Bill S978 Threatens Let's Plays, Rockstar and Team Bondi Splinter, and Bioshock Infinite Protagonist Shown

A few news items to get out of the way, so let's get started.


A new Senate Bill titled Bill S978 would make it a felony to put movies, television shows or video game footage on the internet. The bill has just been introduced but is causing a massive amount of controversy for a few reasons and I want to quickly give my two cents on it.

First let me say that I understand banning the posting of FULL movies or shows on the internet because when you watch those, you get the full experience. Little tidbits or usage of it for satirical purposes like the Nostalgia Critic does I don't agree with because you don't get the full experience of the movie from that.

The same works with video game Let's Plays which would be banned under this bill. When you watch a Let's Play, you're not getting the full experience. It's not the same as actually playing it, which is why banning them makes no sense at all. I've bought a few games because I saw Let's Plays for them and liked what I saw.

You could say I'm being biased because of my plans to do Let's Plays and maybe you'd be right but I'm trying to be fair here. Let's Plays are very different from playing a game. Banning putting games on the internet to illegally download I understand but not this.

Team Bondi, the developers behind LA Noire are having some real problems. On top of being under investigation for harsh management and mistreatment of employees, Rockstar Games has stated that they will not be working with Bondi again.

The reasons for this are because of the conflicts that were going on during the last two or so years of LA Noire's development when Rockstar stepped in to help Bondi finish. Rockstar was very adamant about poor design choices made by Team Bondi and had them fix them up while Bondi felt that Rockstar was limiting their creative vision.

Who is at fault here? I really don't know. But I doubt that LA Noire would have gotten done without Rockstar stepping in, even if it was primarily Bondi's game. But either way, this is going to be major trouble for Bondi. They're already being investigated for harsh management and with a solid publisher no longer willing to work with them, that really limits their ability at making games even more.


Finally, Bioshock Infinite looks awesome. For the last two games we've had a faceless and voiceless protagonist (well, actually Jack from the original talks a little). Now, we've got a protagonist who's going to be fully voiced and he's also got a face to go along with it. The face was shown for the first time in an image released a few days ago.

Booker DeWitt, the protagonist of Bioshock Infinite, with Elizabeth.

Bioshock Infinite is currently one of my Top 5 most anticipated games on the horizon along with Mass Effect 3, Batman: Arkham City, Skyrim, and Dark Souls. It's good to see they're going for a well-rounded protagonist and I'm curious to see where it will go.