walls and objects for them walls as each room was going to be a different theme.

I then designed my first enemy sprite.

I then created several different enemies for different levels.

Each enemy had similar objects to the others, the only differences are the walls they interact with and the movement styles.

Next i created backgrounds, they're fairly simple as i used plain colours but added shading using the shading tool within Game Maker.

Finally I created the first main room.

The idea of the game is that the player starts in the main room and has to progress through other rooms to complete the game. In each room the player must navigate the room without getting killed by the enemies, there will be a door leading to the problem room of that level which contains a C Grade maths question that once completed they will be take back to the main room but in another section.

When the player completes the problem room he is spawned back in the main room, only this time the previous door is blocked off and the player is spawned in the next room.

To do this i created several 'MAIN Rooms' and in each one the player spawns in a different location. 

In the problem room there are 'portals' with answers next to them, the player must enter the portal next to the correct answer which will take them to the next level of the main room, if the player chooses the wrong answer and enters the wrong portal they will die.

I also created doors for each level, for example ''spr_door_3'' takes the player to the third room, ''spr_problem_3'' takes the player to the problem room of the third room and ''spr_MAIN_3'' gives the player the choice to turn back and return to the main room.

When creating the question for each room i created four objects, "obj_percentage'' is the question itself and the ''obj_answers'' are the correct and incorrect answers.

For the questions object, i created a draw event, drawn the text and then set the colour, the x and y coordinates are for where the question is placed. 

Eventually i got around to creating world interactions for example, i created a switch that opens double doors and a detonator that blows up a bomb. I also created various explosions.

Here are the explosions i created and what they look like in game. 

BUG REPORT/MAJOR CHANGES

• The Players running animation played continuously - FIX = I removed the animation.
• The explosions also played continuously - NO FIX
• On the first room when returning to the main room the player was presented with an error message that crashed the game. - NO FIX
• The Player sprite has been enlarged.
• The player can move left and down, right and down but not left and up or right and up - NO FIX