Video games win in Supreme Court.

[VoltySquirrel]

A while back, the Supreme Court heard the case of Schwarzenegger v. EMA. The case was about a controversial bill that would have made selling violent video games significantly more difficult in the state of California by making games meet an arbitrary set of guidelines to make sure this game wasn't going to promote "deviancy". The bill was struck down in every lower court, and thankfully, the same thing happened yesterday in the Supreme Court. In a 7-2 majority, the bill was ruled as unconstitutional. Of course, the senator who proposed the bill, Leland Yee, was not happy and tried to blame it on the Supreme Court protecting the intersts of Wal-Mart and EA.
For those interested, here is the full transcript of the hearing that happened back in November: http://gamepolitics.com/2010/11/02/schwarzenegger-v-ema-scotus-transcript

[Techercizer]

Saw this on /.; good stuff.

[Echoplex]

I agree with the Senator, the ruling has much more to do with selling as many copies of MW3 as possible to California's youth than it does about protecting free speech Good either way though

[Nikki Wolf]

I'm glad this proposed law was struck down. If it went into effect, other states would propose their own laws that could be more restrictive, and there would also be laws proposed to even censor content. (basically, messing with art) With that kind of BS, the gaming industry in the US would be wrecked.

[VoltySquirrel]

I agree with the Senator, the ruling has much more to do with selling as many copies of MW3 as possible to California's youth than it does about protecting free speech Good either way though

Trust me, it would not have been good. You see, this labeling would have been severely hurt the game industry as a whole, not just MW3. You see, this sticker would hurt game sales on games with content the board would find deviant. Because of this, publishers would be less inclined to take a risk and would instead go with the sure thing. So, unstoppable games like MW3 would be unaffected because people are going to buy it anyway. However, something like say, Metro 2033 or Witcher 2, with about the same amount of violent content (and the nudity in Witcher) would possibly be denied being published. So yes, this bill would possibly hurt a game designers 1st amendment rights, because their form of expression would be impeded, because their game might get crappy sales in America's most populated state. At the very least, the game wouldn't be sold in CA, which still would suck. This was not about MW3 or Activision's greed.

[Spyder]

I fucking can't stand it when people (specifically parents) say that violence stems from videos.

40-50 years ago blacks were being lynched just because of the skin of their color. Why don't you stop blaming your ineptitude as parents on video games, take responsibility and stop having the government "ban" something you don't like?

[HibiscusKazeneko]

This isn't the first time legislature has tried to impose restrictions on the video game industry. Anyone remember Jack Thompson? He tried to blame Columbine on violent video games and later threw a giant hissyfit after the Hot Coffee Easter egg was found in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.
Senator Yee's claim that the Supreme Court was only trying to protect Walmart is beyond bogus: Walmart refuses to sell games rated higher than T. (It should also be noted that the ESRB was not voluntarily formed: after a series of Senate hearings in 1992-1993, the federal government threatened to impose a mandatory rating system if the industry didn't do so by itself.)

I fucking can't stand it when people (specifically parents) say that violence stems from videos.

This same argument has been used across multiple generations and multiple media: first people were upset over violent or obscene books, magazines and other printed material, later films, then radio, then television, then video games and finally the Internet. Once they're done whining about one thing, they'll always find something else.

40-50 years ago blacks were being lynched just because of the skin of their color. Why don't you stop blaming your ineptitude as parents on video games, take responsibility and stop having the government "ban" something you don't like?

I think you mean "color of their skin."
But you do bring up another point: a lot of this has to do with public morals and standards of decency. Recently the Australian government (surprise surprise ) pulled and banned the 3DS game Dead or Alive: Dimensions because it features underage characters whose models can be viewed from angles that show certain parts of their bodies with no or inadequate clothing. Back in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, blacks (or whatever, I'm not going to waste character space trying to be PC all the time) were believed to be a threat to public morals, so they were lynched if anyone even suspected that they committed a crime (the most common accusation being raping a white woman). Nowadays this line of thinking manifests itself in the form of laws like this one that just got shot down. It is true that parents have the responsibility of looking out for their children and screening for content that they find objectionable, but in cases like these so many people hold the same opinion of what's objectionable that local, state and federal governments make laws outlawing that sort of content.

[VoltySquirrel]

Not to nitpick, but Wal-Mart does sell M rated games. The only rating they don't carry is AO, but nobody does.

[Smeemo]

I was listening to the Supreme Court arguments on C-SPAN (ohhhhhh, C-SPAN *shudders with desire*), and it sounded like the claimant couldn't prove that violent video games actually have any noticeable effect on children. There was one study they kept citing, but it only showed that 16-yr-olds could usually buy an M-rated game with little resistance.

I remember when Resident Evil 2 came out (I was 11 or 12), my four-years-younger sister would watch me play it. Minus a couple tiny murder-sprees ( ), I consider myself to have been unaffected, but my sister kept drawing these horrific scenes of people dying in brutal ways. My parents prohibited her from watching me shoot zombies, and she stopped obsessing over violent death. Anyway, I'm glad at least in this area the court doesn't believe there's a legal substitute for good parenting.

[HibiscusKazeneko]

Not to nitpick, but Wal-Mart does sell M rated games. The only rating they don't carry is AO, but nobody does.

Not to my knowledge. I remember they changed it after the Hot Coffee incident. (They may have reverted it since.)

[VoltySquirrel]

Not to nitpick, but Wal-Mart does sell M rated games. The only rating they don't carry is AO, but nobody does.

Not to my knowledge. I remember they changed it after the Hot Coffee incident. (They may have reverted it since.)

Trust me, it would cost Wal-Mart too much money to not carry M rated games. Besides, I've bought M rated games there.

[HibiscusKazeneko]

Not to nitpick, but Wal-Mart does sell M rated games. The only rating they don't carry is AO, but nobody does.

Not to my knowledge. I remember they changed it after the Hot Coffee incident. (They may have reverted it since.)

Trust me, it would cost Wal-Mart too much money to not carry M rated games. Besides, I've bought M rated games there.

They still refuse to sell anything higher than a T around here.

[Spyder]

I think you mean "color of their skin."

That's what I get for trying to make a poignant statement with only 2 hours of sleep. :>