Structure and ownership of the media sector
Development
The creation stage of the sector, examples of development studios include Bethesda, DICE, Square Enix, Infinity Ward, Activision and Rock Star. Their job is to design and create the product to a playable standard.
Publishing
If a game looks promising then a publisher will give them money to help the product get finished, and advertise the product into the public eye. Examples of publishers include Activison, EA,
Jobs and their responsibilities
Tester
These people test the game to try to find any bugs or problems with the game. It is their job to find the problems so they don’t get out into the game release.
Concept artists
Their job is to draw sketches on paper and Photoshop to get a general representation of what is going to be created.
Modeller
They create and build the assets, buildings and scenery; it is their responsibility to make the items look good for the part or scenario.
Animator
They animate the objects the modellers make in addition to character models, and it’s got to look good and convincing.
Level designer
They design game levels and scenes in a game.
The legal and ethical issues of working in the games industry
Legal
Need to understand copyright laws and regulations, as well as the Pegi age rating system so the game can only be sold to the right people and so that the parents have got some idea of what might be in the game, it wouldn’t be a great idea to give an 18 rated game to a 12 year old. Warning people if the game has violence, swearing, drugs, nudity because again people need to know what there in for when buying a game.
Ethical
Need to ensure there is no racism, attacks on religious beliefs, terminal illnesses or jokes about terrible historical events. Care must always be taken not to offend anyone, especially these days. If there is a small amount of mild racism it is generally a good idea to put a warning on the box. As I understand there is also an etiquette in the gaming culture that the game does not allow players to openly kill children, the only times I have seen this was in an obscure cut scene or the children were nor classed as “human”. Depictions of religious characters is generally frowned on though stereotypes are often used.
Some companies can get away with these typed of things one being RockStar. Over the years their games have included small amounts of these ethical issues mainly intense violence, though over the years the public has began to recognise that it is just what RockStar does and say “Oh RockStar”. while other companies get a lot of heat from the public like “Infinity Ward” with their game “Modern Warfare 2” released in November 2009, it featured a mission where the player walked through an airport mass murdering innocent civilians to gain the trust of a terrorist. This sparked mass outrage with the public, the player also has the choice to skip the mission which was probably the only reason the game was allowed to be released.
jpinnington 