Is it necessary to have the game publisher/developer consent to use its product as a research tool/method? Or is it enough to just purchase license as it is any other software?
we have used a VR game in our research. we did not find any prohibitional statement in publisher/developer's site for research uses.
Kaja Głomb - Answers to queries like yours are best preceded by the comment "IANAL" (I am not a lawyer!). I agree with René Basse - Copyright is also regulated differently in different countries. Also, different journals will have different policies, so you may run into issues. However, research is one of the key points of fair use so ensure that your usage is reasonable in terms of content and references. Reference the game as you would any specific equipment or software used in a lab study with full correct name including version, date, and publisher. If you reference proprietary components of the game you may need to cite patents.
- The major caution is "do not include any game code, in either source or executable format." Any code that you include is copyright infringement.
- Another less-likely caution is to avoid benchmarking of the game or software and avoid performance comparisons with other similar product (check the users agreement in that case).
- Finally "reach out to the developer" you may be surprised at the support given! (from) https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/27415/do-i-need-permission-to-perform-an-academic-research-on-a-video-game
Here is another sound paper on the usage of screenshots:
- Lastowka, G., & Ogino, C. (2014). Use of video game screenshots in scholarly publications: recommendations from the digital games research association. DIGRA Wgite Papers. http://www.digra.org/wp-content/uploads/digital-library/ScreenshotsFairUseRecommendations_DiGRA.pdf
Cheers,
Leo
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