In a complaint filed on October 4 (thanks GameSpot), Blizzard Entertainment has targeted a trio of men, accusing them of creating and selling hacks for the Blizzard game StarCraft II.

Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, the complaint names Michael VanKuipers (aka “Perma” or “Permaphrost”), Michael Simpson (aka Matt Cooper, “Cranix,” or “Cranyx) and John Roe (aka linuxawesome). 10 “John Does” are also named.

The Parents Television Council (PTC) has a short editorial up on its site in which the organization defends the California law at the heart of Schwarzenegger vs. EMA, claiming that the videogame industry has “resorted to half-truths to try to make its point.”

As far as the law restricting First Amendment rights, the PTC says it “does no such thing,” but “merely prevents the most objectionable content from being sold directly to children.”

Do children also have a "right" to purchase cigarettes and alcohol? Of course not! If the law prevents children from directly purchasing other types of material that is inappropriate or harmful for them, why shouldn't parents be able to rest easy knowing their child won’t be able to buy ultra-violent games without their permission?

The petitioner in the Schwarzenegger vs. EMA Supreme Court Case is the state of California, and as such, it receives the opportunity to furnish the Court with a reply brief, in which it can argue against statements presented in the brief of the respondent.

California has done just this, submitting its reply brief (PDF, thanks PHX Corp!) in which it begins by stating that the respondents are off base in their attacks:

Respondents and their amici paint an alarming picture of government censorship of both classic and contemporary art and literature, ignoring the level of extreme violence depicted in the narrow category of video games that is actually covered by the Act.

The Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA) is inviting concerned gamers to participate in a pro-gaming rally on November 2 in Washington D.C., the same day that the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the Schwarzenegger vs. EMA case.

The rally will take place on the steps of the Court, which is located at One First Street NE, at 9 AM. Oral arguments for the landmark videogame case are scheduled for 10AM ET.

The ECA noted:

Even after losing Curt Schilling and his 38 Studios to neighboring Rhode Island, indications are that Massachusetts still has no plans to institute incentives or tax credits designed to lure, or keep in place, game development companies.

To be fair, Schilling’s deal with the Ocean State, in which his company initially received a guaranteed $75 million loan, before it was pared to approximately $51 million, was an incentive that was more-or-less created (or expanded anyway) to entice a single company.

The director of business development of Dundee, Scotland-based Abertay University appeared before a House of Commons committee in order to discuss the economic impact of the region’s videogame industry.

Paul Durrant, according to the Courier, lobbied for tax credits for the industry and claimed that it was “vital” for the industry to generate private investment. Durrant stated, “We continue to strongly support the industry's calls for games tax relief, but we also recognise the important role of other support mechanisms, including ways to incentivise private sector project finance.”

The Entertainment Software Association’s (ESA) Video Game Voters Network (VGVN) has posted the first batch of user submitted photos showing controllers submitted to California State Senator Leland Yee.

The VGVN, for those who missed it, is urging the gaming populace to show its distaste for the Yee-authored law, which, under the guise of Schwarzenegger vs. EMA, will appear in front of the Supreme Court on November 2, by sending in controllers with the words “I Believe in the First Amendment” written on them.

George Rose, Activision Blizzard’s Chief Public Policy Officer penned a column for the Orange County Register in which he called the California law at the heart of Schwarzenegger vs. EMA “onerous,” and "unnecessary.”

Rose claimed that a SCOTUS approval of the law would “hijack” the First Amendment rights of young people “by unjustifiably creating a special exception to unprotected free speech not only for video games, but any other form of expression.”

He also worried that the law would put “innocent store clerks at serious legal and financial risk,” all for a law that is “already moot.”

Rose explained:

Following yesterday’s news that the ESA - via their Video Game Voters Network - is asking gamers to send California State Senator Leland Yee broken or old videogame controllers with  “I believe in the First Amendment” written on them, we reached out to the Senator’s office for comment.

Yee’s Chief of Staff Adam Keigwin replied that, “I can only assume these broken controllers must represent the broken promises of the video game industry to parents.”

