James Delahunty
5 Apr 2006 8:19
A U.S. District Court judge has struck down yet another law that banned the sale of violent or sexually explicit video games to minors. The Michigan law was signed by Gov. Jennifer Granholm last year. It imposes both civil and criminal penalties to anyone who is found to have distributed a violent video game to a minor. Federal District Judge George Caram Steeh issued his ruling in Detroit today saying that video games were protected under the first and fourteenth amendments.
He said that the state "lacked substantial evidence to show violent video games cause minors to have aggressive feelings or engage in aggressive behavior." The law was challenged last September in a suit filed by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), the Video Software Dealers Association and the Michigan Retailers Association. This is just one of several laws in the U.S. which aimed to cut the supply of violent games to minors.
In 2005 alone the gaming industry witnessed an enormous amount of pressure from critics over titles such as Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The emergence of a patch for San Andreas that unlocked a hidden sex minigame gave critics like Hilary Clinton the weapon they needed to show how inappropriate some games can be for minors; even though without the patch (which Rockstar Games and Take-Two Interactive had nothing to do with) the hidden games were inaccessible. The game was given an AO (Adult Only) rating and dropped from retailers around the U.S.
In Illinois in December 2005 a federal judge blocked two similar laws aimed at stopping the supply of these games to minors. The ESA also took a stand against a bill signed in October last year by Arnold Schwarzenegger in California.
Source:
Reuters