Fundamentally human, yes, as in stupid

Seth Schiesel has an article in The New York Times about a recent Supreme Court ruling on videogames:

It is now the law of the United States that video games are art. It is now the law of the United States that video games are a creative, intellectual, emotional form of expression and engagement, as fundamentally human as any other. “Like the protected books, plays, and movies that preceded them, video games communicate ideas— and even social messages— through many familiar literary devices (such as characters, dialogue, plot, and music) and through features distinctive to the medium (such as the player’s interaction with the virtual world),” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the Supreme Court in a case that arose from a California effort to ban the sale of violent video games to minors. “That suffices to confer First Amendment protection.”
Well, I’m glad we’ve gotten that taken care of.
It isn’t every decade that a new form of media officially joins the spoken and written word as a member of the special class of protected endeavor we consider vital to the functioning of pluralistic, democratic society. The last big one was film, about sixty years ago.
As Justice Scalia pointed out, the Supreme Court originally found motion pictures unworthy of First Amendment protection. (You know, that freedom of speech thing). In 1915 the court ruled that states could broadly censor films because movies could be “used for evil”. It took until 1952 for the court to grant film constitutional recognition. (It bears noting that television historically has not been entitled to full First Amendment protections from the state because television uses the public airwaves.)
And now video games— as vulgar, crude, disgusting, and thoroughly unredeeming as they often may be— have finally been fully recognized as a worthy element of our culture.
Of course, those of us who actually play games figured this out a long time ago. We knew that the most important video games were not merely matters of technology or neuromuscular coordination, but of finding new ways to explore and think about both human relationships and the wider world around us.
Not all games allow this. Not even most of them. Most video games— like the vast majority of any medium— are insipid junk. But of course one person’s insipid junk— whether books, movies, TV shows, or games— is another’s masterpiece. The point is that as a basic principle, those decisions about value and worth and importance must be left to the individual and protected from politicians. That is what the First Amendment is all about.
This decision invalidated a California law intended to regulate the sale of violent video games to children. As someone who plays hundreds of hours of violent video games every year, I certainly recognize that many are extremely inappropriate for children. It would be unconscionable to allow a young child to sit through, much less control, the gory scenes in some games, just as it would be to let them watch an R-rated “torture porn” film.
With a game like Grand Theft Auto IV, set in a satiric rendition of New York City, there are certainly sixteen-year-olds who will do nothing but embark on wild virtual crime sprees. And there are also emotionally and intellectually precocious fourteen-year-olds who will appreciate the game’s sharp skewering of contemporary American vacuity as seen through the eyes of a Balkan immigrant named Niko Bellic.
That doesn’t mean that game retailers should sell anything to anyone. The game industry has adopted an internal ratings and enforcement system that is at least as effective as the similarly private and voluntary system for Hollywood films. It is only responsible that any media industry give parents thorough information about the violence and sexual content of its products. But, as the court ruled on Monday, deciding just what ideas children may be exposed to is not the proper role of government.
Of course, I was flattered that an article of mine was cited by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. in his concurring opinion (joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.). I agree with their (and my) point that people are coming to interact with video games in increasingly interactive and natural ways. But while they focused on the idea that increased interactivity may make violent games more dangerous, I believe that such involvement may make the player more aware of the potential consequences of his or her actions. A player who might mimic the motion of swinging a bat to smash a skull, a possibility raised by Justice Alito (though I’m not aware of such a game), may only be made more conscious of the brutality of such an act.
As a practical matter, parents ought to have a lot more control over what their children play than what movies they see, anyway. First, the sixty-dollar cost of top games requires parents to be more involved in those purchases than in the purchase of movie tickets. And with the death of the arcade, almost all major games are played at home now. So parents should know what their children are playing.
Yet the real importance of the decision does not rest in practicalities. Laws both reflect and shape the societies that create them. This decision reflects society in that video games have already become the most vibrant new form of media entertainment in decades.
The real question is how this decision now shapes society. The video game industry has long reveled in its adolescent gripe that “they just don’t understand us”. That has led game makers, like sulky teenagers, to act out in some ways, promoting, for instance, some antisocial games with zero redeeming value.
Now that the industry has finally gotten what it’s asked for, it can no longer play the aggrieved, misunderstood victim. It is time to grow up and show the world what you can do with your newfound respectability. Will you use it as cover to pump out schlock or will you rise to the opportunity and respectability that has been afforded you?
The court has ruled that games are art. Now it is up to designers, programmers, artists, writers, and executives to show us what art they can produce.