Supreme Court to consider CA videogame law

The Supreme Court will consider whether a 2005 California state law banning the sale of violent videogames to minors is unconstitutional, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. The law would bar the sale of any videogame to anyone under 18 if, the Chronicle says, it “was so violent it was ‘patently offensive’ according to prevailing community standards for minors, and lacked literary, artistic, political or scientific value.” It was never enforced. A federal appeals court in San Francisco last year struck it down on constitutional grounds. “Federal courts have overturned similar laws in Oklahoma, Louisiana, Minnesota, Michigan, Illinois and the cities of St. Louis and Indianapolis,” which is probably why the Supreme Court has taken on the California case. Here’s Reuters’s coverage and a collection of past posts of mine on state laws concerning videogames. [See also: “Fresh debate on effect of violence in videogames” and “Play, Part 2: Violence in videogames.”]