The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) has happily announced that the State of Illinois has been ordered by Judge Matthew F. Kennelly, United States District Judge, Northern District of Illinois to pay the video game industry $510,528.64 in attorney's fees "for its unconstitutional effort to enact a law banning the sale of violent video games."

Illinois Governor Blagojevich's Safe Games Illinois Act was overturned in December of last year, and the ESA subsequently requested in March that the video game industry be reimbursed for legal costs. The ESA had asked for more than $644K.

The reimbursement of legal fees will be distributed among the plaintiffs, the ESA, the Video Software Dealers Association (VSDA) and the Illinois Retail Merchants Association.

"Judge Kennelly's rulings send two irrefutable messages - not only are efforts to ban the sale of violent video games clearly unconstitutional, they are a waste of taxpayer dollars," said ESA president Douglas Lowenstein. "The sad fact is that the State of Illinois knew this law was unconstitutional from the beginning. Taxpayers have a right to know that over half a million of their dollars and countless government hours were thrown away in this fruitless effort."

He continued, "As we said from the outset of this debacle and repeatedly since then, instead of squandering taxpayers' money on frivolous lawsuits and attempting to enact clearly unconstitutional laws, we encourage policymakers to focus their resources on a cooperative effort with industry, retailers, parent groups and health groups to work together to educate parents about the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) ratings and content descriptors, and the parental controls available in all next generation consoles to help parents make sound choices about the games their kids play."

Senator John Cullerton, Illinois 6th District State Senator, also expressed disappointment, noting that he predicted the state would be forced to pay in the end. "I am very disappointed that the state of Illinois has to pay these fees for what was such a clearly unconstitutional law from the start," he said. "When I spoke against the law in Springfield, I predicted we would have to pay legal fees. The amount ordered paid to the plaintiffs by Judge Kennelly doesn't even count the substantial fees the State will have to pay its own lawyers."