#violent videogames

It's for an english essay. It's about violent video games.

It's really easy to push someone down the stairs

it is also quite easy to pull a trigger in my dreams

or cave a skull in with a wrench, or throw a body down and knee their spine until they apologize for bleeding

I was just abusing the absolute shit out of.. out of pretty much everyone, actually. dream me is a really bad person. What is up with that? Who the hell sets your house on fire after murdering your spouse in front of your incapacitated body for making a snide joke about metal music? varg?

And I woke up and the feeling I had was like that burnout you get after an adrenaline rush and it just felt like total shit, fuck that.

Pretty sure I haven't even seen/read anything violent aside from the news in months where did my brain get the fuel for that shit fro--

oh wait--

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/01/09/lets-talk-about-violent-video-games

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/10137-Hitting-Is-Natural-Play

After nearly eight months, the videogame industry can breathe a collective sigh of relief as the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) handed down their decision in the violent videogames case, Brown v. EMA. By a vote of 7-2, the California law, which imposed a $1000 fine on vendors caught selling or renting violent videogames to minors, was ruled unconstitutional due to the fact that it did not comport with the First Amendment. So, how did it all go down and what does this mean for the future of the gaming industry? Let's hash it out.

The opinion of the Court, delivered Monday, was written by Justice Antonin Scalia with support from Justices Ginsburg, Kagan, Kennedy, and Sotomayor. Justice Samuel Alito filed a concurring opinion along with Chief Justice Roberts while two dissenting opinions were offered by Justices Breyer and Thomas.

In the Court's opinion, Scalia makes the most important declaration:

"Video games qualify for First Amendment protection. Like protected books, plays, and movies, they communicate ideas through familiar literary devices and features distinctive to the medium. And "the basic principles of freedom of speech[...]do not vary" with a new and different communication medium."

This is an important distinction as one of the key arguments of California's case was that videogames are such a new and distinct medium that they might not be protected equally. While Justice Alito filed a concurring opinion, he cautioned that the Court might be too quick to rule out the possibility that videogames, or other new technologies, may need to be considered differently.

"In considering the application of unchanging constitutional principles to new and rapidly evolving technology, this Court should proceed with caution," offered Alito in his concurring opinion. "We should make every effort to understand the new technology. We should not jump to the conclusion that new technology is fundamentally the same as some older thing with which we are familiar."

Although he brings up a worthy point for discussion, videogames, as we currently understand them, are not fundamentally different from the older forms of media that are currently protected under the First Amendment. However, it's impossible to predict what form expressive speech might take as technology progresses and Alito's words could one day be prophetic.

One aspect of the SCOTUS decision that I find most intriguing is that both sides of the opinion seem to agree that California lost this case because the law that they were pushing was poorly written and not necessarily because their argument was without merit. In the Court's decision, Scalia comments on the fact that one major problem with the law was that it was not all-inclusive for minors.

"The California Legislature is perfectly willing to leave this dangerous, mind-altering material in the hands of children so long as one parent (or even an aunt or uncle) says it's OK[...]That is not how one addresses a serious social problem."

On the other end of the spectrum, in his concurring opinion, Alito took issue with the vagueness of some of the wording in the law.

"In drafting the violent video game law, the California Legislature could have made its own judgment regarding the kind and degree of violence that is acceptable in games played by minors (or by minors in  particular  age  groups). Instead,  the  legislature relied on undefined societal or community standards."

The big issue being pointed out here is that social standards that are used to determine obscenity were well established at the time of previous Supreme Court rulings. There was a publicly accepted standard of what was obscene, depictions of genitalia or sexual acts, when those landmark decisions were handed down. However, in this case, a social standard is unacceptable because there is no commonly agreed upon limit for what is "too violent." One needs to only watch the local nightly news to see depictions of gross violence to include beatings and murder or, as was pointed out by Scalia, to read a children's book such as Hansel and Gretel in which the protagonists kill the witch by burning her alive in an oven.

So, if the California law wasn't terribly far off-base in the eyes of the Court and was overturned mainly because of poor wording, does that mean that a more properly scripted bill could one day restrict the sale of violent videogames to minors? That is certainly a possibility but to achieve that goal would require a long, difficult battle. It took eight years from the time the original legislation was enacted until the SCOTUS decision was handed down. Future bills could be expected to take a similar lengthy traversal of the United States legal system. Also, just because one violent videogame law was agreed to be heard before the SCOTUS doesn't guarantee that any future legislation will receive the same privilege. The fact that a precedent has now been established providing videogames protection under the First Amendment means that future laws will have a far more difficult time achieving similar restrictions.

