happytimes
April 1st, 2008, 10:14 PM
I'm sure anyone who keep up with gaming news closely will know about what this is all about. If you don't know what the whole controversy is all about then read the next part. If you do know, then skip the next part and read my opinion about the controversy and comment on it yourself.
The Incident
Mass Effect, one of the most anticipated game of 2007, was released on November 20, 2007. Mass Effect is a role-playing action game developed by BioWare exclusively for Microsoft's Xbox 360 (it is now available for PC as well). The ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Boards) rated the game Mature for its blood, language, partial nudity, sexual themes and violence. On January 21st, 2008 (2 months after the game was released), Fox News' "The Live Desk With Martha MacCallum" started the controversy by discussing about a sex scene in Mass Effect where if your character developed enough relationship with a NPC (non-playable character, essentially a scripted character), you can choose to have sex with them. The game shows a brief cut-scene with your character and the NPC naked and apparently having sex. The cut-scene does not show any genitals of either character (the original clip is below if you want to watch). Martha MacCallum, the host stated that the game had "full digital nudity and sex". The show also included a debate featuring Cooper Lawrence, a "psychology specialist" (who actually does not study psychology) and Geoff Keighley, a video game show host. Cooper claimed that described sexual content in video games as teaching their active users, adolescent boys, to consider women as objects of desire valued solely for their sexuality. She added that the game's player character is a man who decides how many women he wants to be with. Geoff argued that most claims Cooper made was false. Saying that you can choose to be a female in the game and that you cannot have more than 1 woman at a time. He also argued that full-digital nudity is a completely false claim and that the only thing you see during the brief sex scene "is the side of an alien boob". Cooper was also challenged with the fact that she has not actually played the game. Geoff was cut off during debate and the show host moved on to discuss with other "experts" about this issue. Not long after the show was aired, blogs, forums were flooded by the angry gaming community. Cooper's new book, "The Cult of Perfection Make Peace With Your Inner Overachiever", which she promoted on the show, was severely bombarded by gamers. The user generated rating on the book in amazon.com was flamed to oblivion. Most of the reviewer even admitted that they haven't read the book. One of the reviewers said the following: “I know all about this book but have never fully read it. Why? Due to the overwhelming backlash, I have no choice but to agree with the 1 star ratings. The rumors are rampant that this book was poorly written and poorly researched. So without verifying the contents myself — I give it a 1 star. Good thing video games aren’t judged in this manner — whew!!!”. After the week of gamer bombardment, Cooper's book was left with a one star rating and ranking the 346,106th best-selling book on amazon.com. Cooper Lawrence has since apologized after watching someone play Mass Effect for 2 and a half hours. Cooper's response was “Before the show I had asked somebody about what they had heard, and they had said it’s like pornography,” she added. “But it’s not like pornography. I’ve seen episodes of ‘Lost’ that are more sexually explicit.”
My Response To This Incident
I have several points I have to make:
1. The media is obviously always trying to dig bad stuff out of video games to make a big deal out of it. The controversial episode of the show was aired 2 months after the game was released. It is pretty obvious that this "sex scene" was unlocked by many gamers since the game was released. It wasn't controversial when gamers got the sex scene. Why did the media make a such a big deal out of it after they discovered it 2 months later? I hate how video games are always portrayed as the lowest form of entertainment. No one ever bash movie sex scenes, even if it's more explicit than an alien butt cheek. Then why target video games? This phenomenon has got to stop. Video games are no different to any other form of entertainment and people need to accept that.
2. Calling the "sex scene" sex scene itself is highly disputable. Firstly, the so-called "sex scene" does not show anything. Absolutely no genitals shown. The only thing that was visible was the butt cheek and the side of an alien breast. Secondly, it's technically not considered sex since it is a human "doing stuff" with an alien. Aliens don't have a gender. Not to mention the aliens in the game is completely fictional.
