It is now the law of the US that video games are art. They are a creative, intellectual, emotional form of expression and engagement, as fundamentally human as any other. "Like the protected books, plays and movies that preceded them, video games communicate ideas-and even social messages-through many familiar literary devices (such as characters, dialogue, plot, and music) and through features distinctive to the medium (such as the player's interaction with the virtual world)," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the Supreme Court, in a case that arose from a California effort to ban the sale of violent video games to minors. "That suffices to confer First Amendment protection."
It isn't every decade that a new form of media officially joins the spoken and written word as a member of the special class of protected endeavour we consider vital to the functioning of pluralistic, democratic society. The last big one was film, about 60 years ago. As Justice Scalia pointed out, the Supreme Court originally found motion pictures unworthy of First Amendment protection. (You know, that freedom of speech thing). In 1915 the court ruled that states could broadly censor films because movies could be "used for evil." It took until 1952 for the court to grant film constitutional recognition. And now video games-as vulgar, crude, disgusting and thoroughly unredeeming as they often may be-have finally been fully recognised as a worthy element of our culture.
Most video games-like the vast majority of any medium- are insipid junk. But of course one person's insipid junk- whether books, movies, TV shows or games-is another's masterpiece. The point is that as a basic principle, those decisions about value and worth and importance must be left to the individual. That is what the First Amendment is all about. The decision invalidated a California law intended to regulate the sale of violent video games to children. The court has ruled, deciding just what ideas children may be exposed to is not the proper role of government. People are coming to interact with video games in increasingly interactive and natural ways. As a practical matter, parents ought to have a lot more control over what their children play than what movies they see, anyway. The real importance of the decision does not rest in practicalities. Laws both reflect and shape the societies that create them. This decision reflects society in that video games have already become the most vibrant new form of media entertainment in decades. (NY Times)
