Is Anti-Game Legislation Becoming Politically Dangerous?
Last year, the bill to tack videogame violence onto the anti-pornography law in Utah slipped through committee, passed almost unanimously on the floor of the Utah House of Representatives, and only failed because the state senate ran out of time to consider it (perhaps deliberately). It was a relatively quiet bill, only earning one article of praise from one of our newspapers (the Deseret Morning News), an editorial by me blasting it (in the same paper), and one letter to the editor of complaint.

That bill was one of a rash of anti-videogame legislation that came out in several states last year, and all but one that passed were struck down in the courts as unconstitutional. The one that passed was actually supported by the ESRB, as it simply subjected video games to the same restrictions as other media, including movies - hardly an "anti-videogame" law.

Since then, court costs have mounted for states passing these laws. People have started asking why the states keep paying hundreds of thousands in legal fees for bills they've already been warned won't pass Constitutional muster. The media has started listening to someone other than Jack Thompson (who, at this point, is now facing a disciplinary hearing concerning his antics). Lieberman and Clinton have apparently backed off a bit from their previous anti-videogame stances.

Locally, our state Attorney General Mark Shurtleff - an opponent of violence in video games, has gone on record stating he believes that these anti-gaming bills will continue to fail on Constitutional grounds in court, and he has put public support behind the existing ESRB system. The court decisions - with a little help from the publicity surrounding this year's Slamdance debacle - the question has been raised even in "mainstream" media: Should games be considered a protected form of free expression?

The Utah bill returned this year as House Bill 50, and now it came to light that the bill was drafted by everyone's favorite grand-stander, Jack Thompson. But this year, things have gone differently. And this time, the lawmakers backed off. And they are getting criticized by the newspapers (in particular, the Salt Lake Tribune and the Provo Daily Herald) for considering it in the first place.

Is the tide turning? Are politicians feeling a real backlash against their "nanny state" bills targeting video games? Is anti-videogame legislation no longer a "freebie" when trying to earn family values points for the next election? Is the public finally becoming aware of games being a medium of communication (and even an art form) that should be protected? Will 2008 not be a repeat of 2006 with respect to anti-videogame bills? Will video games not suffer the same fate as comics several decades ago?

Maybe. I'm not getting my hopes up too high. But it seems that there may at last be a light at the end of the tunnel. It's encouraging to see the difference in the political climate surrounding what was effectively the same bill in Utah between this year and last.

Labels: Politics

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 8:19 AM (Permalink)