The battle between the video game industry and the State of California ended with the Supreme Court ruling California’s law unconstitutional. The 2005 law would have made it a crime to sell violent video games to minors. Now the Entertainment Software Association filed a motion for reimbursement of $1.1 million in attorneys fees from California. The ESA motion argues that numerous states had tried to pass similar laws and had them shot down as unconstitutional. Thus, the ESA contends California was wasting time and taxpayer dollars defending legislation doomed to fail.

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

What? Video game sales are down? That hasn’t stopped Texas-based GameStop from posting big profits.

The Dallas Morning News reports that the retailer pulled in $1.83 billion for the quarter ending October 31, 2009. That was an 8.3% increase over the same period in 2008.

Those are impressive numbers in a 2009 that has been down overall for the game industry. The DMN article also notes that GameStop is preparing for digital downloads to become a bigger portion of overall game sales, hiring two executives to work on that issue and improve online sales.

The Game Developers Association of Australia has reported that the Australian government once again neglected to provide tax incentives for the fast-growing video games industry. According to an official response to the 2007 federal budget on the GDAA website:

For every $10,000 the government spends on the Film industry they only spend $3 on the video games industry and this is not only a fiscal equity and imbalance issue but also a serious neglect of one of the fastest growing industries in the creative and entertainment sector.

The report is full of all kinds of other fun and interesting facts…