First Amendment Project - Violent Video Games

     A Timeline of Video Game Controversies.  National Coalition Against Censorship.            https://ncac.org/resource/a-timeline-of-video-game-controversies      Price, Anna.  To Play or Not to Play: Video Game Ratings and the Law.  Library Of Congress Blogs.          https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2023/09/to-play-or-not-to-play-video-game-ratings-and-the-law/#:~:text=Video%20Game%20Case%20Law&text=This%20case%20arose%20in%202005,prohibited%20under%20the%20First%20Amendment.      Russell, Lauren.  Police: 8-year-old shoots, kills elderly caregiver after playing video game.  CNN, August 26, 2013.         https://www.cnn.com/2013/08/25/us/louisiana-boy-kills-grandmother/index.html      Video Game Law.  Justia.          https://www.justia.com/entertainment-law/video-game-law/ https://www.pbs.org...

I think the one thing our group can agree on video game violence is the fact that children cannot be exposed to violent scenery or obscene material so early in their lives. Parents being angry with the content in video games from the 1990's, 2000s, 2010's, and today is redundant becasue of the ratings on the covers that say who this games appeals to, children, 18+ teens, and adults. The simple actions of looking at the back of the cover should be easy. Parents need to supervise their children and what they watch, say, or play. Without supervising, it enables the children to play as many violent games as they please. Thus, their growth and development hurts them because of the effects from the violent and obscene material. Parents must check on what their kids are watching, or playing to make sure they can grow up to live healthy and active lives. We agree that parents need to be aware of the video game their child plays, and that children should not be exposed to violence ...

     The relationship between law and video games have changed over time. The hysteria over violent video games was once something that ocurred in the 80's and 90's. The law's view has differed, and violent video games have changed. Video games as a whole has changed over the decades, and the ones that are rated for adults are even more violent than the ones that were released during the 80's and 90's. The law's view of violent video games has changed a lot, but has still remained the same slightly.       In an article titled "Are Modern Video Games Too Complicated?" from the  The   Boss Rush Network it states that "Recently at a social gathering with new friends and acquaintances, the subject of video games came up, and someone quipped that modern video games aren’t as good as older games. The graphics have improved, but the gameplay has not, they claimed. Another person vocally agreed. The insinuation was that modern video games are overly ...

 Video games, they are a form of entertainment to not just children, but to grown ups as well. Many people including myself are fascinated by video games, and enjoy playing them to entertain themselves. However, to the eyes of the law, while they may be a work of entertainment to some, to them it can be the contrary. The censorship of video games has not been a private matter, as there are a lot of violent video games being released that lawmakers feel they should not be playable at all to the public. Specifically, they should not allow the children to play violent video games, along with the protesters who want to reduce the violence that children are exposed to by some of these games.  In 2011, Supreme Court case Brown v. The Entertainment Merchants Association ruled that California law prohibited the sales or rentals of violent video games to minors as a violation to the First Amendment rule. These video companies had made the defense that there was no connection between vi...

    Could you name a more iconic duo than creative work and censorship? It seems that as long as there have been creative works being made by people, whether it's music, movies, television, and yes of course video games, there has always been this opposing element of people demanding that these different forms of art be subject to censorship.    You could track this activity back to the 1800's when Mary Shelly wrote Frankenstein. Many people of that time found the book to have blasphemous elements in it. Books through out history have been censored due the controversial subject matter that they talked about. If you look back at the Silent Era of film, movies such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari were also the subject to controversy due it's early depiction of on-screen violence. Movies have been referred to as the defining art form of the 20th century, and as movies progrssed and got more advanced, they also got more daring in experimenting with what they could and cou...

Throughout the time violent video games have been out, there have been many attempts to set bars by state lawmakers to prevent minors from buying violent video games at a young age. From Mortal Kombat to GTA, the range of violent video games out there are plenty. While there are plenty of minor laws, parents have been pushing to get violent video games to get banned or at least reduce the violence shown in video games.  According to the article "Video Games and Children & First Amendment Law" published by Justia, it writes that the state of California had law try to regulate the sale or rental of violent video games to children. Writing for the majority however, Justice Antonin Scalia had ruled that video games qualify for full First Amendment protection which is similar to books, movies, films, and plays. Unfortunately for the parents, the law makers claim that there are no long standing traditions of restricting children's access to depictions of violence. The stric...