The highest court in the land has weighed in on video game-related law and it’s a huge win for the game industry.

The United States Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that a proposed California law making it a crime to sell violent games to minors is unconstitutional. Justice Anton Scalia said the law is in direct conflict with the First Amendment, citing some of the same laws that protect books and movies. Although games are a new media, Scalia wrote, the rules governing free expression do not change.

Does violence in video games lead to real-life violence? This has been a hotly discussed and controversial topic for many years, to the point that it has reached the Supreme Court. If you happen to live in or near San Francisco, the Commonwealth Club will be hosting a debate on this topic on Thursday March 17, 2011, and all are invited.

EA has called out California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on his stance against violent videogames. Schwarzenegger is the main opposition in a piece of legislation that will soon be heard in the Supreme Court. If passed, it would be illegal for stores in California to sell what it considers to be “excessively” violent videogames to minors. Other forms of entertainment such as movies are not subject to such laws.

A California law banning the sale of violent games to minors will get its day in the highest court in the United States in October 2010. The legislation in question was supposed to take effect in 2006, but has been tied in legal wrangling for years now. A California federal appeals court ruled that the state hadn’t produced sufficient evidence that violent video games harm minors.

While gamers and their advocates have long since denounced California’s action as pointless, they gained a powerful ally in the LA Times. In and editorial titled “Violent video games: Who controls the joystick?,” the newspaper has taken the state of California to task for its efforts to legislate an action that should really be left up to parental units.

This is an editorial that any gamer can get behind…

The California state law prohibiting the sale or rental of “violent video games” to minors has officially been stopped by the courts. The law, originally proposed by now Senator Leland Yee (then an Assemblyman) would have gone into effect would have gone into effect on January 1, 2006, but was temporarily stopped when Entertainment Software Association (ESA), Video Software Dealers Association (VSDA) and Interactive Entertainment Merchants Association (IEMA) sued to stop the law.

According to GameDaily, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who signed the original law, responded….