Supreme Court Rules on Games, Strikes Down California Law

In a 7-2 decision earlier today, the United States Supreme Court has decided to uphold the Constitutional rights of video games.

The Supreme Court has struck down the 2005 California law that would have made selling or renting violent video games to minors illegal. This would have essentially put video games into the same category as pornography.

Justice Scalia wrote the court opinion. Justices Kennedy, Sotomayor, Ginsburg, Kagan and Roberts all agreed. Justices Breyer and Thomas were the two whom filed the dissenting opinions.

"The Act does not comport with the First Amendment," reads the decision. "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. And the basic principles of freedom of speech...do not vary with a new and different communication medium."

Since the courts had not blocked violent content in other mediums, the state of California was unable to prove that the interactive nature of video games were different than music, movies, or televison. The court was also not persuaded by the provided evidence regarding the psychological impact of games.

"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," said the court. "Any demonstrated effects are both small and indistinguishable from effects produced by other media."

The court agreed that the video game industry's self-regulatory board, the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB), did a fine job, and that the government doesn't need to get involved.

"Banning violent games would have necessitated bans elsewhere," argued the court. "California’s argument would fare better if there were a longstanding tradition in this country of specially restricting children’s access to depictions of violence, but there is none. Certainly the books we give children to read--or read to them when they are younger--contain no shortage of gore."

In a flat out hilarious way of arguing the interactive nature of the medium, the court pointed out that choose-your-own adventure books have already been providing interactivity to media.

There were even points where the court seems to mock California's law. Arguing that if video games were such a harmful entity, then Calfornia would be going further to prevent their use in society at all.

"The Act is also seriously underinclusive in another respect--and a respect that renders irrelevant the contentions of the concurrence and the dissents that video games are qualitatively different from other portrayals of violence. The California Legislature is perfectly willing to leave this dangerous, mind-altering material in the hands of children so long as one parent (or even an aunt or uncle) says it’s OK. And there are not even any requirements as to how this parental or avuncular relationship is to be verified; apparently the child’s or putative parent’s, aunt’s, or uncle’s say-so suffices. That is not how one addresses a serious social problem."

That became a half of the court's real problem with the proposal. If video games were truly that harmful, then the proposed law doesn't go far enough. Not including other media in the proposal combined with the possible infringements on the First Amendment, the court had no choice but to strike it down.

"The overbreadth in achieving one goal is not cured by the underbreadth in achieving the other," the court concluded. "Legislation such as this, which is neither fish nor fowl, cannot survive strict scrutiny."

Justice Alito however voiced some disagreement, wondering why the court would be so quick to grant new forms of media the same protections as old forms.

"We should make every effort to understand the new technology," said Alito. We should take into account the possibility that developing technology may have important societal implications that will become apparent only with time. We should not jump to the conclusion that new technology is fundamentally the same as some older thing with which we are familiar. [...] There are reasons to suspect that the experience of playing violent video games just might be very different from reading a book, listening to the radio, or watching a movie or a television show."

Alito even left an opportunity for future challenges.

"I would hold only that the particular law at issue here fails to provide the clear notice that the Constitution requires," says Alito. "I would not squelch legislative efforts to deal with what is perceived by some to be a significant and developing social problem. If differently framed statutes are enacted by the States or by the Federal Government, we can consider the constitutionality of those laws when cases challenging them are presented to us."

Alito sided with the majority (though he had critiques), Justice Breyer and Justice Thomas were the opposing votes. Thomas argued that children require special treatment, he went on for several pages going throught the history of the country's views on raising children. Thomas believed that the law hardly infringed on the First Amendment.

"All that the law does is prohibit the direct sale or rental of a violent video game to a minor by someone other than the minor’s parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, or legal guardian," said Thomas. "Where a minor has a parent or guardian, as is usually true, the law does not prevent that minor from obtaining a violent video game with his parent’s or guardian’s help. In the typical case, the only speech affected is speech that bypasses a minor’s parent or guardian. Because such speech does not fall within 'the freedom of speech' as originally understood, California’s law does not ordinarily implicate the First Amendment and is not facially unconstitutional."

Justice Breyer's dissent focused more on the negative psychological impacts of video games, citing numerous studies. In the majority opinion, the court rejected these claims.

"This case is ultimately less about censorship than it is about education," wrote Breyer. "Our Constitution cannot succeed in securing the liberties it seeks to protect unless we can raise future generations committed cooperatively to mak­ing our system of government work. Education, however, is about choices. Sometimes, children need to learn by making choices for themselves. Other times, choices are made for children--by their parents, by their teachers, and by the people acting democratically through their governments. In my view, the First Amendment does not disable government from helping parents make such a choice here--a choice not to have their children buy ex­tremely violent, interactive video games, which they more than reasonably fear pose only the risk of harm to those children."

For the time being, video games are protected speech, which is a major victory for the medium.

That's good enough for me.

You can read the entire court opinion here.