Failed Supreme Court battle cost California $1.8M - Report

@HollowNinja Free speech > lazy failure parents

Wow. Seriously, California needs to wake up and vote these losers out of office. This man literally said he's fine with putting the state another 1.8 million in debt over a stupid cause.

Yet another pointless abuse of the legal system, you know sometimes I wish we could go back to the good ol' "eye for an eye" method. lol

f*ing ridiculous wheres the outrage against movies? CSI shows utterly gross crap on tv on a daily basis, wheres the outrage!? the only fight these lawyers are fighting is the fight to fatten their wallets while trying to justify their frivolous lawsuit to taxpayers. they get rich while pretending to fight the 'just' fight for society... they need to be reprecussions for such utter waste of peoples money

Er.. forget about the stickers and just get the effing guns off the streets...violent videogames might cause aggression, but its a lot harder to kill someone with a melee weapon, well...its a lot more tiring! oops think i just let something slip.. :s

So let me get this straight. The government tries to ruin out video games and loses, expects us to pay the bill, has no regrets about how much money they wasted, and they want us to vote for them this fall? This is why I have 0 respect for people involved in politics.

I think they should ask the California citizens if they felt that this case was justified and "for a good cause."

Can't they just make these idiot politicians pay? No wonder the state is broke.

i dont see why Arnold schwarzenegger made the bill in the first place the movie the terminator they made toys of it and it was a Rated R movie... so that means little kids where seeing it (i sure was) so was he mad about that? or even predator toys

One of the many questionable things this state government does to waste money. No wonder this state is bankrupt. I need to GTFO.

I need to get the f*** out of CA

@HollowNinja It's pretty old news, but if I remember correctly, the major concern over the law was that it completely disregarded the ESRB, and basically amounted to an arbitrary ruling by the state that any given game was violent. Therefore, since they were ignoring ESRB, it was a concern that rulings would be made that games like Jak and Daxter, or Ratchet and Clank were violent; which they are, but not in a way to legitimize a sticker on the package denoting it only for people 18 years or older, which in turn would make it illegal for the target audience to purchase them. In a perfect world, I would have absolutely no problem with it being illegal to sell an M rated game, or violent movie to a minor, but the fact is we just dont' live in a perfect world. So my vote goes in with the, "If you want something done right, the parents are the ones who will have to do it," lot. P.S. On a secondary note, I've still seen retailers where I live (not anywhere near California) still request to see ID when purchasing a violent game. Witnessing this enough times has made me feel that making it outright illegal to sell the games to minors is outright pointless.

Wow, I would be seriously pissed off right now if I lived in California. Talk about wasted money.......

People will never stop deluding themselves into stupid causes in the name of "the children". If I was a California taxpayer I'd be absolutely livid that they're wasting their time and money going after video games.

I still disagree with the ruling. This law wouldn't have banned the sale of violent video games, it would have only banned their sale to minors, who shouldn't be playing such games anyways. Those who are saying that the parents should be responsible for this... well, you're right, but it's impossible for a parent to keep track of their child for every moment of their life. The only problem that I have is that it shouldn't be limited to video games.

I remember when I needed a guardian to buy rated M games. I'm 20 and could less now! lol.

Score one for the people. You can't legislate morality, you silly politicians.

So many major issues need to be addressed and yet diots would rather take the fight to games, gays, women, and on and on. Its like yelling at kids on your lawn while your house is on fire.

Why would they care? it's not their money.

giant waste of money for a state that already owes so much.

It is the job of the parent to watch after what their under aged children are playing. Simple as that.

Meanwhile, parking ticket fees skyrocket.....

It's our money and we decide what we do with it, but hey feel free to waste our hard-earned, tax payer money on a case as stupid as this.

nice it was overturned, it should be the role of the parents instead of the government if they wanted to restrict it or not

if these government officials are going to use our tax dollars to pay for stupid laws that are going to be overturned, they should run it by us tax payers first...government officials never really get how regular people think