This was a huge win for the entire industry. Had this law been upheld it could have had a massive effect on the types of content that videogame publishers would have been willing to back financially. Now, without the fear of restriction, game developers are free to carry on designing the innovative products that we all know and love.

While many gamers and members of the enthusiast press were thrilled to hear the good news, others were less enthusiastic which I find puzzling. A statement that I saw echoed multiple times throughout the day after the decision came through was that the videogame industry now needs to step it up to justify the ruling. To me, this was a curious reaction and I'm willing to bet that those same people would have been crying in their Corn Flakes had the case gone the other way. I certainly won't argue that the gaming industry can't improve. However, I don't think developers need to validate the decision at all.

This case was about First Amendment rights, which protect the freedom of expressive speech, and not about the artistic integrity of videogames. In fact, the Court's decision does not come close at any point to having a discussion on the artistic merit of videogames. What they did say is that games are due the same rights as books and movies. As is true with other forms of "artistic" media, there are the great, the good, and the absolutely terrible creations. For every East of Eden there are 50 teen vampire novels. For every Mona Lisa there is an endless quantity of bad Photoshop art. Great videogames that have high artistic merit will continue to be the exception, not the norm, and there is nothing wrong with that. The fact that the industry now has the capability to continue progressing, without restriction, is worth celebrating for at least one day.

I wrote this awhile ago but thought it would be worth posting again here with the Supreme Court decision expected to be handed down in the very near future. This article was originally published at Game Podunk.

On Tuesday, November 2, 2010, the United States Supreme Court (SCOTUS) heard oral arguments for Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor of California v. Electronic Merchants Association (EMA). This is an important case for the videogame industry that could have far-reaching ramifications. SCOTUS makes available on their website the transcripts for all oral arguments so I was able to review the 59 pages of back-and-forth dialogue between the lawyers and Supreme Court Justices in a hearing that was both enlightening and entertaining at times (full transcript). The following is a look at the arguments that were presented by each side as well as some discussion on the implications and possible outcome of the case.

Background Information and Why This Matters to You It is important, first, to understand the overall picture of what is at stake here. A lot has been written in the videogames media about the background and importance of this issue so I'm going to quickly gloss over it. For a great read and more detailed look at why this is important, check out Jeff Green's editorial on the matter. The state of California created a law in 2005 that made it illegal for minors (persons under the age of 18) to purchase or rent "violent videogames." EMA filed a lawsuit and the statute was subsequently overturned on First Amendment grounds by the United States District Court in California, a decision later upheld upon appeal in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (source: videogamevoters.org). A California appeal of that decision has landed the case before SCOTUS, the highest court in the nation.

