I mentioned last week that I interviewed Leland Yee for a story I was working on. The story, about gaming laws, ran today in the Rocky.

While most of it is a summation of where things currently stand, it's probably still worth reading for a few interesting tidbits.

Yee estimates that if his bill remained a law it would currently only have an impact on four or five of the games out there. He also says, though this didn't make the final cut of the story, that he doesn't think a similar law should be passed for movies. His argument is that they aren't as interactive and therefore not as harmful.

The other interesting thing is the current status of the three bills passed into law around the country. You'll notice that Michigan has basically given up, allowing the ESA to request the injuction to be made permanent. Illinois has decided to drop the violence part of its law and instead just try and keep the obscenity part, meaning the law would only restrict games that are obscene. And California is going full-on to protect its law.

I spoke with the Attorney General's office in California, and they sounded very adamant about defending the law. They even think this could be one that perhaps makes it to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Anyway, check it out to get all of the details and read what a First Amendment lawyer thinks about the whole thing, and then comment away.

Fighting Game [Rocky Mountain News]

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