P5

The products Impact and Effect on the Audience

The game has ended up dividing the gaming community into 2 groups. The people that like and therefor oversell the game and the group who dislike the game and get called sexist.
Those who liked the game often comment things like:

I loved this game.I bought it day one.I suffer from depression anxiety and some of my family suffer from psychosis And this game is so great at making you feel the way people feel in real life as crazy as that sounds . Great game very beautiful and really lets you feel what it's like in the mind of someone who really suffers from those things.

This game was fantastic, definitely play with headphones as recommended. Great journey, mechanics and the behind the scenes feature was also very interesting and worth a watch. Definitely one of my top gaming experiences of the year.

These are comments from the players who did not like the game:

I paid my money and I'm entitled to my opinion just like everyone else. Game wasn't that good to me and was mainly disappointing, sorry if you felt otherwise but just because i have a different opinion that is unfavourable to yours does not make me a troll or mean that i am trolling or that people wont also feel that way, your sense of entitlement makes you feel I'm wrong and you should probably check your privilege. What i would like to know is why you think you are entitled to make baseless accusations against me and how you are able to create this persona in your mind from literally no personal information? You think you are saying something smart but you look very ignorant and insecure with a comment like that and its no ones fault but your own and you should be ashamed of yourself, i am at least, embarrassed for you. If you were a real person you would apologise. 


Relevant Issues of Representation

In the game Hellblade: Senuas Sacrifice, the players are immediately shown that the main character in the entire game is a female and the secondary character is a male. This is unusual because usually Hollywood action films star men as the main roles with women being the secondary roles/the love objective. However there are many examples of Films having a female leading role that have been very successful such as:

• Miss Bala - Starring Gina Rodriguez
• Bumblebee - Starring Hailee Steinfeld
• Red Sparrow - Starring Jennifer Lawrence 
• Peppermint - Starring Jennifer Garner
• Atomic Bomb - Starring Charlize Theron

Bumblebee - Hailee Steinfeld                                           Peppermint - Jennifer Garner

Red Sparrow - Jennifer Lawrence


All of these films are great examples of showing that Men are not needed to be the main role to make a movie successful. Women in Movies or Games are often shown as being weak however in these movies and in Hellblade: Senuas Sacrifice the main characters are shown as being strong individuals which can be inspiring to young females. 

An example of how women are usually portrayed in Hollywood movies would be Star Wars. The women in Star Wars are always shown to be weaker than the men and often need to Men to go and save them. Hollywood have gotten used to this happening so that seeing a strong women leading a role in a movie can often not do as well as a movie with a male leading role.

In Hellblade the supporting character for Senua is actually a male played by actor Nicholas Boulton. Nicholas plays the role of Senuas friend Druth. There are also many more supporting actors who are male such as Dillion who is Senuas lover. However, we do not get to see him to often as he is dead. The whole storyline of Hellblade is about Senuas who is trying to save her lover Dillion. Once again this is not often seen in Hollywood as the Male character is usually the one who is saving the much weaker Female character. 

Ethnic Minority As Lead Role?

An example of a film with an ethnic minority would be Django Unchained. Jamie Foxx plays a slave who is accompanied by Christoph Waltz, who plays a bounty hunter, as they hunt down the most wanted criminals in the south. The title is a good example of what black people who have had gone through in those days. Despite how the film shows white people in this time, people around the whole world enjoy watching this movie and would watch it over and over again.


LGBT+  Character in a lead role




An example of a film with a lead character being LGBT+ would be Lando Calrissian from the Star Wars Trilogy. Lando Calrissian is shown as being Pansexual, now this may not be the sexuality of the actor however he would need to plat the role of a Pansexual. This would also have been inspiring for other pansexual people out there and would show them that there is nothing wring with being Pansexual and could even support them to come out and make there sexuality public.

Relevant Legal Issues

Before a game, movie or book is given its age rating PEGI will go over it and explore any legal and ethical issues that the game may have. For a game this could include the game itself and whether there are swears, violence or discrimination. This could also include the soundtrack for the game as well and whether that includes swear words.
For Ninja Theory to be allowed to make money off of the game and to not get sued, Ninja Theory had to compose/create their own music and/or get permission to use certain songs from other products and have those appearing within the game sign a contract.

Relevant Ethical Issues

At the start of the production is when the ethical issues such as sex, violence, etc is set up. Ninja Theory tries there best to stick to the guidelines as the production process continues.The game is checked multiple times as well to make sure that it doesn't slander any races outside of the game so that there isn't any problems during the release stage of the game. The game hasn't got any sexual themes which therefor allows them to promote the games to more people.  The game includes bad language throughout which means the game cannot be targeted to people 12 years old or younger.  

Role of Relevant Regulatory Bodies

Age rating is a system that has been put into place for Games and Movies. The most popular company known for there age ratings would be PEGI which stands for Pan European Game Information. Age ratings are given out to allow the user/watcher to know what the recommended age is to what they are using/watching. 

Age Ratings For Games: 3, 7, 12 ,16, 18.

Age ratings for movies: G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17

I think that Hellblade: Senuas Sacrifice deserves to have an age rating of 16 instead of 18 because the game shows violence in a way that could be similar to what it would be in real life. The reason why the game doesn't fall under the category of 18 is because in the game the enemies come at you and you must fight to advance in the game. If you went after the enemies on your own agenda the game would then become an 18 rating. 

I have given Hellblade: Senuas Sacrifice the violence rating because the game consists of fighting off mythical creatures to advance further into the story. The fighting is quite realistic as well with the blood splatters and gore that can clearly be seen by the players. I have also given Hellblade the Bad Language rating as back in those days of vikings there would have been multiple cases of bad language being used. The Fear rating is the last rating i have given Hellblade because of the dark scenes seen throughout with multiple jump scares. However, the main reason this gets the fear rating is because of the difficulty with mental illness the character has throughout the entirety of the game.