Framework, Legal and Ethical considerations

Legal and Ethical Considerations

Game Framework/Genre

 The game reboot of the forbidden planet movie is a third person Sci-Fi action/RPG that will take place on an uncharted planet. The player will be able to freely explore several massive areas of the planet and will use their ship to travel between areas. At the beginning of the game players are able to create either a male or female human character and edit various parts such as build, race etc. and there are several default male and female voices  for each character so that the player's avatar can still partake in game cinematics without being a silent protagonist.

The game will feature third person combat with an over the shoulder view, the lights on the player's armour will change colour depending on their health. The player can swap and upgrade their gear such as armour and weapons to help when progressing through the game.

Game platforms

After considering the scope of the game I think from a hardware perspective it is best that the game be on next-gen systems such as PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One as they possess the ability to support much larger, denser environments which will help to create a truly rich planet for players to explore.

Production on the game would take roughly 3 to 4 years to complete if using a custom engine which means the install base for next-gen systems will be much larger than it is now.

The specifications for these systems would allow the game to take advantage of many more hardware features and allow the game to be as intended rather than working within the incredibly tight restraints of platforms such as the Xbox 360, PS3 and the Wii U.

Legal Issues

The main issue with video games and reboots is copyright. There are obviously many Sci-Fi games that are available so it is important not to copy or imitate existing works. A primary issue for The Forbidden Planet game is that the story is quite similar to Halo which would mean I would have to make sure that my story and aesthetics do something new and original. I may have to alter some aspects of the game such as the alien architecture as I feel it is similar to that of Halo. I would also obviously need suitable permissions from the current owners of the rights which as of 2008 were Warner Brothers.

There could also be legal issue with any music or sound effects used as I may need to pay royalties, and request special permission in order to use them in the game.

Ethical Issues

In terms of ethical issues not many are brought up in the game as there is no mention of religion, that’s not to say that religion is non-existent in the lore but it is not a topic that gets brought up. I quite like the idea of having more, newer religions in the game as this is hundreds, possibly thousands of years in the future so there would be more religions but it is a tricky thing to tackle as things like alien races etc. would go against certain religions in the game so I can see why similar games such as Mass Effect ignored it.

I think that gender and racial equality is important in games so that is why I chose to allow players to fully customise their hero’s race and appearance, it is also good for players to create whatever character they want so that it can help in terms of immersion within the game.

A possible issue that may occur is the war ethics in the game, how the villain wants to take over other planets including Earth and to effectively commit genocide on the human race. War ethics are common in movies and games now but there may be some who are sensitive to it. If this issue was to arise there is not much that could be done as it would require the game to be changed significantly as the villain is the main threat to the player and Earth.

Localisation

My game’s primary language would be English and all characters would speak it, even the alien but it will sound significantly different to the humans due to voice and accent differences. The games voice can be re-recorded in different languages for localisation. Although my story and content is not fully finished and fleshed out it does not seem to have any issues that would require any changes, an example of this would be with Bethesda’s game Fallout 3 that never released in India due to the cow like mutants as cows are considered to be sacred.