Gaming Signal: Illinois' video game law terminated

Illinois' video game law terminated

Illionois had passed a law banning stores from selling games with violent or sexual content to minors. However, the law was struck down Friday (before it could go into effect January 1, 2006) by US District Court Judge Matthew Kennelly. Kennelly ruled that state officials had come "nowhere near" demonstrating the law would pass constitutional muster as a valid reason to restrict the first amendment's right to freedom of speech or expression.

One major problem with the legislation was the definition of the violence they wanted to restrict. It used language that defined it as:

...depictions of or simulations of human-on-human violence in which the player kills or otherwise causes serious physical harm to another human. �Serious physical harm� includes depictions of death, dismemberment, amputation, decapitation, maiming, disfigurement, mutilation of body parts, or rape.

That's pretty restrictive to video games - many, many of them would be subject to this (some commentators went so far as to include Mario here - although I'm not sure I've ever seen dismemberment in a Mario game.)

This is always the problem when trying to sensor - either video games or other things (including pornography.) Trying to define what is too violent is simply too subjective.