Win for video game firms

In Calif. case, high court allows sale of violent games to minors

June 28, 2011|By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff

One watchdog said though the California law never took effect, it goaded… (Mike Blake/REUTERS )

Greater Boston video game makers welcomed a ruling from the US Supreme Court yesterday that struck down a California law restricting the sale of violent video games to minors.

“We are creating art, and art should be treated as art, whether it’s in a game, a book, or a movie,’’ said Albert Reed, studio director of Demiurge Studios Inc., a game development company in Cambridge.

The Supreme Court extended to video game makers free speech guarantees that have long been associated with books, music, and movies. Writing for the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia said that access to video games is protected by the First Amendment to the US Constitution, and that minors have broad rights to read or view what they wish. Scalia wrote that states may place some limits on those rights, but the California law’s definition of violence was too vague, and the state presented no persuasive evidence that playing violent games is harmful to minors.

California “wishes to create a wholly new category of content-based regulation that is permissible only for speech directed at children,’’ Scalia wrote. “That is unprecedented and mistaken.’’

Scalia further wrote: “California’s argument would fare better if there were a longstanding tradition in this country of specially restricting children’s access to depictions of violence, but there is none… . Grimm’s Fairy Tales, for example, are grim indeed.’’

“I think the court rightfully expressed their skepticism about the right to restrict speech,’’ said Ken Levine, creative director for Irrational Games in Quincy, which developed the hit video game BioShock — a “shooter’’ game, meaning that players progress by using virtual firearms to vanquish adversaries.

Some best-selling video games, including Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty, feature intense and often gory fistfights and gun battles. In 2005, California lawmakers passed a bill that would have banned the sale or rental of such games to people under age 18. The law had been stayed by a federal court and was never enforced. Yesterday’s 7-to-2 Supreme Court ruling ensures it won’t be.

“I have heard a sigh of relief,’’ said attorney Stephen Riden, a partner at Beck Reed Riden LLP in Boston who works with video game companies. Had the California law been upheld, Riden said, game companies would have had to adopt a different strategy for selling their products in the nation’s most populous state. Other states might have passed similar laws, leading to a patchwork of inconsistent and costly regulations.

“It would have changed the way that any local developer would distribute its games,’’ Riden said. “Now it’s not a problem.’’