While most of Washington, DC will 
be focused on mid-term elections Tuesday, the justices of the Supreme Court will be thinking about video games.
The Supreme Court is schedule to hear oral arguments on Nov. 2 in the case of Schwarzenegger v. EMA, by far the most important challenge – legal or otherwise – the video game history has faced.
A slew of entertainment industry orgs have joined together 
to file a brief with the Supreme Court in support of the vidgame biz’s efforts to overturn California’s ban on the sale or rental of violent vidgames to minors.
The biz’s concern is that the law restricting the sale of vidgames because of their content could have far-reaching First Amendment implications. The issue at stake in the challenge to the law isn’t whether publishers can make violent games, but whether states can impose sales restrictions on those titles — effectively declaring them to be on the same level as pornography and therefore able to legally limit their sale to adults.
It’s been a relatively quiet past few years for developers who focus 
on action games. Sales have been solid, while media hysteria about the genre has been, for the most part, muted. The heyday of finger-pointing and uninformed accusations could be about to resurface, though. While Jack Thompson is less a force of nature than he used to be (both legally and with mainstream outlets, who seem less inclined to put him on air), the elements of a perfect storm are brewing to put first-/third-person shooters back in an uncomfortable media spotlight.
When the U.S. Supreme Court agreed in April to review a
California law prohibiting the sale or rental of violent video games to minors in its next term, it sent shock waves through the gaming industry.
Analysts, insiders and even casual observers had been expecting justices to let stand a lower court ruling, which had declared the law unconstitutional. Once they didn’t, the scramble began to assess the possible implications—and leaders of the industry say they could be dire.
With the Supreme Court scheduled to hear arguments 
later this year about whether states should be allowed to regulate the sale of violent video games, you might think game makers would consider dialing down the number of shooter titles.
You’d be wrong. Despite the pending case, which could dramatically redefine the industry, developers and publishers have a full slate of action games lined up for late 2010 and early 2011.
As the video game industry gathers at E3 to 
look forward to the holiday season and what it hopes are more prosperous times, storm clouds are gathering on the horizon that have the potential to radically change gaming in the months and years to come.
The substantial growth of video games as a financial and pop culture force has put gaming on a number of new radars — both competitive and political. And interested parties are moving in from all sides.
Chris Morris: Journalist 