Basically California lawmakers wanted to make it a crime to sell violent video games to kids. We already have the under 17 rules in place due to ratings. This was unnecessary and really was in the hands of parents, where it should be (god forbid parents have to parent!). This debate on violent or offensive content has raged really since Tipper Gore and her cronies wanted the explicit lyrics sticker put on CDs in the 80’s. They wanted all art to be labeled as obscene if they deemed it so. This is so flawed it’s unreal, but that’s a whole other story. Eventually, years later we had a few iterations of the current rating system for video games.

Video games are a kind of expression and art (especially when done well, see Half-life and Half-life 2). They should be protected by the same first amendment as anything else. This was the arguement that the ESA’s (same organization that puts on E3) lawyers argued. Now they’ve won.

Read more in this link as the story is fleshed out very well by Kotaku

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