The response continued:

While we’ll be trying to gain entrance into the Supreme Court to hear Schwarzenegger vs EMA oral arguments on November 2, even if questionable credentials or a nefarious past preclude us from gaining access, a recording of the arguments will be made available on the SCOTUS website.

The new recording release initiative, as detailed on the SCOTUS website, begins with the current October term and will see audio files posted to the SCOTUS website on Fridays, under the Oral Arguements section of the site's menu.

The Entertainment Software Association’s (ESA) Video Game Voters Network (VGVN) has launched a promotion designed to tweak California State Senator Leland Yee, the original author of that state’s videogame law which is now in front of the Supreme Court.

A good handful of gamers have probably destroyed a controller in a fit of rage, and while there’s a handful of things that the useless accessories could be used for, the ESA - via VGVN - is urging game enthusiasts to take the broken controller (or an old one), scribble “I believe in the First Amendment” on it and send it off to Senator Yee’s office.

Vietnam has been implementing a series of measures aimed at attempting to curb what it believes is an overenthusiastic reliance on online gaming, but it isn’t above using games to lure the populace to a new government-backed Facebook competitor.

The state-owned Vietnam Multimedia Corp. launched a beta version of a social networking website called go.vn earlier this year. As detailed by the Wall Street Journal, the website requires prospective users to register using full names and government-issued identity numbers.

To help lure younger Vietnamese, the site features “several state-approved videogames, including a violent multiplayer contest featuring a band of militants bent on stopping the spread of global capitalism.”

The Journal piece mentions a university student named Pham Thanh Cong, who was waiting for “his turn to play an online shoot-'em-up game at a street-side Internet café.” When asked about go.vn, Cong replied, “I didn't even know it existed.”

Activision’s upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops has undergone a few changes in order to appease German censors.

According to CODFeed (via The Escapist), the game, which is set in various locations between 1960 and 2010, will have the following changes implemented for the German market:

The Supreme Court opens for a new session today, and with a number of cases on its docket involving technology—including, of course, Schwarzenegger vs. EMA—how up-to-date on the latest gadgets and means of communication are the SCOTUS Justices?

It’s a logical question and one posed by an American Public Media host to a recent guest, Professor Jeffrey Rosen from the George Washington University Law School, who also writes for the New Republic

“Some are pretty plugged-in,” was Rosen’s initial answer.

“Justice Thomas telecommutes; he does a lot of his work at home over the Internet and emails drafts in,” said Rosen, adding, “Justice Breyer certainly uses a cell phone. He is quite tech savy and uses email extensively.”

Rosen continued:

Earlier this week, we reported on the results of a moot court hosted by the Institute of Bill of Rights Law at William & Mary Law School, in which several noted journalists, legal scholars, and even a federal judge sat down to hash out a mock version of the Schwarzenegger v. EMA case pending before the Supreme Court. The IBRL moot court found 6-3 in favor of the State of California, causing some concern as to whether the result was an outlier or a hint towards how the Supreme Court may rule.

Apparently, William & Mary is not the only law school considering the question. New York Law School, famous for their annual State of Play conference, held a moot court competition of their own featuring a fact pattern very similar to that of the Schwarzenegger v. EMA case.  We obtained a copy of the bench brief from the case, which was written by NYLS third year law students Andrew Blancato and John Hague for the Charles W. Froessel Intramural Moot Court Competition. 

Funded by the UMass Memorial Medical Center and the Allstate Foundation, a new simulator, meant to demonstrate the perils of texting while driving, is making the rounds of Massachusetts high schools.

Teen D.R.I.V.E (Distracted Reality an Interactive Virtual Education) is a pretty snazzy looking simulator, which ends with a “patient’s-eye view” from a stretcher after a crash and an appearance before a judge to receive penalties, which go into effect in Massachusetts today.

If you’re allergic to clichés, please skim past the following quote from Allstate Foundation spokesman Chris Connor, who stated, “This is an opportunity to realistically engage teens in a manner they understand – video games, a simulation."

He continued:

Last month we did a story regarding a unit of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. distributing North-Korean developed mobile games, which were sourced through the Nosotek Joint Venture Company. A new CNN report offers a little bit more insight into doing business in a country run by “Supreme Leader” Kim Jong-il.

