Video Games Declared Free Speech by US Supreme Court June 27, 2011
Posted by Maniac in Editorials, Game News.1 comment so far
I may be a gaming journalist, but I’m a gamer first, I’ve been a gamer all of my life, and as a gamer I have to say that today is the proudest day I’ve ever had as a gamer, and in the United States, gamers everywhere have a good reason to celebrate.
We, as gamers, have had to endure so much for the past twenty years. Angry ignorant parents, politicians who simply just want easy votes, and a media who was more than happy to endorse either of what those groups say as law.
For years, individual states, fed by these false prophets, have tried and tried to regulate what we love and restrict access to what everyone agrees is fantasy entertainment simply to make themselves look better to a public who would listen to them, even though these restrictions were clearly illegal since they were a clear violation of the highest laws of the land. Every time these states were sued by various organizations, and in many cases these organizations were endorsed by other organizations which had nothing to do with gaming at all, but were champions of free speech. Every state law was struck down, and it cost each state which passed these laws thousands of dollars in taxpayer money to cover legal expenses of fighting them.
But you couldn’t tell any of that to Yee of California or it’s Governor. They were going to take their illegal law as far as they possibly could, to the highest court of the land, which, while it must protect the Constitution of the United States, has the ability to interpret it however they want and vote by majority decision.
Before he died, George Carlin did an interview about when he championed free speech decades earlier, and while his act about the “Seven Dirty Words” was clearly protected by the first amendment and won on a lower level, the Supreme Court didn’t agree and banned the use of the curse words on radio and broadcast television. In the years since the decision has been made, the banned words have not been changed, and those policies are still in place. Thankfully it hasn’t been updated to censor the use of those words online, which is one of many reasons I’m happy to be working in this new media outlet.
The cases were laid out months earlier. Both sides were questioned heavily by the judges, and as I read the transcripts of the legal banter between the judges and the lawyers involved, I could get the sense that the judges actually knew what they were talking about. They asked clear cut questions like, “Would you censor Grimm’s Fairy Tales?” They also knew that their own staff played these games that these lawyers argued were bad (like Mortal Kombat) and I believe having known the people that played video games were just that, people, saw no connection between violent behavior and violent video games that the lawyers were arguing.
Well today, the decision was reached. The California law was struck down by the highest court. More than that, it sets a CLEAR legal precedent that laws like it are not acceptable in any other state that might have been interested in drafting it (or re-drafting it).
The best part about this is that this was NOT a partisan issue at all. Both parties from the left and the right had people who both agreed and disagreed with the law. One of the original proponents of tough government restrictions on video games was Senator Lieberman of CT (formerly D, now I) and one of the major opponents of this particular bill was conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh, who argued that this was just another form of government restriction, and those were unacceptable to him in every way. The proponents of the bill in California included Leland Yee (D) and The Govenator (R).
So grab your games, gamers, and you enjoy them. Enjoy them. We’ve earned that right.
UPDATE: Apparently losing on every single level has not humbled Leland Yee and he has continued to express his disappointment about this decision to the media. Since he has been quoted in almost every media outlet already, I have decided not to reprint his quote here, and instead print my own counterquote that I encourage all media outlets who have been quoting Yee to please place right next to it, and I offer this for no charge at all.
The quote was spoken yesterday by my father. My father is not a gamer, nor has he played a video game since the original NES version of Tetris was released. When I told him about the court’s decision, he had these words for Yee.
I’m sure your parents worked very hard to get you all the freedom and opportunities that this country has provided you, and you have spent your entire career trying to take those rights and freedoms away from everyone else.
-Maniac’s Dad
Playstation 3 Trailers I missed from E3 June 24, 2011
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Before I got to LA, I tried my best to post up all the E3 trailers I could get my hands on before I left. I did this beause I knew once I left for LA, I wouldn’t be able to get any E3 trailers for any games up on my site. I didn’t have the tools to embed videos on the site, nor access the bandwith to be able to even watch them online.
When I was in Los Angeles I saw some pretty awesome trailers for the first time and since E3 has been almost two weeks ago, instead of posting them all up seperatly (espessially since in a lot of cases you’ve probably seen them before) I wanted to do this article where I take a look at my favorites and talk about them.
First up is the recently released inFamous 2. Since the game launched at the exact same time as E3, it isn’t considered a work in progress. While finished games have had demos at E3 in the past, I didn’t see any for inFamous 2 while I was at the Sony booth, although they were running this really awesome trailer on the Sony big screens overlooking the various demo kiosks.
This trailer did give a lot away, in paticular that Cole would be fighting alongside other superpowered people, and shows off just how big the enemies that Cole is going to face are going to get. It’s a really epic final trailer for a game that has been recently released and it got plenty of attention whenever it showed up on Sony’s big screen.
Next up is the highly anticipated Uncharted 3. Do I need to say anything more to set this up?
I would classify all of the previous trailers for Uncharted 3 to be simply teasers. They succeeded in setting the stage for the player and giving them a hint on just what the story was going to be. They also showed off some solid gameplay and later introduced our big baddie of the game. But all of this was not done under context, and we had no idea if the rest of the Uncharted characters (the girls!) would be returning for this new game. Now we know the answers to a lot of these questions, and it is glorious. Chloe and Elena will be returning, and now we get to see just what it is that the Uncharted cast is after, and just what’s at stake.
And now on the final Playstation 3 exclusive trailer I wanted to get to, Resistance 3. Their E3 2011 trailer has been dubbed simply, “The Road.”
