Still undefeated.

The 7th Circuit, for the second time in the last five years, defeats an attempt to undermine the First Amendment.

Ah, always nice to see some good news in the morning. Hopefully they won't try to do this again.

Illinois Loses Video Game Law Appeal
Ya think?


you simply cant mandate to law the baning or restriction of sale of video games,not without becoming a fundie driven fascist state...

God Bless America

People who are going to ignore ratings labels will continue to do so even if the game has four FOOT mature label on it. Yet again, laws and legislations and political bollocks that dances around the actual problem by pretending it's something else. In this case, the American public's reading comprehension?

OWNED. I would like to see blagoperson's reaction.

This reminds me of Dennis Leary. "Doesn't matter how big the warnings are. You could have cigarettes that were called the warnings. You could have cigarettes that come in a black pack, with a skull and a cross bone on the front, called tumors and smokers would be lined up around the block" Warnings are only for those that want to be warned. An ignorant parent, or sneaky minor will still buy the games regardless.

Mmmm...victory tastes good with my morning eggs and bacon. That picture above needs a good caption. How about, "No...my law...my precious..."

Just a heads up. Apparently Jackie boy is all over a couple of dumbates and their bottle bombs in a Wal-Mart.

http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/news/local/3369616.html
Remember that part in GTA, when you made bottle bombs and put em in a Wal-Mart?

Yeah, me neither.

@ Mister Gone

Interesting to note, they call Jack Thompson a Massechusettes attorney, who has been battling adult-related entertainment for the last 20 years. =P

Jack drinks his own pee.

Of special note is that the 7th Circuit reaffirmed that minors do indeed have 1st Amendment rights, and so therefore cannot have their media consumption (outside of obscenity, which is a clear exception) restricted willy nilly. Indencency can still be regulated, but only under the "narrowly tailored" sections, of which the Illinois version doesn't, because it completely ignores the 3rd prong of the Miller test (taken as a whole, do not have serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value”). They go on to talk about how important the 3rd prong is, since it is the only one that doesn't rely on vague community standards that change from region to region.

Amusingly, the court used the Nazi Germany example, where the state rigidly controlled the speech that youth were exposed to, in order to condition them, as an example of why government control of minor's media exposure is bad.

The court was critical of the state for failing to show evidence that 83% parental involvement in purchases was somehow inadequate, or that their law would somehow improve those stats.

They were also critical of the labelling/brochure section, calling it "compelled speech", which isn't allowed, unless you use hard facts (such as nutritional information, ingredients lists, etc) And unlike cigarette warnings, this "not suitable for minors" is an opinion, so it has no backing to be enforced.

mister gone -- fark?

Yeah, this isn't an issue of Democrats vs. Republicans. This is an issue of an ignorant, hypocritical government concentrating on a nonexistent issue when there are so many legitimate issues that require attention.

For politicians of any stripe, it's easier to posture and pretend you're accomplishing something, than it is to actually accomplish something...

@mistergone article link
"...has made it his mission to battle the entertainment industry about adult-rated products for children,..."
don't that say it all.

I just read through the ruling, and to summarize it:
We've got the ESRB. We don't need this junk.

Is it just me, or does rod blagocrat look superultrahyper-arrogant in this picture?

I love how these video game laws get brought up, only to get shot down everytime by the higher courts. Freedom of Speech/Expression applies to video games. Which, I hope the politicians finally grasp. Just like movies, television, artwork, music, novels, etc. Although, this won't be the last time the lawmakers try to push anti-video game legislation at us. They won't give up until the things they feel like don't deserve first amendment protection are completely destroyed from said protection.

As we have suggested in the past, there is serious reason to believe that a statute sweeps too broadly when it prohibits a game that is essentially an interactive, digital version of the Odyssey.