3. Cooper Lawrence's psychology "expertise" is highly questionable. She does not practice medicine and has absolutely no experience in psychology. And let's not forget she does not have a degree or whatsoever in psychology. She obviously is just trying to promote her book and so she contacted Fox News to give her an opportunity to do so. Fox News then realizes there's going to be a discussion about the sex scene in Mass Effect and saw to it that this was a chance to let Cooper speak and promote her book (this whole promoting her book thing is based entirely on my speculation. however it is backed up by proof mentioned above).
4. Excluding Geoff Keighley, all the people who spoke in the discussion had no idea what they were talking about. None of them have ever even played the game. For example one women who spoke on the show said "I'm not sure why it didn't get an Adults Only rating". She obviously does not have a clue what she is talking about. The AO rating usually given when games have one of the following qualities: intense violence with excessive blood and gore, excessive nudity, sexual violence (that includes rape and violence acts of sex. this descriptor is very rare). If you've actually played the game you will know that Mas Effect does not contain any of the qualities mentioned above. Geoff Keighley was the only one on the show that actually have an expertise that was relevant to the subject.
5. During Cooper Lawrence's argument, she stated that the more inappropriate things children are exposed to the more desensitized (google the word if you don't know what it means) they become and that this game was doing exactly what is required to desensitize our young generation. I have only one thing to say to this: the game is rated M for Mature, which means children are not suppose to play it. Case and point.
6. I like how every time there's a debate about video game's appropriateness the guy who defends the game always get cut off during his/her part of the argument. Geoff Keighley was a great example. The host cut him off, Cooper cut him off... A debate means when one person is talking you do not disrupt them. And that is exactly what the host and Cooper did to Geoff. Cooper didn't get cut off. Then why should Geoff be. It's like the media doesn't want to expose the truth about the video game and that Geoff was just there so it makes the debate look fair. Oh right I forgot, the media wants us to think that video game is the lowest form of entertainment.
7. I don't understand why the media make this such a big deal. It's not like we haven't seen sex scenes before. Again, this wasn't like all-out hardcore pornographically explicit. Even the comedy I recently watched (Good Luck Chuck) was more sexually explicit. They actually had a 1-2 mins. long sex position montage. So why didn't the media target that movie? It's because video games are a more recent form of entertainment that's why. While the gaming industry is still juvenile, bashing and flaming video games from he media and politician will never stop. Politician wants more vote, they bash video games so parents would agree with them. News channel wants more views, bashing a video game will get more views from everyone even the gaming community because they want to comeback at the media. It's not about actually protecting our young generation, it's just about money.
8. From this incident we can see how strong the gaming community is. We saw how united the gamers were when Cooper offended them. They put threads in forum encouraging people to bash Cooper's book. Youtube was flooded with negative response to Cooper and parodies pointed at Fox News. It's a good thing. Now people are going to think again when they want to bash a game in their show.
Conclusion
In the end of the day, media bashing a game is just essentially promoting a game. Before this happened, I have no intention to play Mass Effect. After the incident, I not only played the game, I watched the sex scene over and over again. If we think more deeply, the media is much worse than these games. Here's a scenario for you: A girl watches MTV with celebrity who wears very little clothings. The girl goes out and purchase the same type of clothings. She wear them to school and gets picked on and bullied by boys saying she's a slut and skank. The girl feels bad about herself and ends her own life. This is a little exaggerated but you get what I mean. And there's tons of more bad influences for you on TV. Unprotected sex, alcohol and drug reference, violence, you name it. Bottom line: Children are not suppose to play these games. The parents are responsible for what their children are expose to and not the publishers or the game developers. And this teaches us a lesson. If you don't know what you're talking about, just shut up and don't talk, especially not on national TV.
Disclaimer: I do not condone any explicit sexual contents of any kind. I'm only defending this game because I hate people who make false claims and have absolutely no idea what they were talking about. I'm actually against the media portraying sex in such a negative way. I have another thread about that issue you can look at.
