Games & Free Speech

May 1, 2002 7:20 AM

For some reason, this story fell through the cracks earlier. CNN Money has a new Game Over column looking at the recent ruling by a judge who said violent and sexually explicit video games are not free speech. Some might not find this strange, however, the same judge says something like a junk fax is free speech, as are movies. So how did he come to the decision that games aren't protected by the First Amendment? According to him, games have "no conveyance of ideas, expression or anything else that could possibly amount to free speech. ... Video games have more in common with board games and sports than they do with motion pictures.". The "no conveyance of ideas, expression" part was based on taking a look at all of four games. They were "The Resident of Evil Creek," "Mortal Kombat," "Doom" and "Fear Effect." . Yes, The Resident of Evil Creek, whatever that might be. Hardly material competing with Hollywood storylines, such as Final Fantasy or Metal Gear Solid 2. What's worse though, is that this is partly the fault of the game industry group IDSA.

The ironic twist in all of this is the gaming industry only has itself to blame for the ruling. The Interactive Digital Software Association (IDSA), which represents gaming companies in this case, did an atrocious job of serving its members.
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Asked to counter this, IDSA president Douglas Lowenstein merely provided an affidavit explaining how video games are created and discussing the "extensive plot and character development" today's games contain and sample scripts from other titles. What he failed to show was the final versions of those games.

The ruling by Judge Limbaugh means local governments can restrict access to video games, as they are trying to do in St. Louis.

Maarten Goldstein

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