Failed anti-game legislation will cost California nearly $1.8 million

URL: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2012/02/failed-anti-game-legislation-will-cost-california-nearly-18-million.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss

Trying to pass unconstitutional restrictions on a burgeoning artistic medium is not cheap. Just ask the state of California, which will end up paying $1.8 million in attorney's fees in its failed effort to restrict violent game sales to children with a law that was overturned by the Supreme Court last year.

It was widely reported last month that the state would be paying $950,000 to cover legal costs for the Entertainment Merchants Association and Entertainment Software Association, which argued against the law. But that number didn't take into account nearly $300,000 the state had paid to industry defenders during earlier court battles, and $500,000 it spent on its own side of the legal battle, as The Sacramento Bee recently reported.

But there are no regrets from the sponsor of the bill. "When you fight the good fight for a cause you know is right and just, and it's about protecting kids, you don't ever regret that," Republican bill sponsor Leland Yee told The Bee. "I think we felt the issue was so important that it warranted the costs associated with it," former California deputy attorney general Jim Humes added.

And while the legal costs are a drop in the bucket compared to the state's massive annual budget of over $92 billion, some say legislators should have known that the law would end up being a waste of time and money. "I think it's fair to say the industry warned the state that they were just getting themselves into a big legal mess and they would end up having to pay attorney fees—and that's exactly what happened," game industry attorney Paul M. Smith told The Bee.

The good news is that states seem unlikely to waste taxpayer money on this specific issue in the future. The 7-2 Supreme Court ruling that overturned the California law was very clear in granting games full First Amendment protections, setting a precedent that other states seem unlikely to challenge directly. But that doesn't mean they won't try to find other ways to limit the impact of games they deem objectionable, as proven by an Oklahoma representative's recent efforts to add a surtax on games rated T and up.

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