by A.J. Focht
Following a grueling six-year legal battle, the video game industry has kicked the ass of California lawmakers who wanted to ban the sale of violent games to minors. The successfully appealed California Assembly Bills 1792 & 1793 would have made it illegal to sell excessively violent games to anyone underage. However, there is no similar legal penalty applied for including similar content in other forms of comparable media, such as books, music, movies, etc. While the legal battle is officially over, critics of the Supreme Court ruling are just beginning to raise their voices. Everyone from The Daily Show to the Washington Times has attacked the court’s position, without ever noting it would have separated video games into a unique category, while opening the door to further censorship and restrictions on all other forms of art, creativity, and media.
When one court case closes, another one opens, and Senate Bill S.978 hits close to our virtual home. If passed, it would change copyright laws to include a jail time penalty of up to 5 years for the criminal infringement of a copyright. This covers the unauthorized reproduction, distribution, and public performance by electronic means of intellectual property such as music, movies and TV shows. Needless to say, the bill is meeting a lot of resistance from the internet community, since the broadly worded changes to existing copyright laws make it unclear whether those who merely stream content for personal use would be liable to receive custodial penalties.
Now that we’re done with the politics, Thor 2 has been scheduled for release on July 26, 2013. The script is being penned by Don Payne, writer of Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. Chris Hemsworth will be returning as the God of Thunder. Kenneth Branagh will not be directing this time, but will be on as producer.
If rumors hold, we may be seeing a lot more Marvel heroes in live action. The studio may be giving some of the more obscure and underappreciated heroes their own short films. This rumor has been floating around for a while now, but it looks like Marvel is actually giving it a shot. Both Thor and Captain America DVDs and Blu-Rays will include one of two shorts featuring Clark Greg as Agent Phil Coulson. Assuming these do well, we may be seeing more outcast heroes get similar treatments – here’s hoping for a Squirrel Girl featurette.
While Marvel seems to be using short films to bridge the gaps, Star Trek is doing that with a video game. Star Trek the video game will serve as a canon bridge in the time lapse between JJ Abrams first Star Trek and the forthcoming Star Trek 2. In the video game world, film-based video games are a joke at best. Hopefully this canonization of such a major title will help change that.
This last week brought plenty of sales, and a few great (classic) releases. First of all, Nintendo has brought Final Fantasy III to the virtual console. Their latest update to the Virtual Console included this phenomenal RPG as well as other classics such as Kirby’s Dreamland for the 3DS.
Two huge gaming sales launched Independence Day weekend as well. Steam started their Summer Camp Sale on June 30. It goes till July 10, so there’s still time to bag some bargains. The sale features daily deals of up to 85% off for several games. Amazon also has a Fourth of July sale going till July 9. They are offering buy-one-get-one-free deals on selected games and accessories.
Finally, Activision has announced Call of Duty XP 2011, the official convention for the Call of Duty franchise. It will take place on September 2-3 in a 12-acre compound in LA. An estimated 6,000 guests are expected to attend. This was inevitably going to happen after Activision merged with Blizzard, who are masters of the Con in the gaming community. Tickets are priced at $150, but you can probably expect a yearly increase of $25 or more as has happened at Blizzcon, which went up from $100 to $175 in a matter of just two years.
