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Obligations in the Game industryBy Joshua Cook, Aaron Rackstraw and Michael TrimEthicalSome games are banned from being sold in some countries because they are just morally wrong. For instance: Pokemon (trading card game) was banned in Saudi Arabia because it apparently promoted Zionism, and gambling. Other games have also been banned because of the way they promote some things, such as the Zombie mode in Call of Duty Black Ops. Zombie mode was banned in Germany because of the Nazi symbolism in it. The game still sold in Germany, it just didn’t include the Zombie mode.Game developers also have to think about how people think about how their game is viewed if they choose to allow certain things. This is why no retail game today allows the murder of small children. This is because killing children is morally wrong.Medal of Honor was banned from being sold near military bases in the US because it allowed players to take control of the Taliban unit in multiplayer. The ban was not lifted despite the fact that the Taliban was removed.LegalCompanies have to take into account legal documents when developing games; they have to think about franchises, trademarks and other games. If one company where to name their game after another, they would have to contact the owner of the trademark and as for permission. Normally, permission isn’t granted. There is one example, where Indie game developer Mojang tried to register the trademark ‘Scrolls’ for their upcoming game ‘Scrolls’. Their attempt was ignored because a bigger company called ZeniMax said that their trademark was infringing on their game series ‘The Elder Scrolls’. Although similar, Mojang thought this was unfair, and took up the dispute. After months of lawyers feeding back to each other, Mojang offered to change the name of the game to something else.ContractualWhen a games is in development many contracts can be made with developers and producers and such like, these tie different parts of the company to different companies for the game in production. If these terms are violated then the company can be entitled to sue.For example Activison were sued by infinity ward because they only paid them ?2 million of the royalty’s earned then didn’t pay them the other ?11 million they owed them for the rest of the royalty’s. They were sued by 38 employees for up to ?125 million. The case still hasn’t fully been settled.Whilst in development, it is normal for the game developers to attract attention of publishers so that they can get funding to make the game better. Once a publisher is interested in the development of the game, they would have both parties (developer and publisher) sign a contract that the developer must meet. This normally included release day, information they are allowed to release to the public before launch and guidelines the games must follow. ................
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