Yes. It has happened. Yesterday, by a margin of 7 to 2, Justices of the US Supreme Court ruled that violent video games are considered protected speech. The case in question, Schwarzenegger v. Entertainment Merchants Association, was based on a California law also known by the dry title of Civil Code 1746–1746.5, signed in 2005, prohibiting sale of violent video games to minors, and imposing fines of up to $1,000 for violators.
Schwarzenegger v. Entertainment Merchants Association, filed by the state of California, posed these questions: Does the First Amendment bar a state from restricting the sale of violent video games to minors? Can a state ban the sale of violent video games to minors, and if so, must the state prove that violent video games directly cause physical and psychological harm to minors for the ban to be constitutional?
The state defined “violent video game” as one which the range of options available to a player include killing, maiming, dismembering or sexually assaulting an image of a human being. The game displays acts that a reasonable person would find appeal to minors with deviant or morbid interests, and is patently offensive to prevailing standards in the community as to what is suitable for minors. The game lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value for minors, and enables the player to virtually inflict serious injury upon images of human beings or characters with substantially human characteristics in a manner which is especially heinous, cruel or depraved. The game involves torture or serious physical abuse to the victim by gratuitous violence beyond that necessary to commit the killing, needless mutilation of the victim’s body, and helplessness of the victim.