Links
Fox News Debate:http://youtube.com/watch?v=PKzF173GqTU&feature=related
Actual Mass Effect Sex Scene:http://youtube.com/watch?v=Pvj6D3HnN_s&feature=related
The Incident
Mass Effect, one of the most anticipated game of 2007, was released on November 20, 2007. Mass Effect is a role-playing action game developed by BioWare exclusively for Microsoft's Xbox 360 (it is now available for PC as well). The ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Boards) rated the game Mature for its blood, language, partial nudity, sexual themes and violence. On January 21st, 2008 (2 months after the game was released), Fox News' "The Live Desk With Martha MacCallum" started the controversy by discussing about a sex scene in Mass Effect where if your character developed enough relationship with a NPC (non-playable character, essentially a scripted character), you can choose to have sex with them. The game shows a brief cut-scene with your character and the NPC naked and apparently having sex. The cut-scene does not show any genitals of either character (the original clip is below if you want to watch). Martha MacCallum, the host stated that the game had "full digital nudity and sex". The show also included a debate featuring Cooper Lawrence, a "psychology specialist" (who actually does not study psychology) and Geoff Keighley, a video game show host. Cooper claimed that described sexual content in video games as teaching their active users, adolescent boys, to consider women as objects of desire valued solely for their sexuality. She added that the game's player character is a man who decides how many women he wants to be with. Geoff argued that most claims Cooper made was false. Saying that you can choose to be a female in the game and that you cannot have more than 1 woman at a time. He also argued that full-digital nudity is a completely false claim and that the only thing you see during the brief sex scene "is the side of an alien boob". Cooper was also challenged with the fact that she has not actually played the game. Geoff was cut off during debate and the show host moved on to discuss with other "experts" about this issue. Not long after the show was aired, blogs, forums were flooded by the angry gaming community. Cooper's new book, "The Cult of Perfection Make Peace With Your Inner Overachiever", which she promoted on the show, was severely bombarded by gamers. The user generated rating on the book in amazon.com was flamed to oblivion. Most of the reviewer even admitted that they haven't read the book. One of the reviewers said the following: “I know all about this book but have never fully read it. Why? Due to the overwhelming backlash, I have no choice but to agree with the 1 star ratings. The rumors are rampant that this book was poorly written and poorly researched. So without verifying the contents myself — I give it a 1 star. Good thing video games aren’t judged in this manner — whew!!!”. After the week of gamer bombardment, Cooper's book was left with a one star rating and ranking the 346,106th best-selling book on amazon.com. Cooper Lawrence has since apologized after watching someone play Mass Effect for 2 and a half hours. Cooper's response was “Before the show I had asked somebody about what they had heard, and they had said it’s like pornography,” she added. “But it’s not like pornography. I’ve seen episodes of ‘Lost’ that are more sexually explicit.”
My Response To This Incident
I have several points I have to make:
1. The media is obviously always trying to dig bad stuff out of video games to make a big deal out of it. The controversial episode of the show was aired 2 months after the game was released. It is pretty obvious that this "sex scene" was unlocked by many gamers since the game was released. It wasn't controversial when gamers got the sex scene. Why did the media make a such a big deal out of it after they discovered it 2 months later? I hate how video games are always portrayed as the lowest form of entertainment. No one ever bash movie sex scenes, even if it's more explicit than an alien butt cheek. Then why target video games? This phenomenon has got to stop. Video games are no different to any other form of entertainment and people need to accept that.
2. Calling the "sex scene" sex scene itself is highly disputable. Firstly, the so-called "sex scene" does not show anything. Absolutely no genitals shown. The only thing that was visible was the butt cheek and the side of an alien breast. Secondly, it's technically not considered sex since it is a human "doing stuff" with an alien. Aliens don't have a gender. Not to mention the aliens in the game is completely fictional.
