Supreme Court rules that video games are Constitutionally protected expression

F1nut wrote: »

All video games should be banned. Complete waste of time and money....there, I said it.

Yeah, you're right. Total waste of time and money. But let's not stop there, man... Let's ban movies while we're at it. After all, our kids see them, and they have the same type of violence in them. Oh, and while we're at it, television has violence and adult themes, so let's ban that just in case parents aren't monitoring their kids at home. Wait, remember that book Dante's Inferno? Full of gore! Let's gather 'em all up and start big ole bonfire! You know... LIKE HITLER.

I know I'm illustrating through exaggeration here, but this California law would have created an undefined censorship board that would have superseded the ESRB ratings system that's already in place... because the standards to define violent games would have been different for California. Then, when faced with the prospect of possible fines, retailers in California would stop carrying any mature games or worse, game companies would have to produce modified versions of games the way they often have to for Germany and Australia. And then if that law takes hold across other states, each with their own censorship board, it creates an environment where it's no longer profitable for game companies to produce mature-rated games. That's right... No more Call Of Duty... No more Bioshock... No more of any of the games that ADULTS love to play. And let's be clear here: The average gamer is in his 30s... not in their teens. This law would have had massive repercussions on the industry as a whole... much in the same way that similar laws against the movie industry in the past would have prevented movies like Saving Private Ryan from ever being made, not through legislation but through risk of prosecution. That is NOT freedom of speech and is unacceptable.

What BIZILL said shows the fundamental misunderstanding of what this law was. This doesn't give kids the freedom to buy mature-rated games. What it does is give the industry (and retailers) the ability to police itself without government intervention. And as the Federal Trade Commission (and this decision) noted, the ESRB's ratings system is the most successful at keeping mature content out of children's hands across all forms of media. Outside of the sensationalist outcry you have when parents foolishly try to vilify video games (Because we all know Columbine happened because of Doom, right? Or BICYCLES, which just as many kids played with. Or maybe those parents should have been involved enough with their kids to know they were building bombs in the garage. Just sayin'.), this was a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. Statistics show that violence has actually gone DOWN during this period where more violent games like the GTA or Call Of Duty series have been so popular.

So despite all of those facts pointing to there not being a problem, why did this legislation ever come to light in the first place? Because Leland Yee had an agenda. It was an agenda that he has had for years, and one that he used to further his career by pandering to scared parents who don't understand this new medium... any more than scared parents understood Elvis... or heavy metal... or comic books (which also faced similar legislation during their rise, FYI). And who did he get to back him? ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER... who in the medium of movies has created some of the most violent entertainment in history. Hypocrisy? I think so.

So what changes because of this decision? Here's the fact: NOTHING. The ESRB still has their ratings system in place. Gamestop employees can still be fired for selling a M-rated game to a kid, as a matter of company policy, not government policy. The industry will still continue to police itself and parents are still given more-than-adequate information to judge for themselves what their children can and can't play in their homes. The only thing that changes is that the government can't stick their nose in and create a bureaucratic board of censorship wherein THEY decide what should and shouldn't be acceptable for your kids.