My paper on applications of the theory of representations of Lie algebras to particle physics is finally done, and so I can bet back to the important things in life, like blogging. This was my last Harvard paper ever, which isn't really so sad.

First topic of conversation, in keeping with our recent links to video games, there have been several recent articles about video games...

Apparently some judge in a district court in Missouri has decided that video games categorically are not speech and deserve no first ammendment protection (here's the decision). Salon has this article. His argument comes down to the claim that video games are like other games and sports and not like films. The crucial point in his argument is the following:

"This Court has difficulty accepting that some video games do contain expression while others do not, and it finds that this is a dangerous path to follow. The first Amendment does not allow us to review books, magazines, motion pictures, or music and decide that some of them are speech and some of them are not. It appears to the Court that either a "medium" provides sufficient elements of communication and expressiveness to fall within the scope of the First Amendment, or it does not."

I don't think I really buy that argument, but I'm not a lawyer and so perhaps he is right. However, having made that argument, it stands to reason that it is sufficient to find a single video game which clearly contains speech in order to give protection to all of them. Rather than conduct such research or request such information from the party to the suit, or even say that he does not have enough information to make this decision, this judge decides to look only at the 4 games which the defense had provided him. These games were, Doom, Resident Evil, Mortal Kombat, and Fear Effect. As one would expect, these four games which were chosen by the defense have little to no important speech in them.

Perhaps judge Limbaugh should have read this article, whose headline is "Civilization and its Discontents, A video game makes you ponder the nature of history."

What do I think on the matter? There are video games which clearly qualify as speech, some now, but there will be many more in the future. On the other hand, no matter how much i enjoy them, games like Quidditch and 3-D Pong are, just as judge Limbaugh argues, really just high tech versions of bingo.