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IMGD Interactive Media and Game Development: Roll Credits - Citation and Attribution

Resources for IMGD Research

Citation Basics

Citations:

  • Give credit to the work of others that you have used, i.e. avoiding plagiarism

  • Plagiarism is using the words, information, or ideas of another without properly documenting them. The WPI Academic Honesty Policy clearly specifies that plagiarism is an act of academic dishonesty.

  • Allow others to find this information.

  • Increase the credibility of your work.

  • Show what kinds of information you are using.

  • Allow you, the writer, to participate in the scholarly conversation by demonstrating how your work builds upon, questions, confirms, and comments upon the work of others.

What is a citation?

  • A reference to the source of information used in your research.

    • An in-text citation is a brief notation within the text of your paper or presentation, which alerts the reader that a particular source was used here.

    • The full citation provides all necessary details about that source so that a future reader will be able to find the source.

When do you need to cite?

Any time you directly quote

OR

Paraphrase or summarize the essential elements of someone else's idea in your work

YOU NEED TO CITE IT

With an in-text citation and a full citation.

Citations should always tell you:

  • WHO wrote the source material

  • WHAT it’s called

  • WHEN the source was published

  • WHERE and by whom it was published

Citation styles will vary in how they present this information, but these elements are always included.

Introduction to Citations

 

Please provide feedback on this video tutorial here: https://wpi.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_2fb7Ax9nV2nHwnb

Creative Commons

The Create Commons logo: Two C's in a circle

 

 

As you search for creative works to use in your project, you may see Creative Commons licenses attached to these works. Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that provides free licenses that allow the owners of creative works to share their content with the public on their terms. This nonprofit organization offers a number of licenses ranging from "Some Rights Reserved" to public domain.

CC attributions vary, therefore you must read the summary of the license to understand how to use the image, texts, videos, music etc.

Creative Commons in a Nutshell

Best Practices for Credits (and, why cite anyway?)

The following text is adapted from text written by a game dev on StackExchange:

The CC-BY license requires that you credit the author of the work, not the platform that conveyed it... When you take lots of assets from lots of different creators, you must credit each of them in the way their individual license conditions demand. Which in the case of the Creative Commons, means with the creators name, the name of the asset, link to the asset and a link to the license. Otherwise you are committing a copyright violation. Which means that the creators of those assets might cause you all kinds of problems. Like sending DMCA takedown notice to the platforms through which you sell your game or even sue you for damages.

General practice for giving credits is the credit screen of your game. Which should, according to the guidelines by the IGDA, be easily accessible from within your game without having to play the game itself. Yes, game development tradition is to show the credits roll after "beating" the game (whatever that means in the context of the game your are making)... But due to the requirement to make credits easily accessible, you usually also make them accessible immediately through the start screen or options menu.