7.2 Ethical and Legal Constraints in the creative media sectors

7.2 Ethical and Legal Constraints in the creative media sectors:The Gaming industry has a number of constraints when it comes to making games and this can cause some games to be banned or altered in some form which could be the contents of the game, the name of the game or the age rating of the game. Some games depending on the genre come under scrutiny regarding the imagery in the game and the word language used in the games. Some games incorporate a large amount of violent scenery and that can make some viewers or buyers of the game uncomfortable as it can be seen as gory or inhumane to have those features in the games. Some games involve the use of weaponry can kill or images such as blood and dead bodied and this makes some buyers uncomfortable and complain about the games being made which can sometimes make the game have a bad reputation or possibly make the game be altered by the creating company or possibly even banned.Some people have openly blamed games for the actions of their children stating that the games have had a negative impact on the children and have caused and influenced the children to act out of character.

Left 4 Dead 2 Banned in Germany:  
The video game Left 4 Dead 2 was banned in Germany because of the violence against the zombie creatures and the more offensive depictions of cruelty.A game like Left 4 Dead 2 would come under a lot of criticism because of the high level of violence included the game and this makes the audience feel uncomfortable and it would make an audience who are parents shy away from buying a game of its type of nature because they believe that it could influence their kids to act out of character and possibly engage in violent acts.Also the images in the game which are highly violent and gory make people turn away from this type of game because the seen of violence followed by things such as blood and damaged organs or dead bodies may possibly be disturbing and very discomforting for some people. 
Call Of Duty Black Ops 2 Banned in Pakistan:

The game Call Of Duty Black Ops 2 was banned in Pakistan because of the bad image it gave of people from pakistan and that possibly meant that the game includes things that racially stereotyped pakistan and possibly made a country which mostly follows the religion of Islam look bad. The game possibly had suggested that people from pakistan were terrorists or a threat to people and therefore Pakistan did not allow the game to be sold in game stores in the country. Many people would have taken offence to this type of game and many people would of possibly felt that this game showed signs of racism to people who live and are from the middle east and who follow the religion of Islam. Because religion is a very sensitive subject, a game like this would receive a lot of complaints especially with the on going issues in the world involving middle eastern countries, people would not be happy being label as something they are not in a video game.

Mass Effect 2 and 3 Banned in the United Arab Emirates: 

Mass Effect 2 and 3 were both banned in the United Arab Emirates due to the homosexual content that was in both games.Because of this the games were not allowed to be sold in the stores of the UAE and this is because people have many mixed opinions on people who are homosexual and in a country like the UAE it is known that due to religion that things such as homosexual relationships are unacceptable and this would be a possible reason why both games were banned in the United Arab Emirates. Whilst some people have come to accept that people are either gay or lesbian,some people still do not like the idea of it and still do not accept it and can find any homosexual acts in video games as disturbing and not suitable for themselves and their children to see and therefore may report this type of game to authorities to get it banned or edited.

Ethical Issues (Race and representation of religion and people from a certain countries):Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was banned in the UAE for the violence against muslims and the portrayal of people from middle eastern countries. Because middle eastern countries including the UAE mainly consist of people who follow the religion of Islam, a game such as Call Of Duty 4 would of been very offensive to the local people of those countries who bought the game as it categorises people of those countries to be muslim terrorist and therefore a threat to the world and this is especially shown as in the game you are the USA and your aim is to kill the muslim terrorist opposition. This makes the representation of Muslims bad and makes people think the religion of Islam is one that talks about violence and acts of terrorism which is not the case. This would make people of that religion feel bad and make them feel like they have been targeted and made to feel as if they should not be around people because they are a threat to the rest of the world. Also it shows elements of racism as it implies that people from those middle eastern countries are all terrorists and should be the opposition for the rest of the world and this type of idea in a game makes people stereotype people from those countries to be muslims who are radical and all conduct terrorist acts,in which we know is not the case.

