The costing of the game is covered by the publishers; the developers don’t have to pay the whole costs to make it because the publishers give them and advancement. Once the game has reached the retailers and starts to sell this is where the publishers can see if there advancement will be paid off, and if it is then the developers will know how much money they will get back. If the advancement doesn’t get paid off then the publishers know that the developers aren’t very successful and they will not use them again this can have a knock on effect and possibly stop the developers from making a sequel.
Legislation
In today’s industry the games rating, PEGI system can be misunderstood by many parents of young children who purchase that could have high violence content and a higher age rating than the child’s. However retailers are usually fairly strict when it comes to purchasing games from there shops, usually if you don’t look the age then they will ask for ID, but a lot of people look older than they actually are, also a lot of people who work in shops like ‘GAME’, ‘Gamestation’ and ‘HMV’ are students and young people so they may not know much about the legislation, so they may just sell an 18 rated game to a 16 year old, also if there friend walked in they would probably just take the risk and sell them a game with a higher age rating as well.
PEGI Rating
PEGI Rating
(1) Video games are played by millions of people throughout Europe; in the UK 37% of the population aged between 16-49 describe themselves as active gamers. This is why it is necessary to have the PEGI ratings system on video games.
Above is the rating system, where there is a game with the 3+ icon on it, means that, that game is suitable for people aged 3 and above. These guidelines apply to all of the icons which have a number and a plus symbol by them. When it comes to the other icons it simply means that whichever icon is on that game that is what the game includes.
Above is the rating system, where there is a game with the 3+ icon on it, means that, that game is suitable for people aged 3 and above. These guidelines apply to all of the icons which have a number and a plus symbol by them. When it comes to the other icons it simply means that whichever icon is on that game that is what the game includes.
For example Resistance Fall Of Man has a PEGI age rating of 18 and also has the PEGI violence icon on the back of the case to show that game includes violent content. Also with the PEGI age rating, it has to be rated for what content is in the game not the difficulty of the game.
Disabled accessibility
(2)
At this moment in time there are not a lot of games that are accessible for the disabled, for example the visually impaired; however the web industry is much further ahead with accessibility for the disabled than the games industry. Most websites have options where people can go and adjust the size and the font and also the colour of the page to suit there eyesight. http://www.bbc.co.uk/accessibility/ the BBC website has these settings. In the games industry there is not much out there for the disabled, however small companies and other individuals have put effort in to try and make games that are suitable for the disabled.
• Multi user dungeons, used as text based games similar to RPG’s, this can help the sight disabled.
• Brail games programmed by the visually impaired, these games are made especially for brail displays using the tactile display as game interface.
• Audio only games, they contain some simple story lines, also can contain linear story lines with some interactive choices along the way.
Anti-social behaviour
Many people believe that games are the cause of a lot of anti-social behaviour throughout the world. A lot of parents have campaigned to have violent video games banned as they are apparently the cause for anti-social behaviour. Games cannot be blamed for the cause of anti-social behaviour, this is just something the parents and the government can blame criminal activities on just like they do with movies. Games are given an age rating and also a warning on the case which shows if that game includes violence or drugs for example.
Reference
(1) Tania Byron. (2008). Facts and figures. Available: http://www.pegi.info/en/index/id/25. Last accessed 10/12/2009.
(2) Thomas Westin. (2003). Game Accesibility. Available: http://www.igda.org/articles/twestin_access. Last accessed 10/12/2009.
