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Eleven States Join To Support California Game Legislation In Supreme Court by Chris Remo 17 comments Share
July 19, 2010
null Eleven U.S. state attorneys general have banded together to support the California law that restricts the sale of violent video games to minors, which was struck down by an appeals court but will be reconsidered by the Supreme Court of the United States. An amicus brief obtained by Gamasutra was filed today by the attorneys general of Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Texas, and Virginia. The brief is comprised of arguments to the Supreme Court that the states hope will inform its upcoming decision. According to those officials, their states are "vitally interested in protecting the welfare of children and in helping parents raise them," but believe that the decision of the appeals court to strike down the law "unreasonably restricts their authority to do that." They claim that it is "consistent with the First Amendment and this Court’s longstanding precedents" that laws can constitutionally "prevent minors from buying or renting without parental approval a defined class of video games which invite players to commit digital homicide, torture, and rape." Similar laws have been struck down numerous times on constitutional grounds. In addition to his participation as an amicus curae, Connecticut attorney general Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), who hopes to move to the U.S. senate after this year's midterm elections, issued a press release explaining his state's involvement. "Protecting children from digital danger requires proactive parents -- but they need and deserve help," Blumenthal said. "The video game industry should act responsibly -- play nice, not nasty -- and agree to sensible self-imposed restrictions that block children from buying the most violent games. I am calling on the video game industry to follow the leadership of the motion picture industry, which sensibly stops unattended children from viewing violent or graphic movies." In fact, the video game industry already maintains "self-imposed restrictions" in the form of the Electronic Software Ratings Board, which was recently praised by the Federal Trade Commission. According to the FTC, the "video game industry outpaces the movie and music industries" when it comes to "restricting target-marketing of mature-rated products to children, clearly and prominently disclosing rating information, and restricting children's access to mature-rated products at retail."

It's amazing how they can just hop on a bandwagon and know nothing about what they're talking, wave their hands, mention the children, and get support.

Words can't really describe my feelings, but a massive picture sure can.

That is absolutely silly.

Parents need to learn how to handle their damn kids themselves.  It is their jobs to tell their kids what is right and what is wrong and not the fucking governments.

I would like to congratulate my state for not being absolutely retarded (at least not yet).  Good Job NC, good job.

People need to stop looking to the government to parent their kids and run their lives. If you don't want your kid playing violent games pay attention to what they play and buy, and take care of the situation. The more government steps in the worse parenting seems to get.

Damn it Minnesota!

i hate people , but they make me laugh.

I don't understand this anyways. When I ring up someone up at a register it asks if they are 17 to buy Red Dead Redemption - I card them and if they are under 17 I won't let them buy it. So what happens? They get their parents to buy the game, and if they mature/responsible/parent doesn't give a rat's ass they come back and buy the game with said parent. What will this law do?

Why are people so retarded?

Yeah, I hear countless stories from people that work at Best Buy, Walmart, Gamestop, etc where a kid tries to buy an M rated game, the clerk says no, and then the mom pops in while on the cell phone for two seconds to tell the clerk to just sell it to him without having a clue what it is.  I've even heard a good number of stories where the parent got mad that a clerk wouldn't sell an M rated game to someone obviously too young.

The rating isn't really the problem, it's very much just parents not paying attention.  For parents that actually care to take interest in what their kids are doing, they would know there are very clear ratings detailing exactly what the game contains right on the box and very good parental controls on every console.

Digital Rape? Does any video-game actually feature that (outside of erogames and the like)?

Anyway, i find that an interesting cross-section of states. Rarely will you see California, Minnesota, Texas, Virginia, Michigan, and Mississippi come together for something like this.