I have to say that I’m slightly dissapointed by the lack of in-game footage in this trailer, espessially given the fact that the other two trailers were almost entirely in-game footage. However, it does a great job to set up what state the world is at the beginning of the game and who our new protagonist is.
That having been said, tons of gameplay of this game was playable on the E3 show floor. Single Player, Multiplayer, and even PS Move controls were demoed at E3, a lot of which I got to play. My guess is that the developers felt that if you wanted to see gameplay then to actually make it playable. Also, a Resistance 3 demo is being bundled with copies of the Blu-Ray Disc (BD) version of Battle: Los Angeles, similiar to how the God of War 3 E3 2009 demo was bundled with District 9’s Blu-Ray version.
History of Duke Nukem Part 3 June 21, 2011
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We’re up to the third part of the official History of Duke Nukem video series, and this one is a lot different than the videos that have come up to that point. Instead of talking about the previous Duke Nukem games, this focuses strictly on the (lets face it) controversial development cycle of Duke Nukem Forever, and features nine minutes of different people who have worked on the project, how they contributed to it, and what their take was on why deveopment took so long.
Its a fantastic watch to see these guys humbly talk about why they got involved in the project and what contributed to the development just getting out of control.
A fourth part is coming, and it will continue the interviews on Duke Nukem Forever.
Duke Nukem Forever is out for PC, Xbox 360 and PS3.
Bungie Has a Mobile App With Free Halo Reach Goodies June 16, 2011
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Now that Bungie has struck out on their own from Microsoft to become platform agnostic, they have released their first bit of software for a non-MS platform in ten years, and its something that I’ve been wanting for quite a while.
The bungie.net app, currently avalible for free for iOS users on the Apple App Store, allows Halo Reach players to not only track their player stats online or the stats of friends, check the bungie.net news and twitter feeds, but enables its users with the ability to get exclusive content for their Halo Reach character, including the coveted Blue Flame Helmet, and the also coveted Star Nameplate, which was announced back when the other Nameplates were announced, but they never had an announcement how to get it (I don’t think they even knew at the time) until now.
People who don’t have iPhones or iPad should start friending up to people who do, as anyone who downloads the app will be able to give the Star Nameplate to seven friends who have gamertags registered as played Reach.
I’m considering having a star nameplate giveaway here tomorrow. Check on back for the details!
Shameless Marketing at it’s Finest June 9, 2011
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I’ll let you enjoy this image. Have a look at what the E3 bathrooms have on the mirrors.
UBISOFT Briefing Starting Soon June 6, 2011
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I’m at the UBISOFT event, which is the ONLY company which invited me to their briefing. It looks like this is going to be a fantastic show! Take a look at what they did to the LA Theater!
Remedy Spotted at E3, Full Story June 5, 2011
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I have tracked down the very elusive of game developers, Remedy Entertainment, and asked the very awesome Matias Myllyrinne just what his and his company’s E3 plans were.
He was very honest and said he was there alone and was just there to attend the conferences. Remedy was not showing anything at E3 this year.
For those of you who might think he was pulling my leg, At the time I was running into him, he was picking up his attendee badge for the Microsoft Press Conference (Microsoft, where was MY invite?). So he’s going to be there, but not to show anything.
He’s a really nice guy and even posed for this picture while in line. I know this is not what a lot of people were hoping for (myself included) but I just wanted everyone to know.
Prey 2 E3 2011 Bounty Trailer June 4, 2011
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Bethesda and Human Head has released the first CGI trailer of Prey 2 (the last one being almost entirely live action) for E3 2011.
In it, we see our new protagonist, a human/alien bounty hunter, hard at work. While the video is fully CGI and shows no actual gameplay, we can get a lot of information from it. The enviroments look very futuristic and yet alien in many respects, open cities, rooftops, with spacecraft flying around all over the place at night, almost Blade Runner-esque, but more alien. There are some snippets of what the Heads Up Display looks like, and it looks like you will be able to have live information on what bounties are wanted dead or alive. Most importantly, it looks like this new hero has been training under Faith Connors, as he pulls off a lot of Parkour moves, including long jumps, long falls, climbing, and slides. Now this could all just be for the video’s purposes, but the fact they chose to depict him like this probably is teasing you will be able to pull off these moves in the game.
Prey 2 is coming for PC, Xbox 360 and PS3.
Aliens: Colonial Marines E3 2011 Trailer June 4, 2011
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We’ve known for a few years now that Gearbox and Sega were working on an Aliens game, based upon the popular 20th Century Fox movie series, but no one has seen any footage or trailers of it for quite some time now, even though Gearbox has had a pretty full plate of development recently with Borderlands and more recently Duke Nukem Forever.
Well, Houston, we have a trailer.
Pay really close attention to the login information in the video, it seems to start an easter egg hunt!
Aliens: Colonial Marines is scheduled for release Spring 2012.
RAGE – Well Gameplay Video June 4, 2011
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RAGE is id Software’s next baby, and it is coming up pretty fast. Today, they just released the newest video of this game, and it showcases some pretty sweet looking gameplay, and since this is id we’re talking about here, the graphics are phenominal with great performance to boot. As for what you think of the game, I’ll let you decide that for yourselves.
I am pleased to announce that I am scheduled to meet with Bethesda at E3 and this will be one of the games I will be given an insider preview of. Other games I’ll be seeing include Skyrim and Prey 2.
RAGE is coming August, 2011 for PC, Xbox 360 and PS3.
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