The Supreme Court Decision on Violent Video Game Law
June 27, 2011 02:46 PM
As you can see here, the California law that would have restricted the sale of violent video games (defined as any that allows the player the choice to kill, maim, dismember, or sexually assault an image of a human being) to children, and would require that these games have a label on them specifying that the game is a violent video game. I personally was not surprised by this law being struck down (it does seem to be an infringement on free speech) but, do believe that it isn't entirely unreasonable. I am more curious to here what your thoughts are on this new development (both inside and outside of the industry).
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2,682
June 27, 2011 03:06 PM
So the law would be to have a label on the games? Sounds a bit pointless to me, like a label is gonna do anything. No wonder it was struck down.
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June 27, 2011 03:19 PM
Games like that already have a label on them....that is what the rating on the game box is for.
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June 27, 2011 03:24 PM
Children acquiring "bad" video games falls into one of two categories: kids getting ahold of stuff they're not supposed to, and kids getting presents from idiot parents.
Legislation cannot fix either.
Kids will always get ahold of stuff they aren't supposed to have; they've been doing it since the beginning of time, and that'll never change. Hell, half the fun of growing up is seeing what you can sneakily get away with
As for parents buying their kids the games... well, that's just stupidity on the parents' part, and you can't ban stupid. We'd lose the primary constituents of the country if we made being an idiot illegal.
Legislation cannot fix either.
Kids will always get ahold of stuff they aren't supposed to have; they've been doing it since the beginning of time, and that'll never change. Hell, half the fun of growing up is seeing what you can sneakily get away with
As for parents buying their kids the games... well, that's just stupidity on the parents' part, and you can't ban stupid. We'd lose the primary constituents of the country if we made being an idiot illegal.
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June 27, 2011 03:41 PM
I can't imagine the government could do anything more sensible than what retail stores and the industry have already done.
A voluntary rating system, and not allowing minors to purchase mature games.
I get the feeling that people are too lazy to be parents so they hope the government will do it for them. That's not going to work...
A voluntary rating system, and not allowing minors to purchase mature games.
I get the feeling that people are too lazy to be parents so they hope the government will do it for them. That's not going to work...
June 27, 2011 04:46 PM
Out of curiosity, has anyone proved that violent video games have an impact on psychology? I've seen arguments from both sides......
No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!
103
June 27, 2011 05:02 PM
Out of curiosity, has anyone proved that violent video games have an impact on psychology? I've seen arguments from both sides......
The thing with proof is that depending on how you look for it you can always prove what you want to prove. Philosophically speaking I believe we humans are incapable of true objective proof. There's always an angle we are trying to accomplish with said proof and as such I believe we will always skew results, even if unintentionally, in favor of what we are trying to accomplish. In the end, que sera, sera.
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619
June 27, 2011 05:20 PM
Out of curiosity, has anyone proved that violent video games have an impact on psychology? I've seen arguments from both sides......
A few weeks ago I believe it was I saw in the news a study that showed that some users of violent video games had very little change in brain activity that was being monitored compared to a football game (FIFA) which had a few massive spikes.
June 27, 2011 05:46 PM
Having followed the court case carefully and having read all the ruling all the way through, I agree with the court on this one, and I am not surprised.
The state was claiming they were doing this for the children. Think of the children.
The lowest court discounted the argument for several reasons. Among them was that they were singling out video games. Another was that they were creating a new class of unprotected speech. They said the law was unconstitutional.
The appeal's court agreed, and said the law was unconstitutional.
Finally the SCOTUS heard it, and they also agreed that it was unconstitutional.
They have two points in their argument. The first is that this is communicative speech, which is protected. The second is that they are singling out the one industry. Here's one quote:
The state was claiming they were doing this for the children. Think of the children.
The lowest court discounted the argument for several reasons. Among them was that they were singling out video games. Another was that they were creating a new class of unprotected speech. They said the law was unconstitutional.
The appeal's court agreed, and said the law was unconstitutional.
Finally the SCOTUS heard it, and they also agreed that it was unconstitutional.
They have two points in their argument. The first is that this is communicative speech, which is protected. The second is that they are singling out the one industry. Here's one quote:
Since California has declined to restrict those other media, e.g., Saturday morning cartoons, its video-game regulation is wildly underinclusive, raising serious doubts about whether the State is pursuing the interest it invokes or is instead disfavoring a particular speaker or viewpoint. ... The video-game industry’s voluntary rating system already accomplishes [parental controls] to a large extent. [/quote]
California only restricted the sale and rental of games. If they were really trying to protect the children, they should have implemented the law against all media: movie tickets, DVD sales and rental, obscene music, and more. When they were passing the law their own entertainment industries worked hard to keep it from regulating them. The double-standard was the second half of the reason for throwing it out.
If they had done this as a broad all-media restriction, they would have had a much stronger court case. However, they would have also had a weaker case for the first prong of their free speech protection.
If the were serious about it they would have, and should have (as discussed many times before) had an all-inclusive restriction against extreme levels of violence. The bar for limiting the sale would need to be extremely high given the huge body of existing work, but they could do it. They could probably institute such a restriction if it were carefully crafted across all media and focused on material that is primarily focused on gratuitous violence with no other message or communicative intent, and the court opinion still left room for such a restriction, but I doubt any state will attempt it. It would restrict such a minuscule number of works that they would have difficulty showing a compelling need. The court stated that even though the extremely violent games were offensive to most reasonable people, they still had communicative aspects.
Even the dissenting opinions said that it was the parent's job to protect the children, not the state's.
June 27, 2011 08:21 PM
I find it a bit amusing (still) that Arnold Scharzenneger was the guy who signed this law, considering that he's got a good amount of violent movies.....ironic, yes?
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