This type of issue has been consistent amongst the Call Of Duty franchise as many games involve middle eastern countries and they are more often put in a bad image along with the people of those countries. This also makes people from different countries develop stereotypical ideas and images of people from middle eastern countries that they are all Muslim terrorist who participate in acts of violence and this can cause racism amongst people in other countries because of what games such as Call Of Duty portray and make the audience think and believe.Also this Call Of Duty game consists of violence against Muslim people and this would be considered very offensive amongst Muslim people especially from the Middle eastern countries which are mainly Muslim populated and this is a big ethical issue because it portrays the poor treatment of Muslims and this gives the image that Muslims should be looked down upon and therefore gives the religion of Islam a bad name.Also the main protagonist of the game is shown to be a Muslim terrorist leader who you end up killing at the end of the game and this gives the idea that Muslims are the cause of wars and attacks on innocent people and that killing Muslims would end that.

The game makes people think that all Muslims are a danger to the rest of the world as it consists of killing innocent Muslims which indicate that they believe that all Muslims regardless of whether they are participating in violent activities are terrorists or a threat and therefore should be seen as opposition to the rest of the world.Also because you are a solider from the United States,when playing you are given the option of killing who you want and therefore the player is allowed to kill the innocent Muslim people who are in the game.  

ASSIGNMENT 1 : Moving Image Soundtrack Report

Task 2: Moving Image Soundtrack report:

GODFATHER-Michael shoots Sollozo and McCluskey:

The scene in the GodFather of when Michael shoots Sollozo and McCluskey shows a lot of things in the sound track that match the action of the scene and this makes the scene more dynamic and not straight forward.These sounds of the scene play a big part in making the scene stand out and create tension to let the audience anticipate what is about to happen and how that makes them feel and how that makes the characters feel.The use of the sounds make the scene more interesting and creates tension and uses a range of sound techniques,and this is accompanied by the naturalistic dialogue of the conversation between Michael,Sollozo and McCluskey as their conversation are not simply just functional dialogue,and because of this we see the concern on Michaels face as we realise that he has to shoot Sollozo and McCluskey and the tension rises as 
Michael then goes to the toilet and we begin to hear what at first seems to be an ambient sound of the train passing by but as Michael begins to look for the gun that sound gradually gets louder at 3:38 and becomes hyper-real as he goes back to sit with Sollozo and McCluskey and the sound of the train becomes very loud to the point that it is unrealistic at 4:36 and this is done to represent possibly the tension and pressure in the mind of Michael as he then comes to his breaking point which is represent by the loud hyper-real sound of the train and then shoots Sollozo and McCluskey.The sound of the train was proved to be Non-diagetic as we do not see the sound of the train but it becomes apparent to us that it later represents something in the scene.At first we believe that it is simply just background noise when Michael is in the toilet and near the window,but we then begin to realise that the sound of the train is their to represent the pressure and speed of thoughts that are running through the mind of Michael as he realises that he has to act quickly and kill Sollozo and McCluskey immediately.

The sound effects of the gunshots from Michael were Naturalistic and they were done to the normal sound of a gunshot.They were loud and this was done to make the scene more realistic and accurate as it would be strange to make the gunshot quite or too loud and making the gunshot loud but not overly loud made the sound effect naturalistic.At the end of the scene when Michael leaves the restaurant after killing Sollozo and McCluskey,there is a sound bridge as a sound of triumph loudly comes by 4:56 as the scene passes on to the next one and this is done to shown a symbol of victory for Michael as he accomplishes his duty of killing Sollozo and McCluskey.

