Legal and Economic

 Labour Market Info

The UK games market is the leading country in terms of revenue in the whole of Europe beating out country's such as Germany and France who do not have annual revenues as large as the UK. The UK video game market has sky rocketed as a main stream option for entertainment parrying with things such as general television and Netflix.  A large amount of people would opt to sit down and play a video game online with friends or work on a solo game play through over sitting and watching a film or series or would find some sort of balance between the two instead of only watching film and media. However, despite this takeover within UK house holds and UK youth, consumers are heavily feeling the ripples from the bite of the current economic downturn in the UK which is massively effecting the gaming market. This increase in consumerism has also had a knock on effect in both the demand for faster video game content and production as well as for roles within the game industry. This huge increase in demand and consumption means that game studios have to work harder than every to keep up with demand and competition meaning that more employees are needed now more than ever, but this also means that the industry is more competitive and difficult to break into than ever as competition and standards for employment are at an all time high.

Working Styles

 Within the games industry umbrella, there are a variety of different jobs and opportunities that each come with their own working styles and job formats. Different jobs have different responsibilities and requirements meaning some jobs benefit from a particular working style where as another would not benefit from a particular routine. One job within the industry that's more accessible is a games tester where people can be recognized as reputable by games companies and can be hired to test private access games in beta to test for bugs and scout for errors or features that make the game unfun. They are also used to gather data on game progress and give an insight as to how the public would react to said game. This can be done from the comfort of your own home as games and files can be sent and communicated remotely. This work style would be very beneficial to certain people depending on routine and preference. Other jobs within the industry wouldn't work as well for this work style such as an animator or an audio engineer. These individuals would need to have access to certain facilities and software in order to do their jobs as well as requiring more in depth collaborations and communications in order to make sure their work is contributing in the desired manor to the project. This type of role would require more of an in house work style where you would need to travel to a certain place to work collaboratively. This isn't to say these job roles can only be done in this way, if the individual had the appropriate setup at home they could also work remotely or work in a routine that combines the two styles.

Intellectual Property Law

Intellectual property protection is really important within the games industry for ensuring that creators and companies can ensure that their work and assets they are producing and working on are safe from copies and theft and that their work cannot be claimed by anybody else as their own. Intellectual property counts towards things such as ideas, inventions, designs and packaging, branding and more. All of these things are assets that would be created within a games artist environment. If you own intellectual property, this allows you and anybody else with permission from the holder to use, change and promote the asset or product. Assets such as these can be applied for various protective measures such as trademarks and copyright patents in order to ensure these things are owned by their creator(s). If somebody were to copy something owned by intellectual property or steal something under this umbrella, this would be a breach of a trademark claim meaning that legal action can be taken to have this theft or copying removed and shut down. These procedures ensure safety for creators, especially within the games industry where ideas and concepts are being created and worked on constantly. Having a trademark on your work also sends a clear message to others that this is work that the creator doesn't want copied and shared and you would hope on a moral basis that would be enough for people to leave it alone. 

Contracts and Agreement

The purpose of a contract agreement is to ensure that when agreements are being made involving multiple parties with trademarks or looking to work on a license together, it is to ensure both parties withhold a particular level of agreement and that terms and conditions within an agreement are met. A company that is a good example for this within the games industry is Behaviour Interactive. They work on a game called Dead By Daylight and as part of their game, they bring other famous horror licenses into their game. All of these horror icons such as Ghostface and Chucky belong to their respective owners and creators who withhold the license to them and what happens to their universe. When putting these characters into Dead By Daylight, it is important that they appease and meet the restrictions and requirements that the license holders require for their content to be used within Dead By Daylights universe. Creating a contract between the two holders enables both sides of the deal to discuss and lay down rules for their collaboration and make sure that boundaries are not overstepped and that the two sides are able to work together and meet a good middle ground basis for their collab to work upon.  

Age Rating Classification

Age ratings within the games community are used for a number of different reasons to help sell their game and content to various audiences. Age ratings can be used to mark content within games to let consumers know what to expect from a product as well as to tell parents this information to monitor their children. Age ratings are also used to decide how game copies are sold and plays into verification systems on different platforms as to who has access to this type of content. Some game studios find ways to work around particular ratings to ensure they keep a lower rating letting their game be easier to access by a larger number of players. One series that does this well is the Dangenronpa series. To ensure that their game wasn't made 18+, the studio responsible made the decision to switch the blood colour from a red to a neon pink to decrease the realism in the games violence and make it suitable by legal standards to a lower age rating instead of it reaching 18+. This means that their game won't be affected by as many blockages such as 18+ sales verifications and will be seen as generally more appropriate for a wider audience of consumers to engage with. 

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