Even if no one expected this, a US appeals court ruled on Friday that the Californian law restricting the sales and rental of violent video games to minors and imposing labeling requirements is too restrictive and violates free speech guarantees. The Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals found that those labeling requirement unfairly forces video games to carry the state’s opinion about which games are violent.

The three-judge panel had a unanimous opinion, but this might force other states to quit their intentions of establishing mandatory video game labeling requirements. It looks like the decision was caused by the fact that California lawmakers failed to produce evidence that violent video games cause psychological or neurological harm to children. However, the authors of the legislation will urge California Attorney General Jerry Brown to appeal the court’s ruling to the US Supreme Court.

The 2005 law required games described as violent to carry an “18” label and it has been contested by video game publishers, distributors and sellers. A lower court had barred the law from taking effect in 2006, and later invalidated it. Entertainment Software Association was against the law from the beginning. The association has members such as Disney, Electronic Arts, Microsoft, THQ, Sony and Take-Two Interactive Software.

Researchers tried to prove, through different findings, that children who play violent video games are more likely to behave aggressively and get into fights. However, some of the researchers acknowledged that their samples were too small to draw conclusions and that there was no proof video games caused violent behavior, or that the games affected minors differently from adults. It remains to be seen if the law will be reinstated or if video games will be sold to everyone.