Children Of Men-Car Scene: The Children of men car scene shows different types of soundtrack techniques used and this makes the scene in the car creates more tension and makes the scene more dynamic.The scene is full of naturalistic dialogue between everyone in the car whilst playing games and this is accompanied by the diegetic sound of the radio playing what sounds to be country music and this makes the feel and tone of the scene at this point fairly relax and what seems to be a relatively good mood and this makes the audience not anticipate anything at this point in the scene as everything seems to be normal and relaxed for now.However when the mob comes we hear the use of diegetic sounds of screaming and shouting and the sound of objects being thrown and smashed against the car and this creates emotional realism and makes the scene realistic and this is because the audience now has an emotional connection with the characters as they know that the characters that they are supporting in the film are now in a crucial situation which has caused danger to their lives.The country music in the car is heard at the start of the scene till the end of the scene and makes the sound of the country music from the radio realistic due to the fact that despite all the action that begins in the scene,the music is still playing and this makes the scene realistic because the music would not simply stop playing by itself and it is clear that with the action going on,nobody turns off the radio in the car.The music drains out at times with the louder action of the mob and motorcycle taking over but never goes away as it is heard faintly again at some points during the action and at the end of the scene when they drive off.

When the action begins in the scene it can be said that some of the sounds are anti-naturalistic.At 1:36 The sounds of the mob first attacking the car and throwing objects at it could be seen as anti-naturalistic because the sounds are much more quiet than they would be in real life,when in reality those sounds would be much louder and therefore takes away the realism in the scene as things such as julianne's blood spilling seem to sound more loud than an angry mob which is not realistic.With the action continuing we notice that when Julianne is shot at 2:01 the gun shot is nowhere near as loud as one in real life and this makes the sound of the gun shot anti-naturalistic because it is much more quiet then a gunshot sound in real life.However there is a constant ringing sound after the gunshot which does create a sense of realism due to the fact that when we hear loud sounds,sometimes we can hear a ringing sound in our ears for lengthy time periods,so this use of ringing after the gunshot in this scene was naturalistic.We notice the realism in the use of the radio when the scene ends due to the fact that the camera leaves the car when Theo leaves the car but does not come back in when he does meaning that the audience are now outside of the car and realistically should no longer hear the sound of the radio which is what does happen.As the scene closes and they drive off the sound of the country music from the radio drowns and goes away showing the realistic style used for the music as it does not turn off during the start of the scene,throughout the action and only until the audience are no longer with the characters.

7.1 Structure and Ownership of the Media Sector

7.1 Structure and Ownership of the Media Sector:The creative media industries in the UK are among the strongest in the world.The sector has grown rapidly in recent years to the point where it employs more people than any other industry in the UK.Estimates from the publishing industry are around 200,000 while Digital Britain report states that over 300,000 people work in creative media and that the sector is still growing.Developments over the last 25 years have taken place across the sector as a result of digital technology and one of the features of the sector is that change continues to happen.Successful companies in the UK have produced media products with great content: ideas for characters,new story lines,formats for new programmes or performing talent.At the same time this sector has been very effective in the way it has developed ways of using digital technology.

Media Sectors:The creative media sector has a wide range of industries and these industries have a large amount of people in creative and technical roles:
Film(27,800)
Television(55,800)
Publishing(200,000)
Interactive Media(40,000)
Games(10,000)
Radio(22,000)
photo-imaging(44,000)
Advertising(17,000)
Animation(4,700)

Gaming Media Sector:The gaming industry is a huge market which generates billions of dollars each year.The high demand for games and games consoles each year make the gaming market one of the biggest in the world.The wide variety of game genres make for a wide audience and increased sales,however a lot of these games especially top selling ones are made by different companies.

Electronic Arts(EA):Electronic Arts also known simply as EA are a large and highly successful gaming company that sell a wide variety of games.EA are highly known for their successful sports game and have a branch of the company known as EA Sports which create and sell these games.EA sports creates games of various sports such as Basketball,Football,American football and Hockey.These games are titled as the following: Football (FIFA),Basketball (NBA 2k),American Football (Madden NFL) and Hockey (NHL).These games are all sold with the year of release along side the game name.The best selling EA Sports unit is FIFA selling over 100 million units of the game,this should be seen as no surprise due to the high demand of football that the world has,a football game would have high sales.

