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Supreme Court: Video Games are Protected by First Amendment

Today the United States Supreme Court ruled that video games are protected under the first amendment and government cannot limit their sale. Video games now have the same legal rights to free speech that books, music, and movies.

The case, Brown vs Entertainment Merchants Association, ruled on a California law which limited the sale video games to minors if the game meets these three criteria:

1. "The range of options available to a player includes killing, maiming, dismembering, or sexually assaulting an image of a human being, if those acts are depicted"
2. In a manner that "[a] reasonable person, considering the game as a whole, would find appeals to a deviant or morbid interest of minors,"
3. Is "patently offensive to prevailing standards in the community as to what is suitable for minors,"
4. "causes the game, as a whole, to lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors."

The Supreme Court said "government lacks the power to restrict expression because of its message, ideas, subject matter, or content". And California never proved that video games meet the few exceptions to the First Amendment protection of speech.

"Psychological studies purporting to show a connection between exposure to violent video games and harmful effects on children do not prove that such exposure causes minors to act aggressively." (A recent study actually says violent games helped reduce the crime rate)

"California also cannot show that the Act’s restrictions meet the alleged substantial need of parents who wish to restrict their children’s access to violent videos." because the video game industry already voluntarily provides ratings for parents with the ESRB system.

I'm glad to hear video games have finally been given First Amendment protection and hopefully overzealous governments will stop trying to restrict their sale.

You can read the entire 72 page oral arguments and official decision on the US Supreme Court website.

Playstation 3 Resale Prices Don't Recover After PSN Fixed

In April and May Sony had to deal with hackers breaching security on their Playstation Network. They took the service down for a little more than three weeks. During these three weeks resale prices for online enabled PS3 games decreased in price more than their Xbox 360 counterparts.

The PSN outage ended May 14th and PS3 games have online capabilities again - but have PS3 prices recovered?

We used the same ten games from the first article and compared the resale prices from May 14th (day network came back) to June 4th (three weeks later). During this time Playstation 3 prices decreased 0.6% while Xbox 360 prices decreased 5.4%.

PS3 prices didn't recover to their pre-outage levels, but they did hold steady and perform much better than the 360 resale prices. When the network came back PS3 owners started buying more games again, but not enough to cause an overall increase in prices.

Daily PS3 & 360 Resale Prices During & After PSN Outage

Before the outage started the average Playstation 3 game was selling for more than the average Xbox 360 game. But near the end of the outage 360 gamers started paying more for the 360 versions. Three weeks after the network went live again PS3 prices had again become slightly more expensive than the 360 games.

Virtual Bowling for Virtual Boy Almost $1,000

Virtual Bowling for the Virtual Boy is about to join the elite group of rare video games to sell for more than $1,000. The auction for a complete version of the game is selling for $940 with five days to go.

The game was only released in Japan and is the hardest to find of the Virtual Boy titles. The last time we saw the game actually sell was April of 2010. It sold for $750.

Virtual Boy Auction Photo

Who's Watching the Xbox 360 E3 Press Conference?

Today is the first day of E3 2011 and Microsoft will be leading off the conference with their press conference at 12:30 EST.

The shows are usually pretty interesting with lots of new game announcements, a couple huge surprises, and some interesting theatrics too.

Some news from Xbox 360 has already leaked. Kinect Star Wars. Dance Central 2. Halo 4 is on the way.

If you want to watch there are some live streams available here:

http://www.gametrailers.com/e3/?show=Press+Conferences#Content
http://www.youtube.com/e3
http://e3.gamespot.com/press-conference/microsoft-e3/

Let us know what you think of the conference after you watch it? What game are you excited for?

Dragon Quest V Is Really Cheap & Other RPG Deals

Dragon Quest V has fallen a long way. In March we wrote about Dragon Quest V being a really expensive Nintendo DS game selling for $55-60 used. In late April it was reprinted and available at most stores for $39.99. Now Amazon has it for sale for $19.99 brand new. In three months DQV went from $60 to $20. A great example of the risks in buying rare video games for collecting, one reprint and the price drops 66%.

The price is part of a big sale Amazon is having on a bunch of different RPG's and other genres. Some of the other great deals are:

Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together for PSP: $39.99 $25.99
Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy for PSP: $29.99 $17.99
Professor Layton and Curious Village for DS: $29.99 $14.99
Kingdom Hearts Re:coded for DS: $34.99 $19.99
Final Fantasy 4 Heroes of Light for DS: $24.99 $14.99
Madden 2011 for PSP: $39.99 $19.99