Nosotek is headed by German business man Volker Eloesser and its specialty is utilizing North Korean talent in order to create software, games and animation for foreign clients. Eloesser started Nosotek about three years ago, as he searched for something more “interesting and challenging.” He stated that it was “fairly easy” to find English-speaking workers and claimed that labor costs in North Korea are about half of what similar labor would cost in China.

Earlier this month we mentioned the amicus brief filed by online billing solution provider Vindicia, which backed the videogame industry in the looming Schwarzenegger vs. EMA Supreme Court showdown.

Vindicia CEO Gene Hoffman, Jr. has since penned an article for Xconomy on the case and how a ruling for California could kill the freemium model (a la Electronic Arts' Battlefield Heroes or id Software's Quake Live) of distributing videogames to the masses:

Over the past month, the “pro-family” Eagle Forum attempted (and failed) to lobby Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff into supporting the California side of Schwarzenegger v. EMA, while its founder, Phyllis Schlafly, scribbled out a withering column on the “evil products” and “highly disturbing”  content emerging from the videogame industry. Now another Eagle Forum member is attempting to pin the group’s anti-videogame stance on protecting children.

In light of President Obama’s appearance in Madden NFL 11 and the upcoming NBA 2K11, Kotaku took a look at the Politics of Presidential Appearances.

In both games, a representation of Obama is used to help celebrate a Super Bowl win or an NBA championship. While the President does have rights to his likeness, Villanova University School of Law Professor Michael Risch stated that, “A sitting president is probably never going to sue.”

Kotaku wrote:

Essentially, a president is the one A-list celebrity you get to use for free, provided you’re not too egregious about it. A sitting president filing a civil suit over the unauthorised use of his image is as bad a play politically as could be imagined, especially if the work in which he’s appearing is complimentary and respectful as is the case with Madden and NBA 2K.

Last month we told you that the Institute of Bill of Rights Law (IBRL) at William & Mary Law School would offer a mock trial of the Schwarzenegger v. Entertainment Merchants Association case, which is scheduled to go before the Supreme Court on November 2.  Well, the Moot Court held its version of the event over the weekend, and gamers will have to hope that the result does not foreshadow the verdict that SCOTUS eventually returns.

The mock trial included participants such as USA Today’s Joan Biskupic, The Wall Street Journal’s Jess Bravin, the New York Times’ Adam Liptak, University of California, Irvine School of Law Dean Erwin Chemrinsky, Jeffrey Sutton from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and U.S. Department of Justice Deputy Assistant Attorney General Beth Brinkman.

The courting of Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff (pictured) by both sides in the Schwarzenegger vs. EMA  U.S. Supreme Court case ended with him signing onto an amicus brief supporting the game industry, where he was joined by fellow attorneys general from Arkansas, Georgia, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Puerto Rico, South Carolina and Washington.

A disjointed op-ed in Utah’s Standard-Examiner praised Shurtleff’s decision, yet still managed to take some pot shots at the game industry.

Shurtleff stated that he backed the game industry because he was “convinced” that the First Amendment protects games, a point agreed with in the op-ed:

Is it right for the government to freeze speech -- in this case the video games -- because some people are offended by the violence? The answer is no.

In what may initially seem like a stretch, Vindicia, a “leading provider of on-demand strategic billing solutions,” has filed an amicus brief in support of the videogame side in Schwarzenegger vs EMA.

The brief (PDF) makes a bit more sense when put in the context that Vindicia has clients such as Activision Blizzard and Atari. The company stated that the law at the center of the case “substantially impacts Vindicia, its customers, and the consumers they serve… by creating uncertainty regarding the legal status of video game expression.”

Furthermore, the “the Act’s age verification mandate jeopardizes significant modes of online commerce.”

Among Vindicia’s arguments:

Eighty-two scholars and researchers signed their name to a brief voicing opposition to the California law at the center of Schwarzenegger vs EMA.

Noting that the issue now awaiting a Supreme Court ruling is subject to strict scrutiny because it attempts to regulate the sale of games based on content, the scholars’ brief argues that California has neither provided “substantial evidence” that games cause psychological or neurological harm to minors playing them, nor does the state “demonstrate that the restriction will ‘alleviate these harms in a direct and material way.’”