EA Executives(In order from highest to lowest):
Andrew Wilson (Chief Executive Officer):As CEO of Electronic Arts, Andrew Wilson has aligned the company around three core strategic pillars: putting players first, driving a digital transformation and operating as one team. During Andrew’s tenure as CEO, EA has launched groundbreaking new games and services, reached record player engagement levels across its global franchises, and transformed into one of the world’s leading digital entertainment companies.Andrew has held several positions during his over 15 years at EA, providing leadership on product and brand development for both packaged goods and digital services.  Prior to being appointed CEO in 2013, Andrew served as executive vice president of EA SPORTS and Origin where he oversaw all aspects of the EA SPORTS business and development, as well as EA’s digital PC service. 

Andrew has also led EA’s Online Organisation overseeing the direct-to-consumer business, Asia Online Publishing as well as the EA studio in Seoul, Korea. In addition, he previously served as vice president and executive producer of all EA SPORTS FIFA games, growing the property into one of the largest video game franchises of all time.A native of Geelong, Victoria, Australia, Andrew began playing games at a young age and got his start working for a consortium of online companies that specialised in the creation of content and services for sports and entertainment media.Andrew has been named one of the “Top People in Business” by FORTUNE, one of the “Most Creative People” by Fast Company, and one of the “100 Most Influential Leaders in Marketing, Media and Tech” by AdWeek.

Ken Barker (Senior Vice President,Chief Accounting Officer):Ken Barker joined Electronic Arts in June of 2003 as Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer. Prior to joining EA, he served as Vice President, Corporate Controller and Principal Accounting Officer at Sun Microsystems. Mr. Barker also served as an audit partner at Deloitte & Touche. He graduated with a degree in Accounting from University of Notre Dame.

Chris Bruzzo (Chief Marketing Officer):Chris Bruzzo joined EA in September 2014 as Chief Marketing Officer, leading the vision and strategy for building meaningful relationships with players around the world. In this role, Mr. Bruzzo oversees EA’s marketing strategy, strategic communications and web strategy and experience teams.

Chris is a proven brand visionary and thought leader who comes to EA after holding leadership positions at two of the most dynamic brands in the world – most recently helping to drive digital transformation at Starbucks and, prior to that, as an executive at Amazon.com.During his eight-year tenure at Starbucks, Chris was the architect of the Starbucks digital experience, building award-winning loyalty and personalisation programs that created deep connections with customers. 

Chris also led the growth of Starbucks’ social and online community strategy with record-setting Facebook and Twitter programs, and the trendsetting online community, My Starbucks Idea.  Most recently, Mr. Bruzzo served as Senior Vice President and General Manager at Evolution Fresh, the cold-pressed juice brand business unit within Starbucks.  He has also held positions in Channel Brand Management, Global Advertising & Digital marketing as well as Digital Strategy for Starbucks.Previously, Mr. Bruzzo served as marketing vice president at Amazon.com, heading the public relations and marketing teams.Mr. Bruzzo has a degree in political studies from Whitworth University in Spokane, Washington and currently serves on the board of online jewellery  retailer Blue Nile. Chris is an avid gamer who also loves music.  He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his family.

Blake Jorgensen(Chief Financial Officer):Blake Jorgensen is Chief Financial Officer of Electronic Arts, the world’s leading developer and publisher of interactive entertainment. Mr. Jorgensen joined EA in September 2012 with over 20 years of experience in finance spanning across different industries, with a deep understanding of technology, consumer products, online commerce and entertainment.Prior to joining EA, Mr. Jorgensen served as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Levi Strauss & Co.  Previously, Mr. Jorgensen was Chief Financial Officer of Yahoo! Inc., from June 2007 to June 2009. Before joining Yahoo! Inc., Mr. Jorgensen was the Chief Operating Officer and Co-Director of Investment Banking at Thomas Weisel Partners, which he co-founded in 1998. He has also held financial and operational positions at Montgomery Securities, MAC Group/Gemini Consulting and Marakon Associates.

