First Amendment FTW

[Yoshi]

This is on Steam's homepage today:



Here is why and the douchebag author's response.

Fuck Stephen Breyer for authoring the wrongly dissenting opinion.

edit: After further review, Clarence Thomas' dissent actually has a ground in reality, as opposed to the idiot Breyer's:

The practices and beliefs of the founding generation establish that "the freedom of speech," as originally understood, does not include a right to speak to minors (or a right of minors to access speech) without going through the minors' parents or guardians.

[Josh]

We don't sell R rated movies to minors. We shouldn't sell M rated games to minors.

Was this the issue, or was there more to it? I don't pay attention to this shit.

[Six]

Great. Here I am wondering why there is no thread and then BOOM! Yoshi. Here's my near-thread.

Thought this would be posted already. Maybe it is.

US Supreme Court says in a 7-2 decision that Video Games are free speech and protected under the Mighty First Amendment.

“Like the protected books, plays and movies that preceded them, video games communicate ideas — and even social messages — through many familiar literary devices (such as characters, dialogue, plot and music) and through features distinctive to the medium (such as the player’s interaction with the virtual world). That suffices to confer First Amendment protection.”

And, more interestingly, regarding disturbing images in games,

“But disgust is not a valid basis for restricting expression.”

But then we get

“No doubt a state possesses legitimate power to protect children from harm, but that does not include a free-floating power to restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed.”

Looks like he, and the majority, weren't as swayed by the "science" showing that violent video games make kids kill puppies as at least one dissenter (Breyer).

Sammy Alito says it the law was too vague and, knowing California, they'll take that cue to give it another shot.

Games have ratings to help lazy and uninformed parents make intelligent and informed decisions (which most lazy and uninformed parents could care less about doing anyway). Do we need more regulation? Cali wanted to fine a store a grand if a 17 year old kid bought GTAVII:Part 5, Episode 3. They'd need to create a California Electronic Entertainment Commission to run sting operations and investigate those godless retailers that would dare damage the delicate mental state of a child! Better let some (more) thugs out of prison to pay for enforcing that silly law.

But what about digital distribution? HUH? WHAT NOW CALI-FOR-NI-A?

Was a hot mess anyway. Good for the SCOTUS. Now if they'll just take voting rights away from corporations.

[MechDeus]

We don't sell R rated movies to minors. We shouldn't sell M rated games to minors.

Was this the issue, or was there more to it? I don't pay attention to this shit.

There doesn't seem to be any specifying of rating in the presented issue, it's just the vague idea of violent games. But I also didn't look too hard.

[Six]

Yep.

It defined violent games as those “in which the range of options available to a player includes killing, maiming, dismembering or sexually assaulting an image of a human being” in a way that was “patently offensive,” appeals to minors’ “deviant or morbid interests” and lacked “serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.”

[Cheebs]

We don't sell R rated movies to minors. We shouldn't sell M rated games to minors.

Was this the issue, or was there more to it? I don't pay attention to this shit.

I'm pretty sure it is legal to sell R-rated movies to minors. It's a self-regulated thing. The retailer makes the rule to not sell the movie, not the government.

[Josh]

Yeah, that's way too vague.

Kinda like film ratings!

[GohanX]

The Supreme Court actually has made some good calls lately, good for them.

I actually agree that kids shouldn't be playing violent or vulgar games, but it shouldn't be up to the government to enforce that. If Little Johnny's mom doesn't give a fuck if he playes RapeQuest IV, why should I?

[Josh]

RapeQuest IV

When does this ship?

[Frogacuda]

We don't sell R rated movies to minors. We shouldn't sell M rated games to minors.

Was this the issue, or was there more to it? I don't pay attention to this shit.

There are no fines for selling R-rated movies to minors and attempts to add fines have been shot down under first amendment grounds.

So logically, then, this should extend to video games. I don't know that I feel strongly that either case is really a "free speech" issue, but it's more significant that this ruling explicitly states games are due first amendment protection for the first time in a Supreme Court case. That's an important precedent regardless of the particular reason it was being challenged.

There doesn't seem to be any specifying of rating in the presented issue, it's just the vague idea of violent games. But I also didn't look too hard.

I mean this is kind of good, because in countries like Australia where they do tie the law to specific ratings, it effectively gives the ratings board the power to become a censorship board by refusing to rate specific games.

But then kind of bad because, like you said, it's vague and would surely be abused. I don't think stores should sell adult games to minors, but laws surrounding that can certainly be a slippery slope. This was a good ruling.