What ethical issues could occur when creating a GAVFX product?
The ethical issues of video gaming are content that influences many people. This could be: violence, age, restricted content, education, stereotyping, community, addiction, religious and other.
Games can be seen to paint groups in a bad light, for example possible racism in Pokemon with the character Jynx, who was seen as racist by some due to her design and history.
How could ethical issues impact on development?
Ethical issues can make you have to avoid certain topics that may be needed to make your story good. For example if you wanted to add some sort of stereotype character people could get offended by this even if it is done in a respectful manner.
Other examples are if you make something you consider to be ok and then a group decides it isnt when they hear of it part way through your development, an example being PETA's hate towards Pokemon or Animal crossing because of how animals are treated in those games. This can cause controversy where it isn't needed and possibly affect sales, development or staff morale.
What regulatory issues could occur or need to be considered?
What regulatory bodies exist and why they exist?
ESRB, PEGI, and CERO are all games age ratings boards that place age ratings and description lables on games. ESRB is for the US, PEGI is for Europe and CERO is for console games in Japan. These boards exist to regulate what content is put out into the market, whether it is acceptable, playable and what age group it is suitable for. Different bodies will have different rules for what you can put in the game, for example CERO don't allow gore or nudity in their games, at all.
What descriptors or content do those regulatory bodies manage?
PEGI manages the age classifications for games and will place content descriptors on the games alongside an age rating. Examples of desriptors include, bad language, discrimination, drugs, fear, gambling and sex.
What legal issues could occur?
In the GAVFX industry you need to keep in mind copyright law and advertisement law. The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, is the current UK copyright law. It gives the creators of literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works the right to control the ways in which their material may be used.
You need to make sure your idea is original and not a direct copy of something else. Taking inspiration is fine as long as you improve upon the idea or alter it greatly to be different. An example would be Genshin Impact. The game was heavily accused of being a copy of breath of the wild, however it is more than that. The game takes aspects of many games to make an experience that is unique to the game and people love it, therefore they have avoided legal issues while still using a game as heavy inspiration.
Advertisement law simply is that the advertisement needs to actually represent your product, it can't be completely fake.