Mr. Jorgensen holds a degree in Economics from Stanford and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.  He and his wife Debbie live in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Joel Linzner(Executive Vice President,Business and Legal Affairs):Joel Linzner has served as Senior Vice President of Legal and Business Affairs since April 2004. From October 2002 to April 2004, Mr. Linzner held the position of Senior Vice President of Worldwide Business Affairs and from July 1999 to October 2002, he held the position of Vice President of Worldwide Business Affairs. Prior to joining Electronic Arts in July 1999, Mr. Linzner served as outside litigation counsel to Electronic Arts and several others in the videogame industry. Mr. Linzner earned his J.D. from Boalt Hall at the University of California, Berkeley, after graduating from Brandeis University. He is a member of the Bar of the State of California and is admitted to practice in the United States Supreme Court, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and several United States District Courts.

Peter Moore(Chief Operation Officer,Executive Vice President,Chief Competition Officer):With his tremendous personal passion for sports, competition and games, Peter Moore leads EA’s newly formed Competitive Gaming Division enabling outstanding competition through great games, talented players and experiences for the EA player community. Peter is a longtime champion of competitive gaming programs and is focused on bringing to life new global competitions for EA franchises including FIFA, Madden NFL and Battlefield.Peter Moore also currently serves as Chief Operating Officer of EA until the end of FY16, providing strategic leadership for all global operations that enable EA to bring products to market via retail and digital direct-to-consumer channels.

Peter has more than 30 years of experience in gaming, entertainment and consumer products. From September 2007 to August 2011, he held the position of President of EA SPORTS, overseeing the delivery of some of the top-selling sports video games from franchises including FIFA, Madden NFL, NCAA Football and NHL. He also oversaw the growth of the FIFA Interactive World Cup, growing it into one of the world’s largest gaming tournaments. Prior to joining EA, Peter served as Corporate Vice President of the Interactive Entertainment Business of Microsoft Corp., where he was responsible for leading both the Xbox and Games for Windows businesses, driving games development at Microsoft Game Studios, as well as cultivating relationships with third-party game publishers and developers around the world. Before joining Microsoft, Peter previously held roles as President and COO of SEGA of America and Senior Vice President of marketing at Reebok International Ltd.

Peter holds a bachelor’s degree from Keele University, United Kingdom, and a master’s degree from California State University, Long Beach. He resides in Atherton, California and spends his free time running and working out, and is a lifetime supporter of Liverpool FC.

Ken Moss(Chief Technology Officer)Ken Moss is the Chief Technology Officer of Electronic Arts leading the strategy and vision for EA’s Digital Platform and Information Technology Organisation. In this role, Mr. Moss oversees Commerce, Identity & Fraud, Security, Data, Scalable End-to-End Systems Testing, Games Services, Infrastructure and Mobile Platform to ensure the most seamless experience for players. He also drives technology and security initiatives for EA employees around the globe.Prior to joining EA in 2014, Mr. Moss led the global Marketplace Technology, Science and Data organisation at eBay where he ran the end-to-end services platform that powers eBay across all devices around the world. Before his time at eBay, he co-founded the startup CrowdEye, where he built real-time social search and insights technology. Additionally, he spent 20 years at Microsoft he founded and led the engineering and product teams on Search as well as roles with MSN and Microsoft Excel.

Mr. Moss graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Molecular Biology from Princeton University. He is a passionate gamer who enjoys spending time with his wife, Becca, and their three children. 

Samantha Ryan(Senior Vice President,EA Mobile and Maxis)Samantha Ryan serves as Senior Vice President of EA Mobile, overseeing the development of EA mobile games across a wide range of studios.

Since joining Electronic Arts in March 2015, Samantha has been a critical strategic leader at the PopCap, Firemonkeys and Waystone studios, driving product strategy and development. She has been instrumental in shaping the future of some of EA's most successful and beloved mobile franchises, including Plants vs. Zombies, Bejeweled, Real Racing and The Sims.

