Court in California in favour of gaming community over violent video games law
The legal battle over the sale of violent video games to children has finally come to an end with the defence – the Entertainment Merchants Association aka the good guys, if you are a gamer – getting a favourable ruling.
The battle had been on-going for quite some time before the Supreme Court in California opted to go in favour of the gaming community. The case had originally been between Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor of California - though he is more famously known
for being a cyborg sent back in time to protect the future of the human race - and the aforementioned, Entertainment Merchants Association.
Schwarzenegger was later replaced by Brown as the prosecuting party, as they sought to make the rental or sale of violent video games to children illegal. The catch was the definition, prosecution defined as ‘violent video games’, and they sure did sound
convincing with their case, at least initially.
According to them, violence covered "killing, maiming, dismembering, or sexually assaulting an image of a human being." The law, if passed, would impose a $1000 fine on any retailer who sold the game to players under the age of 18, which would have become
the ESRB’s (Entertainment Software Rating Board) minimum age.
While videogames and violence have become almost synonymous with each other, with games like Grand Theft Auto, the Call of Duty series and Gears of War games, among a host of others, they already have ‘M’ (mature) or ‘R’ (restricted) rating. This already
put them out of the reach of children under the specific age.
Other games that represented light cartoon violence, would also have fallen under the ‘violent video game’ category, although one can be sure the ‘18’ rating would not have been applied to them as strictly as they would to, say, Manhunt or GTA.
While this is certainly not the end of this debate, it is the end of a major chapter in the story. However, one can rest assured the battle between video games and society will continue.
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