Federal Judge Strikes Down Ban on Violent Games

CaptainEbo writes "A federal judge in Louisiana has issued a preliminary injunction blocking a statewide ban on violent video games. The judge's holding that 'depictions of violence are entitled to full constitutional protection' flies in the face of Louisiana's assertion that video games interactive nature make them inherently more likely to incite people to violence, and therefore requires reduced First Amendment protection. In rejecting the state's argument, the judge compared video games to literature. 'It is the interactive aspect of literature that makes it successful — 'draw[ing] the reader into the story, mak[ing] him identify with the characters, invit[ing] him to judge them and quarrel with them, to experience their joys and sufferings as the reader's own.'" GamePolitics also has reaction to the news from Louisiana political figures, as forwarded by Jack Thompson.

Comments

is it an election year already!?

[legoburner]

"the point I'm making is that the more violent a game is, the more unrealistic it appears to be.

Most kids end up thinking that it would never happen."

Seems normal enough, except that quote comes from an 11 year old.

Still, I look forward to being old so I can start blaming the problems that have existed for millenia on the latest, greatest thing that I do not understand.

Pffft... dupe!

[peter_gzowski]

Only not /.'s, but state governments:
Indianapolis
Missouri
Washington
Illinois
Michigan
California

When will the public realize that their politicians are NOT doing them good when they bring in these laws, but doing them harm? It is now so obvious to every district and federal court that these laws are unconstitutional, that the judges are making the states (i.e. tax-payers) pay the defendants' legal costs because they are knowingly WASTING THE COURTS' TIME.

Re:Pffft... dupe!

[mgabrys_sf]

Curious about Missouri and if it paralells other state's prior history with Video Game legistlation.

Missouri was particularly dracconian in the early 80s with arcades being told when they could operate, how close to schools, etc. One very amusing instance comes to mind. In 1983, Atari tried a brief attempt to take on Bally's (then) arcade empire with a series of arcades called "Atari Adventure". The first one was at Great America in San Jose - but the next one - for WHATEVER reason - was put in St. Louis.

Now the funny thing was, besides the arcade - they put in a "learning center". It was stocked with the computers of the day, atari 8-bits. Initially, 1200XL's but those were replaced with Atari 800XLs. It looked nice but didn't see a lot of action. At one point the arcade moved from the North West side of town to South St. Louis. In the early 90s - LONG after Atari passed into Trammel's hands and LONG after the 800XL had any value - the Atari Adventure was STILL showcasing these computers in a STILL attached "learning center" at that location.

I asked a manager about this, and the response was because of zoning laws, they couldn't operate as a pure-arcade and required the "learning center" to get around the laws that were still on the books. And so until the late 90s, you could see a perfect time bubble from 1983 operating intact as an arcade cum 800XL enabled consumer front for a company that only barely existed because the laws required it to stay exactly as it was when it was pitched to the people running the mall and the people in control of the law.

I wonder if the same nuttyness was going on in all those other states that tried to restrict game sales today back then?

Re:A good law would be...

[bigbigbison]

I more or less post basically the same response to every single videogame law thread on slashdot because no matter how many stories are posted there is always at least one person who is under the assumption that ratings in the USA are given out by the government.
I don't blame the people who post or anything. Online they are frequently from England or other countries where the ratings are government enforced, so there's no reason why they should know US laws. However, it does indicate the power of the rhetoric that these lawmakers use. Quite often the lawmakers or anti-videogame activists will say, "The ratings are voluntary and enforced by the industry themselves!" without mentioning that film ratings are rated in the same manner.