US Supreme Court says that banning violent video games violates 1st Amendment

The US Supreme Court has ruled Monday that the law banning violent video games is unconstitutional, a decision that brought a significant victory to gamers and the whole gaming industry. The 7-2 vote of the judge panel declined to favor the law in the Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association (EMA) case (formerly known as Schwarzenegger v. EMA) saying that "the act forbidding sale or rental of violent games to minors does not comport with the 1st Amendment."

"As a means of assisting concerned parents, it (the law) is seriously overinclusive because it abridges the First Amendment rights of young people whose parents (and aunts and uncles) who think that violent video games are a harmless pastime," wrote Justice Antonin Scalia for the supporting majority in favor of the games industry.

"Video games qualify for First Amendment protection," continued Scalia. "Like protected books, plays and movies, they communicate ideas through familiar literary devices and features distinctive to the medium. Reading Dante is unquestionably more cultured and intellectually edifying than playing Mortal Kombat. But these cultural and intellectual differences are not constitutional ones."