While the Supreme Court has until June of next year to issue a verdict on the case of Swartzenegger vs. the Entertainment Merchants Association, early quotes from Justices seem to indicate a favor towards the EMA. With opening its doors to oral arguments only two days ago, a leaked conversation between California’s Attorney General Zackery Morazzimi and Justice Antonin Scalia speaks volumes of the current climate within the Court.
Morazzimi summarized the plantiff’s position stating that federal restrictions on minors are necessary due to a “deviant level of violence that is presented in a certain of category of video games.”
Justice Scalia reportedly interrupted the Attorney General at this point to argue, “You are asking us to create a whole new prohibition… what’s next after violence? Drinking? Movies that show drinking? Smoking?” The Justice also referenced the violence contained within Grimm’s Fairy Tales as comparative to that within video games.
How does this development change your prediction of the case’s outcome, E-Gs? Let us know below!
Well I read the entire document covering the hearing, and that checked in at 59 pages of 72 (the last pages are legal notation on key words used during the hearing). It was an interesting read. The Supreme Court really pressured California’s arguments on grounds of censorship, and what deviant really mean (both things the California argument didn’t answer). On the game defense side, the point was made that adults are doing 90% or the game buying, and most “minors” doing the game purchases are between 15-17 as they are the ones that have spending money. Also Parents should regulate what games are played in their house, and the government has no basis on banning the sale of violent game. Another point was that if the law went into effect, developers would have a hard time in figuring out how and what type of violence is appropriate for their game, basically needing to have the government step in and tell them what they can put in (also the law would penalize the developers with a $1000 fine per physical copy of the game that is found to be overly deviant).
Blah, blah, blah. Long story short, Parents should parent, government shouldn’t tell people what to do, and there is equal amounts of violence in TV, books, movies, etc, and even real life, so why are games any different.
Oh, and here is the entire transcription of the hearing so everyone can read it for themselves, as it is a very interesting read that every gamer should read.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/40744855/Schwarzenegger-v-EMA