Additionally:

Indeed, California does not offer any reliable evidence, let alone substantial evidence, that playing violent video games causes psychological or neurological harm to minors. California confesses it cannot prove causation, but points to studies that it says show a “correlation” between the two. But the evidence does not even do that.

Stan Lee, the creator of such great comic book heroes as Hulk, Spider-Man and Iron Man (with the help of co-creator Jack Kirby), has put out a plea through the ESA-run Video Game Voters Network for gamers to stand up for the First Amendment.

In a note to the VGVN, Lee likened the current climate against video games to those he faced when comic books were starting their heyday in the 1950s:

Comic books, it was said, contributed to "juvenile delinquency." A Senate subcommittee investigated and decided the U.S. could not "afford the calculated risk involved in feeding its children, through comic books, a concentrated diet of crime, horror and violence." Comic books were burned. The State of Washington made it a crime to sell comic books without a license. And Los Angeles passed a law that said it was a crime to sell "crime comic books." Looking back, the outcry was — forgive the expression — comical.

Lee said that the same thing is happening now, pointing to the California law that is coming up for review before the U.S. Supreme Court:

Billing the California law at the heart of the Schwarzenegger vs EMA Supreme Court case as the “latest in a long history of overreactions to new expressive media,” the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) and Entertainment Merchants Association (EMA) have filed their argument against the restriction of videogame sales in California.

The brief contends that videogames are a form of expression “as rich in content as books and movies,” and that they “are fully protected by the First Amendment.”

It was written that “California’s argument is not saved by the fact that the State is purportedly acting to assist parents,” adding:

Thanks in large part to the demise of Realtime Worlds, employment in the Scottish videogame sector has fallen 18 percent in 2010, according to new research published by UK game industry group TIGA.

TIGA’s statistics claimed that there are 46 game development businesses in Scotland, which employ 650 workers and contribute £67 million (approximately $103 million U.S.) to the UK’s GDP.

Calling the Scottish industry “at a crossroads,” TIGA said that if Games Tax Relief was introduced, the industry could expect to grow, but if the UK government “sat on its hands and did nothing,” declines would continue.

Ah, the great divide. As some members of the older, out-of-touch populace, who grew up with Model T’s and still view the toaster as a pinnacle of achievement in technology, continue to disparage videogames, the younger generation persists in getting the back of the medium, as evidenced by a pair of college newspaper op-eds.

A piece running in The Gateway, the student newspaper of the University of Alberta, discusses the Schwarzenegger vs EMA case currently in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. The no-holds barred article lambastes “states that have seemingly nothing better to do with their time,” before stating, “enough with the “'save the children' bullshit, already.”

After opining that a go-ahead given to the California law by SCOTUS could lead to mature games being placed alongside content like “Naughty Nurses 17” at retail, author Jordan Ching wrote:

Phyllis Schlafly, founder of the “pro-family” Eagle Forum has authored a column in which she takes a hatchet to videogames, while attempting to outline the fight by both sides in the Schwarzenegger vs EMA case to rally state attorneys general to their respective squads.

A few of the descriptors used by Schlafly to portray videogames in her piece include: “extremely violent and addictive,” “polluting,” “increasingly realistic bloodshed,” “highly disturbing,” “heinous acts of terrorism” and “evil products.”

In case you hadn’t guessed it yet, Schlafly is not a huge fan of games. A sampling of her more inane arguments against videogames follow:

Some games are programmed to become more violent while the game is being played, and parents usually don't or can't play the games.

Korea’s Game Rating Board (GRB) is making life difficult for independent Korean game makers, strictly enforcing a law that virtually all games published in the country must be rated.

Posting to Reddit, a Korean game fan indicated that GRB recently swooped down upon a website for users of RPG Maker, a free tool that can be used to create role-playing games. While the games created and shared on the site were apparently not for sale, the GRB demanded that all the games shared on the site must be rated. The forum’s moderators, according to the Reddit user, deleted all the games on their website in light of paying the fees.