Arthur parsons guest lecture report

 

Lecture reference:

Parsons,A.Intellectual Property And Games.GAM5000 Games Design. Friday 17th April, University of Bolton

 

In Arthur Parsons’ lecture he discussed the aspects of games design which is dealing with intellectual properties and licensed games. Intellectual properties are simple it is basically the ownership of an idea or concept, this applies to games, movies, music, plays, books, TV shows and magazines etc. this means that you own the idea and concept of your product and if someone infringes on it you can pursue legal means against them. He also talked about licensed games, meaning when he had to make games for certain people like warner bros want TT games to make the Lego games. One aspect of licensed games Arthur mentioned was making sure you stick as close to the source as possible.

 

I personally feel that this is true you do need to stick to the source as if you go too far from the license you aren’t using it well enough and the fans of the license aren’t going to like it either. So when you are making a licensed game you should know pretty everything to do with the license so you can get the feel for it and can use everything you possibly can to flesh it out and make it feel like the source material. To do this you can put references in, cameos, people, places and other things that are in the source material into your game in your own way so that it fits your game and makes it come to live and feel like a living world.

 

There is an article on the “South Park: The Stick of Truth” game stating how it is a good blue print for licensed games. In the article it addresses that most licensed are rushed to be made and usually don’t get the time and attention they need to use the source material properly. Whereas the south park took its time and used the source material to its fullest.

 

Reference to article:

Burnham,B.2014. The Stick of Truth - An Ideal Blueprint for Licensed Games – Article.[Online][Accessed 11th may 2015].Available from:  http://www.vgchartz.com/article/254769/the-stick-of-truth-an-ideal-blueprint-for-licensed-games/