The case to decide the fate of California's violent video games law is going before the Supreme Court on November 2, according to the Entertainment Merchants Association. It could be a landmark decision for the games industry that structures the way games are sold in the years to come. Game makers are legitimately concerned about the outcome.
EA CEO John Riccitiello explained in July that the real problem is developers and publishers might have to create multiple versions of a title for different North American markets. “One of America’s great exports is entertainment,” he said. “The implication of Schwarzenegger v. ESA (the case before the Court) is we could end up with state level bureaucracies that define what’s marketable in 50 different jurisdictions across the U.S. I can imagine [the government] trying to tell Steven Spielberg ‘We need 50 different cuts of your movie for each state.’ It will screw us up in a real way.”
The Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA) is working on an Amicus brief to submit to the Supreme Court and a gamer petition will be included with this. You can show your support by signing the petition here.
2 Comments
August 27, 2010
There is no reason for this court case to proceed. There is no ambiguity in lower court rulings. Every single attempt at a law like this has been struck down as unconstitutional. Not just a couple, all of them. It's incredibly ironic that this man who got rich killing people in movies is now so concerned with youth and violent media.
The ratings system works, and this moral panic will fade again, just like the ones over Beethoven, the waltz, chess, D&D, rock music, punk music, rap music, movies, blah blah blah.
September 1, 2010
So retarded. Go digital! Can't stop that