Banning Violent Arcade Games Unconstitutional

zTTTz writes "The US District court ruled that it was not only unconstitutional to ban violent video games from public arcades, but also ruled that the city of Indianapolis pay $318,000 in legal fees to the video game industry. This will probably make other cities think twice about trying to censor video game content again." Update 17:45 GMT by J : We covered the Indianapolis story previously in July 2000, October 2000, and March 2001. Check out NCAC's open letter, too. We haven't bothered covering the recurring news of declining real-world violence (while video games just get more gruesome and explicit), mostly because it's the same story over and over.

Comments

The dangers of a mob mentality

[Frank White]

Lawmakers must not react to the media-fed anti-video game frenzy.

• Disproportionate press coverage increases the possibilities of censorship in video games and various forms of entertainment media. In the United States, freedom of speech and expression are two of the most important rights every citizen has. An adult should be able to purchase whatever media, including violent video games, he wants. While small children should not necessarily be exposed to such violent images, it would be wrong to infringe on the rights of millions of adults to play these video games. Since video games are such a relatively new media, it is easy for the press and uninformed members of the general public to cry for government censorship of these violent video games. The creators of these games also have the right to make and express themselves through their chosen "art" form.
  
• Video games make an easy scapegoat. The danger in blaming a scapegoat is that the real causes of problems do not get addressed. It is easier for the public to blame something they do not wholly understand. In the wake of the Columbine High School shooting in Colorado, people are searching to blame the gunmen's actions on their exposure to violent video games and other media. While the real solution to preventing such tragedies lies in gun education and tolerance of other's beliefs, it is much easier for the media to make violent video games out to be a monolithic evil.
  
• By increasing the bad press given to these violent video games, children become even more drawn to them. It is common knowledge that children especially love to do things they are not supposed to because of the thrill involved. When children see adults condemning violent games such as Doom and Half-Life on television, they become intrigued to see why so many adults are talking about these games. Thus, even more younger children will try to play these games to fulfill such dark desires.

If video games influenced behaviour...

[Bazman]

If video games influenced behaviour then all the kids brought up on PacMan would these days be running around to repetitive computer-generated music and popping strange power-pills.... Ummm....