The U.S. Supreme Court today declined to rule on a request by the video game industry for $1.4 million in attorney’s fees paid for the video game freedom of speech decision earlier in the year. Instead, the court referred the request to the Ninth Circuit Court “for adjudication.”
The Supreme Court sided with the video game industry this summer in a 7-2 ruling, ending a six-year legal battle between the industry and the California lawmakers who proposed a ridiculously ambitious law to make it a crime for anyone in the state to sell extremely violent games to kids.
Whilst a sum of $1.4M might not seem like a great deal of money compared to the gargantuan sale figures of blockbuster titles such as Call of Duty, it’s the principal that such an attack on the video game industry itself could be sustained based on the views of a minority of politicians who are attempting to make a name for themselves by blaming society’s problems on Grand Theft Auto. If they are really that worried about violence and how it is portrayed in ‘The Golden State’, maybe they should try banning the sale of firearms first.
