In the light of the fact that the United States Supreme Court has decided that, later this year, they’re going to be considering Sen. Leland Yee’s law that was blocked by a US District Court..

The law was blocked when the video game industry sued the state of California, citing concerns about whether or not the law was against the constitution.

The law banned the sale of violent games to minors. It holds the punishment of a $1,000 fine for each offense. The law, although passed, was never successfully enacted. Still, Adam Sessler, in an episode of G4′s Sessler’s Soapbox laid out part of the question perfectly: Are video games protected speech

Activision is launching a campaign to educate parents about the ESRB ratings system and how to make an informed decision when buying a game for their kids. This campaign, called “Ratings are not a Game”, is backed by Dr. Cheryl Olson, co-director of the Center for Mental Health and Media at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Activision has created a series of videos where Dr. Olson explains how parents can get involved in the different types of games played by their children. The videos also explain the different ratings of the ESRB and feature child psychologists that talk about the personal and social skills that children can develop by playing certain kinds of games. Engaging in multiplayer matches in certain games can help develop social skills and strategy games can help with problem solving skills. Also, some action games can help with coordination and motor skills.

These videos are a great idea as they help parents in having a better understanding of games and how they can even prove helpful in the right circumstances…

It seems the US may not be the only country with anti-video game crusaders.

Ananova reports that a 13-year-old Italian boy has been diagnosed with “PlayStation Addiction.” Curiously, the diagnosis did not come from the doctors at the hospital who treated the boy but by a local Italian politician named Antonio Buccoliero (a Regional Councilor of Puglia, Italy). According to Ananova, Buccoliero said, “They eventually managed to take care of him once they understood that this was a strange kind of mental detachment connected to his Playstation.”

That “mental detachment” was thought to be a stroke or severe brain disorder at first when…

The average gamer age is higher than it was when most of us started gaming. Content is much more mature than when the older gamers started as well. Parents, who are often gamers as well, still want to insure that their kids play age-appropriate games.

If you don’t want your kids to have exposure to inappropriate content, the only place you can really limit their exposure is in the home. Even then your control over inappropriate content in your house is still lacking to an extent. Unless your child is home schooled, has no friends, doesn’t watch TV, never goes online and doesn’t flip through magazines or the newspaper; sooner or later there’s going to be exposure to content deemed inappropriate for a child.

So with the general availability of information there’s a couple of ways to deal with the rise in mature content…

According to a recent survey by Information Solutions Group and PopCap Games, gaming can help parents and grandparents bond with their children. Most of the people involved in the survey agreed that gaming can be beneficial in areas such as hand-eye coordination, mental exercise and memory. As some games are now used in therapy and education, parents see them as a beneficial learning tools and are getting involved with them and this leads to bridging the gap between the generations and gives them a common interest.

It’s good to see that gaming is starting to lose its reputation as a vice and a waste of time. I remember when my parents thought of my consoles as some weird …