In the last couple of months, one story has reigned supreme in the world of video game news – the rancorous battle of words and legal hearsay between Activision and former employees of its subsidiary studio, Infinity Ward.  What began as rumors of a hostile-takeover-like ousting of two top employees has escalated into a full-on media blitz of stories involving unpaid royalties, secret trips to other studios, and enough lawyer-speak to write the next three seasons of Law and Order.

As with any public argument involving an incredibly successful piece of creative property, the blogs and ‘news’ sites of the world have been quick to jump in on who they think is in the right.  But the real question here is simple:  How can anyone really be sure?

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I know I’m coming around a little late on this one, but it would appear that some genius decided to plug his laptop into Atomic Games’ display at PAX East and steal the raw code for their upcoming title, Breach.  The culprit, Justin D. May, was chased into the crowd and eventually caught, and word on the street is that code from the game was found on his computer.

At first he claimed innocence and that he had only jacked in to hop on the internet since WiFi at the convention wasn’t working (sure), but as details leak out it’s looking more and more like he was just some jerk thief doing typical thievery-related things:

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Remember that time Rhode Island decided they wanted to make selling (M) and (AO) rated titles to minors a misdemeanor punishable by fines and jail time?  Well, it turns out that something like that is unconstitutional.  Though that’s more than enough to make this an interesting story, it only gets better.  The bill is such a terrible idea that even raging anti-gamer, Jack Thompson, knows it won’t work.

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Because Congress doesn’t have enough stuff to argue about right now, Rhode Island has recently proposed a bill that holds retails employees responsible for selling Mature(M) or Adults Only(AO) rated titles to underage kids – to the tune of going to jail.  The bill would make selling a Mature game to anyone younger than 17, or an Adults Only game to anyone less than 18, a misdemeanor punishable by fines or possible jail time.

While this is probably a good move for Rhode Island since people often forget it exists, it looks to me like one more way to force retailers to do a parent’s job for them.  If your kid is playing a Mature rated game and you don’t know about it, that doesn’t strike me as the retailer’s fault.

But at least with fines in place stores would stop selling M or AO rated games to kids.  Because, you know, kids can’t buy alcohol or cigarettes.  Ever.