YES!!!
In your face you, you...people who hate video games...
No but seriously, If the decision would have been the other way around then it would have seriously hurt gaming, not only in the business department but in the way that games are recognized today. I'm glad that justice has been served.

Don't worry, it'll come back in a year, stupid ideas have a tendency to make a comeback every now and then.

Oh the irony, watch the documentary "This Film Is Not Yet Rated" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0493459/ (NSFW), the movie industry uses their power to play favorites and crush and intimidate the little guy. Trey Parker and Matt Stone got to see both sides since they did at least one movie independently and another for Paramount, they described a night and day difference.

Good thing. It's ridicilous to always blaim the games.. If person is violent or whatever.. it doesn't matter if you play games or watch movies. Infact and I read somewhere that games prevent violence and I believe in that. Well, I don't believe much anything but that it's finally common sense from that end.

I think we are both essentially saying the same thing, just wording differently. My comments about the standardization of the process were just in response to evilguy12's comment about how similar laws in the UK did not affect the content Rockstar included in their games, they had nothing to do with the constitutionality of the law.

The constitutionality of the law directly derives from whether or not that would effect freedom of expression/speech, which is what evilguy12 was asking about.

The act of asking the government to make a moral judgement is a violation of that expression. The usefulness or existence of the standards California proposed are essentially tangential to whether or not the act of trying to have government standards at all is a violation. Regardless of whether or not it prevents Rockstar from displaying violence in Europe.

You are misunderstanding me and repeating yourself. I will quote him here and highlight the relevant part I was responding to: If the law had actually been passed, the ambiguity or lack of any standards would have forced companies like Rockstar to censor themselves in advance or censor their games to fit whatever arbitrary standard the government used, thus a restriction of their freedom of expression. I was not discussing the constitutional aspects of the law, nor was he.

I am not misunderstanding you. I am repeating myself because I am unsure that the core point has sunk in. The constitutional aspect is identical to the freedom of expression aspect. They're the same thing. You might as well consider the two to be synonyms. If I say constitutional, replace with "freedom of expression." Nothing has changed.

The statement you're focusing on is, itself, somewhat silly for its own direct response. Because it's overly narrow. Who bleeding cares about just Rockstar North? We've seen several games edited or outright denied sale in the UK. There have been clear limits on expression in the UK in this regard.

But beyond that, the fact that it's already occurring in the UK makes it literally impossible to separate expression with and without. We don't know what games would be like without that consideration. Or without the current US self-censorship (and Wal-Mart bans).

The use of Rockstar North was just an example. It was the most controversial developer I could think of from the top of my head that hailed from the UK.

I understand completely, you just seem to be stuck on the minutia. You speak of the Rockstar statement as being "too narrow" have you ever heard of discussing a hypothetical example? That's all this is, a discussion of an example. If you want to talk about "too narrow" let's discuss the fact that we are talking about the CONCEPT of freedom of expression, not the legal definition of freedom of expression as set forth in the Constitution, yet you seem to feel they are indistinguishable. Now THAT is too narrow. The idea of freedom of expression existed long before the Constitution did, it will always exist, with or without the legal definition provided in the Constitution.

Of course we know what games would be like with a law like this, we've already seen similar things happen in the past with books, music and movies. For example, under the current self-imposed ratings system, we have an"AO" rating for "Adults Only"; a rating that is roughly equivalent to the old "X" rating on movies. What used to happen when a movie got an "X" rating? Reputable movie theaters wouldn't show it, video shops wouldn't sell or rent it. They had to create the whole "NC-17" rating just to get around the stigma associated with "X" rating and give legitimate (i.e. non-porn) movies that receive that rating a chance. The same thing would happen to video games slapped with whatever additional rating this California law would have created. Retailers would simply stop carrying games with that rating, like most of them already do with "AO" rated games. Why risk the $1000 fine?

A fine day to be a proud American. This much I am certain of.

I guess it was only a matter of time before the rest of the US bitch-slapped CA over its insane legal system.

Not just, or even primarily, California.

State and local video game censorship laws have been struck down in at least Louisiana, Minnesota, Michigan, and Missouri.

Only California was silly enough to continue to appeal its law all the way to the Supreme Court.

This isn't a fairytale, such happy endings don't usually occur within reality.

We'll just have to settle for him already being disbarred and chastised by his peers.