Protecting children is indeed a noble goal. ...However, I can think of better ways to accomplish that goal with 1.8 million dollars... Informational pamphlets given for free to all parents explaining what ESRB is for example... Heck, let's make them really fancy pamphlets for good measure. ...Now, what to do with the other 1.7 million dollars... Perhaps some sort of internet safety course to teach parents how to keep their children safe while they're online? Or maybe a billboard outside of stores explaining what the heck ESRB is? That still leaves alot of money left over though... How about going the extra mile, and initiating programs that explain why R rated means restricted; funding youth help programs to keep the kids out of gangs. Financial aid for struggling parents. In my opinion, my list of suggestions here range from silly, to unnecissary, to down right practical and useful. But they all share two things in common: They're all better uses of 1.8 million dollars than lawyer fees, and they all do more to protect children than what these guys accomplished... You can't hide stupidity and ignorance by claiming you were 'protecting the children'. And if you really cared, you should have funded your crusade for yourself, or at least asked for donations rather than just taking what you need from the unwitting citizens you were supposed to be serving.

Well is Mr. Leeland Yee up for reelection? Cause if he is...DON'T VOTE FOR HIM! VOTE EM OUT! Same goes for any idiot Senator that brings up B$ like this. Remember senators & representatives...we're watching!

It's not your job as a senator to protect my child, it's MY job to protect my child. STFU, stop over reaching your boundaries, and get back to making meaningful legislation. Here, I'll start for you: Balance your damn budget by stopping these futile lawsuits and wasting tax dollars.

...wait they were still at this? just STOP!

@DeFiLeDTitan I don't know where you live, but in the US it is not illegal to sell mature video games to people under the age of 18. They also are not put in a separate section. Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto can be found right next to Mario and Sesame Street.

"Protecting the kids" has become the new code word for oppressive laws. When you hear these words, it's almost guaranteed that it's a new repressive law that will remove freedom.

Owned! What's your deficit, California?

"When you fight the good fight for a cause you know is right and just, and it's about protecting kids, you don't ever regret that," he said. Eeeeeverybody's a hero nowadays. And they dare call themselves a democratic state.... Bastards and liars, delusionals bigots, all of them. I feel bad for Californian gamers, being stuck under such a s**tty primitive government. Should have lost a lot more, the bigots. 1.8Million is like spare change to them.

Thank you nanny state for spending tax money trying to take away freedoms. Glad I live somewhere else. And isn't it supposed to be illegal to sell mature games to people under 18 anyway? That's where the violent games are if I'm not mistaken.

justice

good! wish they lost even more

I wonder if Yee would feel the same way if the money came out of his pocket? Yeah, not such a good fight now, is it?

$1.8 Million could end poverty, or cure for diseases, :roll:

@rarson The government doesn't work doing what?

maybe the voters in california should reconsider some of their choices and then their money may be spent more wisely.

I still find it ironical (it's a word, it's MY word) that Aaaaaaarnold shoot-em-all-n-get-to-da-choppaaaah Schwarzenegger helped draft this piece of garbage. Hypocrite, much?

@trust2112 The fact that you focus on Republicans tells me you really don't understand the problem here. The state is the problem. You can replace people all you want, you're still going to end up with the same bad decisions.

California has no problem with wasting your money. This is why government doesn't work. Because it doesn't have to compete. Any company that operated like this would quickly lose funding (try not paying your taxes and see what happens!).

Wow California is already broke and now there law makers just added another $1.8 million bill onto there tab that will have to be payed by the Taxpayers. I find it Ironic that the california government tries to making a aspect of gaming illegal then fails and now the adult gamers of california are the one who have to pay the bill.

Of course they'd say they are fighting the good fight. They probably haven't spent a cent of their own money. Maybe Senator Leeland Yee and the people in California governor Jerry Brown's office should foot the bill instead of the tax payer. Then people might have more believe in their motivation for their cause.

Republicans never learn ANY lessons. That is why they force the rest of America too keep reliving the past.

Owned. Maybe this will teach them to mind their own business.

Tell that to the taxpayers since you feel it was justified spending that much on a law that made no sense and had no chance of passing.

"It's for the children" and "Defend our nation" are the BFGs of politics. If money is being spent inappropriately on education in a particular area and a more efficient budget is found, opponents cry foul and say the proponents want to take money away from the children. If money is being spend redundantly for military purposes (contracted data processing, intel, and security come to mind) and a budget is made that does away with most of the redundancy without compromising the returns, opponents gather everything into a generic military funding subject and say that proponents want to defund national security. It makes me sad. Why do we leave politics to the likes of Udina?