I was forbidden from playing "Doom" when I was a kid, and its tame compared to what parents these days let their children play.
Proponents of free speech, artistic expression and the video game industry at large celebrated today when the Supreme Court struck down California’s proposed law against violent video games in a 7-2 vote.
I wrote about this case in some length last year, when it was first going before the Court. I stand by everything I said then, and thankfully, the majority of the justices seem to agree.
You can read the entire decision, as well as the dissenting opinions (from Justices Breyer and Thomas) here. Or, if legalese scares you and you’re terrified of large PDFs, Giant Bomb’s Patrick Klepek has a pretty good write-up of the highlights.
But the most important things to note, in my opinion, are these: Games were defended as artistic expression the same way that books and movies are, and the Court was far from convinced that the interactive nature of video games make them any more harmful to children then other forms of media. The decision doesn’t seem to pull punches in calling many aspects of California’s proposed law stupid and pointless (my words, not theirs).
