IDSA challenges Washington video game bill

The Interactive Digital Software Association (IDSA) last night filed a complaint in the US District Court of Seattle, Washington, challenging the constitutionality of a recently enacted Washington state statute seeking to ban the sale to minors of certain video games. According to the new law, Washington state HB1009, any retail outlet caught selling a video game that depicts violence against law-enforcement officials to anyone under the age of 17 will be fined $500.

"Does it cover plain clothes police, does it cover corrupt police, does it cover a Gestapo agent, a futuristic policeman, or even a game where police cars crash when players throw bananas at them?" said Douglas Lowenstein, president of the IDSA. "The law's definitions and terms are unconstitutionally vague, making it impossible for developers and publishers to know what depictions will run afoul of it, and for retailers to know what games they can and cannot sell."

The IDSA filed yesterday's lawsuit along with co-plaintiffs the Washington Retail Association, the Video Dealers Association, the Interactive Entertainment Merchants Association, the International Game Developers Association, and Hollywood Video. In addition to pointing out that the recent legislation offers no definition of the term "public law-enforcement officers," to which it refers, the lawsuit argues that the Washington statute is a content-based restriction on the dissemination of fully protected expression.

"While we share the state's objective to restrict the ability of children to purchase games that might not be appropriate for them, we passionately oppose efforts to achieve this goal by running roughshod over the constitutional rights of video game publishers, developers, and retailers to make and sell games that depict images some find objectionable," said Lowenstein. "We believe a combination of voluntary enforcement at retail and consumer education about video game ratings is vastly preferable."

"Earlier this week, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously and resoundingly ruled that video games are a constitutionally protected form of expression with the same First Amendment status as art, books, film, and music," added Lowenstein. "Based on this decision, and a similar one issued by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in 2001, we believe the Washington statute will be struck down as well."

We'll bring you more information on this story as it develops.