My god ignorance has actually helped our side of the issue who would've thought. God of War is not a video game version of the Odyssey, in god of war you kill Ares as the main goal, I don't think it evens mentions Ares in the odyssey, plus homer's epic didn't have the hydra or pandora's temple. God of war on the other hand did not have the man with the bag of winds, or the woman who turned men into pigs (I forget both their names I'm sorry). However both heavily involve greek mythology (in fact one was made when poseidon zeus and ares were not considred myth but religion) so it's understandable somewhat.

@Father Time

Eh, I think the comparison still stands. Though I haven't played it, from the basic description, God of War doesn't have anything in the way of violence, or anything else that wouldn't be comparable to what you could read about in one of Homer's epics. As such the law would essentially be ruling Homer's epics as obscene, with the included lack of artistic or literary merit, just because it happened to be put in the form of a game. And since an ancient epic losing all merit just because it happens to be put in game form doesn't make sense, a story of similar content that also happens to be in game form losing merit doesn't make sense either.

Boy am I glad we rebelled....

When are these anti-game fanatics going to quit? They keep losing miserably. That can't look good on a resume. They are embarassing themselves and they're too supid and retarded to know that.

They need to stop tistening to the garbage, and utterly untrue, lies of Jack Thompson, a. k. a. Wacko Jacko, and his submoronic friend, David Grossman, who preaches a lying full of crap science called killology for his own greedy gain. Can't people see that Wacko Jacko and his stupid friend, David Grossman, are just out to make money? They're not scientists; they're golddiggers. Nothing they say contains any truth at all.

I'm very glad to see that the video game industry is fighting back against the lies of Wacko Jacko, David Grossman and the other retarded people who listen to them. They're just trying to get stupid people to listen to their bogus theories and lies. I bet that Jack Thompson, or Wacko Jacko, would tell people that he's the Jack from "Jack in the Bean Stalk" for money if he thought people were stupid enough to believe him.

Anyone who is stupid enough to file a case against the video game industry behind that primate golddigger, Jack Thompson, needs to have his or her head examined for being an idiot. I also read ,on a website, that David Grossman charges people five thousand dollars a day to stand up in front of a bunch of retards and spew forth his lies. You see what I mean? These two primates, Jack Thompson and David Grossman, charge money to tell their lies. They have the I.Q.s of cavemen and the state of Illinois is stupid for listening to them. How could they be so stupid? Jack Thompson, go climb a bean stalk, you idiot, and, David Grossman, go fight a giant with a slingshot, you golddigging moron. Anyway anyone who listens to lies of these two are, as Carlos Mencia would say it, DEE DEE DEE.

BigJonno
In the US we tend to call goverment restrictions of media censorship,wes been there before..and boy it was not pretty...we can however annoy the ratings broads to become more efficient and get retailers to monitor sales better and fine employees that do not follow the age rules somewhere in this theres a better balance.

I was just curious. Is the PS3 completly backwards compatible? By this, I mean does it play all the PS2 games? Please let me know. Thanks

P. S. Please read my comment up there about Jack Thompson, or Wacko Jacko, and David Grossman.

I really don't see how restricting videogame sales to children is censorship. The games themselves aren't touched and I've heard a lot less about games being altered to fit certain ratings than I have movies in the US being altered to fit in with the ratings there.

There just seems to be a complete lack of middle ground. Either you want videogames banned, or you think they should be freely available to everyone.

@BigJonno

Just because a law only effects minors doesn't mean it's not censorship. It still is censorship, as the government through law is deciding which Free Speech materials are appropriate or not for dissemination to minors.
Minors, especially older minors and teenagers Do and Should have the right to form there own viewpoints based on unrestrcited and uncensored access to information, ideas, messages and opinions brought forth within Free Speech materials.
The only speech materials which can be constitutionally barred to minors are materials that fall under the legal definition of "obscene to minors" as obscenity isn't protected by the First Amendment or; if there is a legitimate proscription such as an absolute proven harm caused by the material. Of course there is no proof of this when it comes to violent video games beyond some extremely weak, inconsistant, incredibly flawed and biased studies that at most show only a weak correlation or use rediculous or dubious proxies to determine aggression behaviour.