It's Auld Lang Syne for 2006, and many sites are publishing their choices for the year's top games.

But here at GamePolitics, our year-end review focuses instead on the people and events that made 2006 a fascinating, yet troubling time to be a gamer.

Who was most influential in 2006?

At least one major site named outgoing ESA boss Doug Lowenstein. Understandable as a sentimental choice, but not our selection...

ESRB head Patricia Vance finished the year strong, announcing a key partnership with two longtime Senate critics - Hillary Clinton and Joe Lieberman - in December. But, Vance had some rocky times in '06 as well. Overall, we felt there were more deserving candidates.

Nor is GamePolitics averse to honoring an industry foe. Readers may recall that California Assemblyman Leland Yee - architect of that state's contested video game law - was our 2005 Person of the Year. 

But there is no such deserving opponent this time around. And thus, GamePolitics' 2006 Person of the Year should actually be called "people" of the year - Judges. More than any individual, judges collectively shaped the political landscape of gaming in 2006.

How so?

The last twelve months were a time in which video games came under attack from many quarters. State legislatures in Louisiana, Minnesota and Oklahoma passed restrictive video game legislation. Governors in those states signed those bills into law.

In Miami, a video game was accused of being a public nuisance, a term normally reserved for environmental issues. In Illinois, a governor dragged his feet on repaying legal fees owed to the video game industry thanks to the state's unconstitutional 2005 video game law.

Each of these cases required a members of the judiciary to put things right.

In Louisiana, U.S. District Court Judge James Brady disposed of an unconstitutional video game law written by activist attorney Jack Thompson. Brady wrote:

As the Supreme Court has noted, "First Amendment Freedoms are most in danger when the government seeks to control thought or justify its laws for that impermissible end."

In Minnesota, U.S. District Court Judge James Rosenbaum got hands-on with video game issues, playing Jade Empire on his court clerk's Xbox before deciding that the state's bizarre "fine the buyer" law was unconstitutional. In his decision, Rosenbaum concluded:

The State itself acknowledges... that it is entirely incapable of showing a causal link between the playing of video games and any deleterious effect on the psychological, moral, or ethical well-being of minors.

But not all of the judges who influenced the politics of video games in 2006 were from the federal bench. In Florida, Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Ronald Friedman presided over Jack Thompson's attempt to have Rockstar's Bully declared a public nuisance.

Although Friedman initially acceeded to Thompson's motion to force Take-Two to produce the as-yet unpublished game for his review (a rather chilling development which Thompson proclaimed as a huge victory), Judge Friedman ultimately ruled the game was not a nuisance, saying:

There’s a lot of violence. A whole lot. Less than we see on television every night. Does that mean I would want my children to view it? No. But does it rise to a point that its a nuisance? The answer is no from what I saw. 

Caught in the circus atmosphere surrounding the Bully case, Friedman endured quite a lot, including Thompson's rather dubious announcement that he would be running for the judge's seat on the bench in 2008.

In Oklahoma, U.S. District Court Judge Robin Cauthron issued a preliminary injunction blocking that state's video game law from taking effect.

And in Illinois, U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Kennelly was blunt with Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Saying "the time for waffling has passed," Kennelly ordered the Guv to reimburse the video game industry more than a half-million dollars in legal fees based on Blagojevich's unconstitutional Safe Games Illinois Act.

GP: In case you are wondering, the jurists depicted are (clockwise, from top left): Robin Cauthron, James Brady, James Rosenbaum, and Ronald Friedman.