Prior to joining EA in 2015, Ryan served as Senior Vice President of Production & Development at Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. She played a critical role in growing Warner Bros. into a Top 10 publisher and managed successful development studios including Rocksteady, WB Games Montreal, and NetherRealm. During her tenure she oversaw titles including the award-winning Batman: Arkham franchise,Mortal Kombat, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, Scribblenauts and Injustice: Gods Among Us.
Prior to Warner Bros., she served as President of Monolith Productions where she directed titles such as the critically received No One Lives Forever and F.E.A.R. Her career prior to games included work in promotions and marketing for Infinity Broadcasting and consultant to the Singapore Broadcast Corporation.

Jacob Schatz(Senior Vice President,General Counsel and Corporate Secretary):Jake Schatz was appointed to Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary in June 2014, after previously serving as EA’s Vice President and Deputy General Counsel.  Prior to joining EA in 1999, Mr. Schatz was a commercial litigator at national law firms.  Mr. Schatz earned his J.D. from Georgetown University Law Centre, and received his B.A. in Government from Pomona College.  Mr. Schatz is a member of the Bar of the State of California and is admitted to practice in the United States Supreme Court, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and several United States District Courts.

Patrick Soderlund(Executive Vice President,EA Studios):Patrick Söderlund is the executive vice president of EA Studios where he is responsible for console and PC development for some of the most popular games in the industry, including Battlefield, Need for Speed, the EA SPORTS portfolio, Dead Space and Dragon Age.  Mr. Söderlund leads EA development teams from studio locations around the globe including Redwood Shores (California), Stockholm (Sweden), Burnaby (British Columbia), Orlando (Florida), Austin (Texas), Gothenburg (Sweden), Edmonton (Alberta), Guildford (U.K.), Montreal (Quebec) and more.  He also oversees relationships with EA Partners development studios, including Respawn Entertainment.

Prior to his current role, Mr. Soderlund served as the executive vice president of the EA Games Label, where he oversaw operations for all EA Games studios including DICE, Criterion, BioWare and Visceral.  Prior to that role, he oversaw EA Games Europe. He is a founder of DICE, where he grew the studio from a small team to one of the most successful game developers in the world. The studio was sold to EA in October of 2006.

Gabrielle Toledano(Executive Vice President and Chief Talent Officer):Gabrielle Toledano, Executive Vice President and Chief Talent Officer, is responsible for Human Resources, Facilities and Corporate Social Responsibility for Electronic Arts globally.

Prior to joining EA, Ms. Toledano served as Chief Human Resources Officer for Siebel Systems. Prior to that, she served in human resources positions for six years with Microsoft Corporation and several years with Oracle Corporation. Her portfolio has included a wide range of HR assignments including international work, most notably in Latin America. Gabrielle is bilingual and received her bachelor's and master's degrees from Stanford University, followed by a Rotary Scholarship assignment in Santiago, Chile.

 EA Major Share Holders

Sources Of Income: EA Sports income comes from the games that they sell and the income of EA is so high because of the different amount of games that they product creating a very large audience and therefore generating a large amount of income.

Licenses and Franchises: EA have licensing agreements with the likes of company FIFA when it comes to making FIFA football games and the licensing agreement covers the use of players and certain teams being included in the game and for the game to be called FIFA itself.This agreement is vital in EA's creating of the game as without it EA would be forced not to included certain things in the game and therefore will reduce the quality of the game and therefore put people of buying the game which would result in a massive decrease in sales.EA Sports also own a number of franchises which have their own separate games which are unrelated to sports such as Battlefield which is a first person shooting game which targets an audience who's preferred choice of games are not sport related making for a wider variety in games and therefore a huge increase in sales for EA. Because of the many franchises that EA have they cover a huge amount of genres for games which means that they have a very wide audience to serve and therefore makes their credibility even higher. EA have some competitors when it comes to creating and selling games,especially when the games are the same type of genre which makes have to create the best games in order to have the most sales.On the EA Sports side of the company their best selling game which is FIFA battle another football game company in Konami who have their own game called Pro Evolution Soccer. On EA's possibly most successful franchise in Battlefield,EA compete against many companies who create first person shooting games such as Rockstar and Treyarch with their games Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty.