This past week, San Francisco's Commonwealth Club hosted a debate on an industry hot topic that is currently awaiting an official Supreme Court decision -- should the sale of violent video games be restricted? The good news for gamers is that all three panelists at the event reached the conclusion that the California bill being looked at by the Supreme Court will likely be struck down.
GameSpot has a lengthy, in-depth report on the event, where Common Sense CEO James Steyer argued for restriction of games sales and Activision Blizzard executive vice president George Rose argued against. The two were mediated by Stanford Constitutional Law Center director Michael McConnell.
Steyer argued that there is "no question" that violent games can have a negative impact on children, which necessitates restricting sales to minors. He explained Common Sense's position clearly:
"We believe developers have a total right to develop their games. Our only issue is sale. This is a sanity, not censorship approach."
Rose, on the other hand, argued that industry self-regulation has already been proven to work. He said the law being debated is based on "junk science" and called the bill "probably one of the most convoluted constitutional statues ever assembled."
McConnell was able to use his legal expertise to explain the point of view of the Supreme Court justices who are currently considering the bill's legitimacy. He pointed out that with the bill's current presentation, it could easily be extended to other media, such as comics or cartoons.
McConnell's concluded that the Supreme Court is probably going to strike down the California bill in its current form but will leave the subject open for potential future, more specifically worded bills.
One especially interesting note: Rose claimed the most recent, incredibly successful Call of Duty game, Black Ops, would not have been created if the California law existed. According to Rose, Activision has had five million copies of the game floating around California since it launched, and that number is too high for retailers to bother stocking if they're risking a $1000 fine for every copy that is sold to a minor.
This debate provided a smart, fascinating look at the various sides of this important topic to the future of games. I highly recommend reading the full report at GameSpot.
[Thanks to Nate for the tip]