3. Cooper Lawrence's psychology "expertise" is highly questionable. She does not practice medicine and has absolutely no experience in psychology. And let's not forget she does not have a degree or whatsoever in psychology. She obviously is just trying to promote her book and so she contacted Fox News to give her an opportunity to do so. Fox News then realizes there's going to be a discussion about the sex scene in Mass Effect and saw to it that this was a chance to let Cooper speak and promote her book (this whole promoting her book thing is based entirely on my speculation. however it is backed up by proof mentioned above).
4. Excluding Geoff Keighley, all the people who spoke in the discussion had no idea what they were talking about. None of them have ever even played the game. For example one women who spoke on the show said "I'm not sure why it didn't get an Adults Only rating". She obviously does not have a clue what she is talking about. The AO rating usually given when games have one of the following qualities: intense violence with excessive blood and gore, excessive nudity, sexual violence (that includes rape and violence acts of sex. this descriptor is very rare). If you've actually played the game you will know that Mas Effect does not contain any of the qualities mentioned above. Geoff Keighley was the only one on the show that actually have an expertise that was relevant to the subject.
5. During Cooper Lawrence's argument, she stated that the more inappropriate things children are exposed to the more desensitized (google the word if you don't know what it means) they become and that this game was doing exactly what is required to desensitize our young generation. I have only one thing to say to this: the game is rated M for Mature, which means children are not suppose to play it. Case and point.
6. I like how every time there's a debate about video game's appropriateness the guy who defends the game always get cut off during his/her part of the argument. Geoff Keighley was a great example. The host cut him off, Cooper cut him off... A debate means when one person is talking you do not disrupt them. And that is exactly what the host and Cooper did to Geoff. Cooper didn't get cut off. Then why should Geoff be. It's like the media doesn't want to expose the truth about the video game and that Geoff was just there so it makes the debate look fair. Oh right I forgot, the media wants us to think that video game is the lowest form of entertainment.
7. I don't understand why the media make this such a big deal. It's not like we haven't seen sex scenes before. Again, this wasn't like all-out hardcore pornographically explicit. Even the comedy I recently watched (Good Luck Chuck) was more sexually explicit. They actually had a 1-2 mins. long sex position montage. So why didn't the media target that movie? It's because video games are a more recent form of entertainment that's why. While the gaming industry is still juvenile, bashing and flaming video games from he media and politician will never stop. Politician wants more vote, they bash video games so parents would agree with them. News channel wants more views, bashing a video game will get more views from everyone even the gaming community because they want to comeback at the media. It's not about actually protecting our young generation, it's just about money.
8. From this incident we can see how strong the gaming community is. We saw how united the gamers were when Cooper offended them. They put threads in forum encouraging people to bash Cooper's book. Youtube was flooded with negative response to Cooper and parodies pointed at Fox News. It's a good thing. Now people are going to think again when they want to bash a game in their show.
Conclusion
In the end of the day, media bashing a game is just essentially promoting a game. Before this happened, I have no intention to play Mass Effect. After the incident, I not only played the game, I watched the sex scene over and over again. If we think more deeply, the media is much worse than these games. Here's a scenario for you: A girl watches MTV with celebrity who wears very little clothings. The girl goes out and purchase the same type of clothings. She wear them to school and gets picked on and bullied by boys saying she's a slut and skank. The girl feels bad about herself and ends her own life. This is a little exaggerated but you get what I mean. And there's tons of more bad influences for you on TV. Unprotected sex, alcohol and drug reference, violence, you name it. Bottom line: Children are not suppose to play these games. The parents are responsible for what their children are expose to and not the publishers or the game developers. And this teaches us a lesson. If you don't know what you're talking about, just shut up and don't talk, especially not on national TV.
Disclaimer: I do not condone any explicit sexual contents of any kind. I'm only defending this game because I hate people who make false claims and have absolutely no idea what they were talking about. I'm actually against the media portraying sex in such a negative way. I have another thread about that issue you can look at.
Links
Fox News Debate:http://youtube.com/watch?v=PKzF173GqTU&feature=related
Actual Mass Effect Sex Scene:http://youtube.com/watch?v=Pvj6D3HnN_s&feature=related