Supreme Court to Decide Upon Status of Video Games as Free Speech

[Gwynplaine]

From the Entertainment Consumers Association website:

The Supreme Court of the United States has agreed to hear the State of California’s infamous ‘violent video game case,’ Schwarzenegger v. EMA. That means that this year, or early next, the Court is going to decide whether to agree with the lower federal courts or not. Agreeing would mean that they believe that video games are, and should continue to be, First Amendment protected speech; just like books, movies and music. The court disagreeing would mean that they think video games should be treated differently. This could lead to new bills and laws curtailing video game access in states across the country.

And Gene Hoffman considers one possible consequence for the decision upon what he calls the "freemium" (games offered for free) model.

In short, the freemium model requires unfettered initial access to the game by millions. The only sure way to prevent minors from accessing forbidden games online is to require a credit card validation up front. But that’s also a big deterrent for many adults: virtually no one who uses the Internet believes that giving a card number to a game maker would not eventually result in a charge to that card. Destroying the frictionless access that adults have to free-to-play games that might be considered violent would drastically decrease innovation in the online games world, as the base of potential users would no longer be large enough to convince developers to take the risk on new games.

The important issue of course is free speech as such.

this is a huge deal regarding the principle of free speech and new mediums--setting a dangerous precedent if they decide that free speech rights apply only narrowly to a defined set of mediums (such as books and films), versus applying universally, as a principle, to all speech over all mediums (new or not yet invented). Insert bit about slippery slope here.

[Feedmenow]

I don't see how they'll do anything but agree.

[Mizango]

I read that entire second paragraph as Gene Hackman's character "Brill" would from Enemy of the state. Then I realized it said Gene Hoffman and was disappointed.

[Syntex]

I don't see why we can't agree if a game is violent that you don't let people under 18 buy it and if somehow they are getting their hands on it without someone checking their ID at some point that maybe we should take another look at how its distributed.

[mxm]

Countries such as australia have been banning over 18 games for years. Apparently they don't believe adults play games.

[Shuvo]

Countries such as australia have been banning over 18 games for years. Apparently they don't believe adults play games.

Not banning outright, more like they are forcing the developers to censor out extreme violence etc until they can be sold in Australia. Not that I'm defending them. I can't wait till all these old white men in parliament (who probably still have loyalty to the queen of england) to go die of old age and let the generation X/Y take over -_-

[*Shinzon*]

One problem that makes this kind of interesting is that, for years the ESRB has outright said that the rating system alone does not prevent the sale of violent games or 18+ games to minors. That the distributors do not enforce rating restrictions, or parents buy the games for kids which is completely out of the ESRB's hands. Stores argue that if the government forces them to ID check every 18+ game sold, the store then becomes directly liable for any incident that the particular game gets blamed for and the stores can get sued or be criminally liable. Nothing is really going to ever get done until they can figure out a way to balance liability in the US at least.

It's unlikely that Arnolds case is going to do much, but there was a post on Kotaku actually a couple of days, maybe a week ago, that outlined the potential massive problem of that case setting a precedent because it would not be limited to just video games and could just a stepping stone on infringing many other aspects of the Free Speech doctrine.

[Sylvrdragon]

Wait, which side of the argument is the Governator on?

[Silenka]

Oh good first they're after our internets and now they're after our games. Clearly old people just hate the new generation and want us to suffer as much as possible before we take the reins. Passing down the tradition of cynicism.

[Stumblingdrunk]

Not trolling, what about video games is speech? I'd like to see how the hell the lower courts decided that

[Yugl]

Oh good first they're after our internets and now they're after our games. Clearly old people just hate the new generation and want us to suffer as much as possible before we take the reins. Passing down the tradition of cynicism.

It's probably the same type of gripe that you inflict on facebook.

[alexisamonster]

Not trolling, what about video games is speech? I'd like to see how the hell the lower courts decided that

freedom of speech doesn't necessarily mean only speech, it's more about the freedom to express yourself whether it be speech, writing, art, ect. ect.

[Stumblingdrunk]

i am aware of what speech is, and while it is unarguable that they can be art in regards to creativity, i'm having trouble accepting them as an expressive form
of speech

[Kuya]

i am aware of what speech is, and while it is unarguable that they can be art in regards to creativity, i'm having trouble accepting them as an expressive form
of speech

Videogames can be used by their authors to present arguments and worldviews to their customers/players.

[Plow]

If people were going to care about shit like this they should have started with cigarettes, alcohol, and titties.

As usual, they came for blah blah, now it's too late.