Video Game Violence Goes to the Supreme Court

My last two article are about the ongoing court case that is a the Supreme Court right now about a Californian law that makes selling ultra-violent or sexually explicit game to minors illegal.  The latter of the two gives you kind of a background information on other laws against video games and on the Californian law that was repealed.  The former article out of USA Today, talks about the right of the video game industry to make as violent video games as they deem fit.  However, it is the parents right to decide what their child can and can not play and a law stating such is a good thing.  It also mentions a poll that was taken that said that three-fourths of parents would support a law like California's.

A Source from my Annotated Bibliography

I have been doing research over video game violence and the effects on children and I would like to share one of my sources with you out of my annotated bibliography.


Walsh, Mark. "Mortal combat: video game makers fight for their right to be as bad as they wanna be." ABA Journal 96.11 (2010): 22+. Academic OneFile. Web. 22 Nov. 2010.  The article describes a Californian law that was recently overturned in an appeals court.  It continues on to describe briefly why it was enacted in the first place, what is currently going on with it moving toward the Supreme Court, and what lasting effects the decision could have.  This article is written for the American Bar Association journal.  As such its target audience is lawyers and those involved in the process of the judiciary.  This article is a current example that my topic is relevant and effecting us today.  It shows how we as Americans feel about the topic and how the decisions from this may affect our future.

A Source from my Annotated Bibliography

I have been doing research over video game violence and the effects on children and I would like to share one of my sources with you out of my annotated bibliography.


Steyer, James P. “Opposing view on First Amendment: Protect kids, not profiteers.” UsaToday.com. N.p. 28 Oct. 2010. Web. 12 Nov 2010.  The article is written in response to the Californian law that has been in review by the Supreme Court.  It was written by   James P. Steyer who is the CEO and founder of Common Sense Media, making this source slightly biased.  The writer says that producing violent video games is fine but also, that it is up to parents to decide what their kids can or cannot play.  The purpose of this article is to persuade readers that the California law is constitutional and should be passed.  I will use this article as a possible, more moderate, solution comparison to what I suggested in my project proposal, for proper handling of the video game violence issue.

Video Games

This site is a moderately okay site to use if you are curious about what both sides are saying about the effects of video game violence on children.  I think it fairly accurately portrays both sides without any bias meant.  It has some great statistics, including charts for helping you to visualize what the data is trying to explain.  However, this brings up a point I talked about a couple post ago about possible biases of certain studies that have been done.  Many of the statistics are from the Entertainment Software Association which is the trade association for the video game industry in the United States.  So you should take just about everything you read with a grain of salt and if you see something that interests you I suggest you do more research and dig deeper and come to your own conclusions.

A Source from my Annotated Bibliography

I have been doing research over video game violence and the effects on children and I would like to share one of my sources with you out of my annotated bibliography.

“Video Games.” ProCon.org. N.p. 18 Feb. 2010. Web. 11 Nov. 2010.  This website is an unbiased source that looks at both sides of the video game violence issue.  It has a list of many pros and cons side by side. It also has a chronologically listed account of the major events that started some of the controversy.  The purpose of this website is to inform interested parties about both sides of the argument.  This website is unique as it tries to keep and unbiased approach while showing the facts.  I will use information from this article to show pros and cons from both sides.

Rated V for Violence

This article informed me that not all states have legislation in place the limits the sale of video games rated for violence to minors.  I had just assumed since it was restricted where I lived that it was restricted everywhere.  I also had not realized that the Californian law that had been overturned and is now going to the Supreme Court was signed on October of 2002, it has been 8 years and it is still going through the court system.  As well as talking about how little some parents actually understand the ESRB rating system, or how many actually use it to judge whether or not their child should be playing a game.  The article throws in that with easter eggs in games, like Grand Theft Autos: Hot Coffee, is the ESRB rating system even valid.

Much Ado About Nothing

The Much Ado About Nothing article is from Psychological Bulletin and is really rooted in the scientific method and many difficult to understand points.  However, I also found the parts I could understand to be very informative about why the authors believe that many of the studies that have been done over the topic of video game violence and the effects on children are inconclusive.  They mention things like the bias of the public, to politics, and even large corporations paying to have studies done that can display the finding in a certain light to make them look however they want them to look.  Despite it being difficult to read at times and maybe a little dry, I believe that this article is probably the most unbiased source that I have come across while researching.