Supreme Court strikes down video game law on first amendment grounds

The Supreme Court has rejected a California law that sought to control the …

Ben Kuchera – Jun 27, 2011 1:53 PM | 190

The Supreme Court of the United States has finally released its decision in the case of Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, which asked whether "a state law restricting the sale of violent video games to minors violates the First Amendment right to free speech," according to the ruling (PDF). The answer is a resounding "yes," with the court finding there is no compelling evidence to state that video games are more damaging to children than other forms of media.

This is a large step for video games, and should stop the spread of unconstitutional, expensive legislation from spreading on the state level.

Video games are expression

"Video games qualify for First Amendment protection. Like protected books, plays, and movies, they communicate ideas through familiar literary devices and features distinctive to the medium," the 7-2 decision stated.

The court also cast doubt on the belief that games are more harmful to children than other forms of media, such as film or music. "California’s claim that 'interactive' video games present special problems, in that the player participates in the violent action on screen and determines its out-come, is unpersuasive."

The opinion, written by Justice Scalia, goes out of its way to reject California's arguments that video games threaten our children, and require legal intervention at the retail level.

Psychological studies purporting to show a connection between exposure to violent video games and harmful effects on children do not prove that such exposure causes minors to act aggressively. Any demonstrated effects are both small and indistinguishable from effects produced by other media. 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 law, as it was written, was bound to fail. Every previous state law that tried to enact some sort of ban has been struck down as unconstitutional. California's law sought to control the sale of games with "deviant violence" to children, but lacked a clear definition of what deviant violence would entail.

While the California law would have added an exception to the first amendment to exclude certain content from protection, in essence saying that video games were not speech, the Supreme Court has decided that video games are in fact expression, and are afforded the same rights and protections as every other art form sold to consumers.

With a decision this clear, we've hopefully seen the last of state laws attempting to regulate the sale of video games to minors.