7.2 Ethical and Legal
Constraints in the Creative Media Sectors 23/03/16
Ethical issues in game
sector
In this section of my blog I shall be going over some
Ethical issues within video games.
Video games are widely played for
entertainment and amusement; in addition, they can act as aid in relieving
stress. Due to advancing technology, video games have evolved and grown into a
large empire impacting those within this realm. Thus many ethical issues are
brought to our attention due to this development. As a result, we should
recognize how new video games are ethically affecting people who play them.
The ethical issues of video gaming
that influence many people include: Violence, Stereotyping against women and
addiction. Ultimately, each topic is linked to violence involved in video
games. It is the player's responsibility to be aware of the
negative effects of video gaming. However, the gaming industry should also take
part in some social responsibilities as well. What they develop and sell can
affect the people positively or negatively. For this reason, both the gamers
and the gaming industry should acknowledge the ethical issues regarding video
gaming, and both need to address need to address these ethical concerns
accordingly.
Although video games can have many
positivity, they can also affect gamers in a harmful way.
Witcher 2 was refused in Australia; the issue was a scene
where sex is used as a reward for Geralt completing a quest, which he can
choose whether or not to accept. Chances are this refers to a mission given to
him by a succubus. The message is that sex as a reward is wrong.
The reason why I feel that its was banned is because it
might encourage young people to start believing that women are a object and
might confuse them into believing this is what you have to do get sex.
Battlefield 3 banned
in Iran
In November 2011, the sale of Battlefield 3 was banned in
Iran. It was all thanks to a scene where American soldiers lay siege to Tehran
and the Grand Bazaar. Raids on game shops to nab all existing copies followed
out the announcements. while a petition bearing the signatures of 5,000
Iranians accused the game of drumming up fear of Iran in the international
community. Not unexpected, since the relationship between the US and Iran is
famously sticky anyway. Battlefield 3 was never officially released in Iran.
Publisher EA has no resellers in the country; so all copies available when the
ban came down were pirated.
This was banned because use of Iran terrorism this doesn’t
look good on the countries image if their own people are supporting this act
because it is agreeing to what the western world thinks of this country
already.
Social games have taking over the future in the video games
industry, with more games to play than ever for free its much more easier to find
the right game for you. Free-to-play is
the dominant business model for most games on social networks, and increasingly
so for mobile games and online games in general. Research firm Flurry found
that over 65% of the top grossing game apps in Apple's AppStore are free to
play. Only 6 months earlier, in January 2011, this figure stood at 39%.
But there are some dark clouds over the industry. One is its
dependency on "whales": super-users who are spending enormous amounts
of money on these games and who make up for the many non-spending users. It's
very hard to find reliable data on this subject because the industry is still
young and not many companies are publicly listed or willing to share data. There
are even rumours of some players spending tens of thousands of pounds per month
on their favourite games. but one with a business dimension as well. It's a
problem other businesses have dealt with before, most recently the online
gambling industry: the problem of addiction and users over-spending. Despite
some innocent themes and the family-friendly character of most games, there is
a real and growing problem with a portion of their players spending more than
they should or can afford.
Violent video game is a massive debate, often center on
topics such as video game graphic violence, sex and sexism, violent and gory
scenes, partial or full nudity, portrayal of criminal behavior, racism, and
other provocative and objectionable material. Video games have been studied for
links to addiction and aggression. It can be agreed that enganing in video
games does have many ethical conerns. Through violence, there are many
games involving violent acts as well as other content related to violence. This
may lead people to believe that playing these types of video games can cause a
person to be more violent.
The video game industry focuses towards men more than women,
therefore, many people think it is stereotyping against women. This is true
whoever, men do play more games then women, however game developers do add the
woman side to it, being it; able to create a woman character stereotyping if
games add an experience towards both genders rather than justone.
Lastly, through addiction, participating in a long
amount of time in a video game has caused people to be addicted to it. As a
result, they lose valuable time within their communities and miss opportunities
from other activities that could be more beneficial for them. This is one of
major concerns that the video game industry is having, the problem being is
that they want people to enjoy their games a lot, but then addiction comes and
they don’t want that, otherwise a lot of health claims come along, so the ideal
game is something that’s fun, yet not addicting.