This case is important to the videogame industry for a number of reasons, principal among them being a decision on how the First Amendment applies to the still-young form of media. Books, movies, comics, and even music have had their day in court regarding the First Amendment and all have been given full protection with the exception of obscene material. If SCOTUS were to overturn the Appeals Court decision it would make videogames the first form of media to have exceptions to the First Amendment that fall outside the realm of obscenity. Rules of the Game: How SCOTUS Works in 100 Words Both sides file briefs with the court and if the decision is made to hear the case they get a limited amount of time to present their oral arguments. Justices are allowed to (and often do) intervene for questions at any time. When the time is up the Justices convene in private to discuss and vote on how to decide the case. The position that holds the majority of the nine members determines the decision. Decisions are handed down as written opinions many weeks or even months later and the opposing members may submit a dissenting opinion for the record. California's Arguments The crux of California's case is that there is precedent for their 2005 law in two previous SCOTUS cases: Ginsberg v. New York (1968) and Miller v. California (1973). Both of these cases dealt with obscene material of a sexual nature. Ginsberg specifically covered the distribution of such material to minors without the presence of a parent and the Miller case established a three-prong test to determine if material is obscene. The lawyer for California, Zackery P. Morazzini, began the hearing by arguing that the case in question is essentially identical to that of Ginsberg with the lone difference being the nature of the media, sexual material in that case and 'deviant violent videogames' in the present. This prompted a rather hilarious exchange with Justice Antonin Scalia that ended with the following zinger that is destined to go down in history or at the very least end up on a funny t-shirt somewhere: "Some of the Grimm's fairy tales are quite grim, to tell you the truth...Are they okay? Are you going to ban them, too?" Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg (unrelated to the aforementioned SCOTUS case) continued this line of questioning and struck at one of the core flaws of the California law, its vagueness, which could potentially allow for future restrictions to other forms of media such as movies and books. She asked Morazzini to explain why video games are special from other media. The California argument for this is that the interactive nature of videogames is harmful to the psyche of minors. In the briefs submitted to the court, both sides presented studies for the record that argue for and against this position, so the disputed nature of this claim is known. Justice Sonia Sotomayor seems to have a good grasp of this concept when she jabs at Morazzini, "One of the studies, the Anderson study, says that the effect of violence is the same for a Bugs Bunny episode as it is for a violent video[game]. So can the legislature now, because it has that study, say we can outlaw Bugs Bunny?" The California law is also not clear in its definition of the types of violence that would fall under the regulation. Members of the court asked repeated questions as to what violence qualifies and how videogame developers and distributors are to ensure that they are complying with the standards of the law. Morazzini suggested that either developers judge for themselves or that a regulation board be created to determine what violence is obscene, an idea that sounded like a censorship board which Justice Scalia was quick to point out.

Justice Scalia also made it clear that he had other issues with the law: "I am concerned with the vagueness, but I am concerned with the First Amendment, which says Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech. And it was always understood that the freedom of speech did not include obscenity. It has never been understood that the freedom of speech did not include portrayals of violence." Morazzini countered by saying, "[A]s with sexual -- the regulation of sexual material and obscenity, we had to start somewhere. California is choosing to start now." EMA's Arguments The lawyer representing EMA, Paul M. Smith, began by arguing that California is seeking an unprecedented exception for violence to the First Amendment that would in turn have to be applied to other forms of media to include books and movies. Chief Justice John Roberts was quick to jump on this argument by claiming that the difference is due to the interactive nature of videogames. He says, "[T]he child is doing the killing. The child is doing the maiming. And I suppose that might be understood to have a different impact on the child's moral development." Following an attempt by Smith to disregard this statement due to a lack of consensus among the submitted studies, Chief Justice Roberts embarks on a line of questioning to establish that a similar lack of consensus was present in the Ginsberg case but common sense was used as a basis for the decision. Justice Stephen Breyer runs with this line of thought and concludes that it is common sense that a parent should have to make the purchase in order for a child to play excessively violent videogames. From there, Smith moved on to argue that there is a significant difference between obscene sexual material and depiction of violence and that it has never been illegal to sell the latter to minors in any medium. He points out that parents have been making those common sense decisions for a long time, not the government. When directly challenged by Chief Justice Roberts about whether or not the First Amendment could prohibit the sale of violent videogames to minors Smith responded by saying, "My position is that there is not a violence exception to the First Amendment for minors and there should not be." The discussion then transitioned to possible alternatives to the law. Justice Samuel Alito suggested a civic penalty to accompany the current rating system. Smith contested that this would turn the ESRB into a censorship commission which the First Amendment doesn't allow. Chief Justice Roberts theorized that certain videogames could be sold in areas of stores restricted to minors but Smith strikes that down as being no different in any way to the law under review. The Justices then query whether there is anything the states can do to restrict violent videogame sales and Smith sticks to his guns by stating there is nothing they can do. Smith’s final point is that drawing a line in the sand between acceptable and restricted violence is impossible when age appropriateness is considered. Chief Justice Roberts points out that a fine line is drawn for the drinking age, death penalty, and purchase of cigarettes. Smith ends the line of questions by saying, "But here you were assessing works of expression, deciding to decide what age they -they would correspond to, and I don't think you can cut it that finely and say well, this is an 18 game; this is only a 17 game. I just don't think that works." Final Thoughts Both sides were the focus of intense questioning by the various Supreme Court Justices. This a good thing as these men and women will make a very serious decision that could have a long-lasting impact on the First Amendment rights of all forms of media in this country. It is imperative that they play devil's advocate and probe all sides of a case and they seemed to do just that in this instance.