The state of California has issued a new law concerning the violent video games on the market. The government decided to restrict all the sales or rentals of such video games to any minor. Yet, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found on Friday that the law is too imposing and restrictive as it may easily violate free speech guarantees.

The same court stated that the law forces the labels to have the same opinion with the state’s controversial one that video games are violent. The three-judge panel agreed to the fact that this law must be forbidden and their decision will surely have a big impact on other states which have fought for establishing labeling requirements for violent video games.

The decision of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals came after the California lawmakers failed in providing enough proves that video games can cause psychological or neurological harm to children.

The court wrote that even if the lawmakers could have presented all the necessary proves, the Act is still not made to prevent that kind of harm, thus remaining less restrictive means of “forwarding the state's purported interests." The alternative measures are represented by the voluntary ratings system, the educational campaigns and the parental controls.

State Senator Leland Yee, who is also the author of the legislation, stated that he would advise the state of California’s Attorney General Jerry Brown to make an appeal toward the ruling of the court to the United States Supreme Court. He added that his belief is stuck to the fact that the governor is always right and his only wish is to protect the children from the harm that playing these games might make upon them.

The president and chief executive of the Entertainment Merchants Association, Bo Andersen, stated that this ruling justifies the position of his group that the proper responses to certain concerns about video games content are the ones given by the ratings education, the retailer ratings enforcement and the control of game play by parents.