Amazon intervenes as Mass Effect critic suffers review backlash
XBox 360 News
By Stevie Smith Jan 24, 2008, 8:24 GMT
If you liked this story please support M&C and Buzz the site on Yahoo.
Latest Headlines in XBox 360
- 1. New 'Resident Evil 5' screenshots
- 2. Xbox 360 outsells PS3 by more than two-to-one
- 3. LEGO Batman: Review (Xbox 360)
- 4. 'Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts' pre-order offer
- 5. ROCK BAND 2 ships for Xbox 360
Talkback
Add your comment (no registration required)
page: 1 2
She was making baseless inflammatory statements. I bet FOX scripted her to say sh*t like that. The news channels should be held responsible for comments made on their stations. This kind of unmoderated, uninformed nonsense is the same as the MSG scare, the Satanic School scare and other ratings grabbing nonsense.
Anyone who believes this nonsense should be educated, since they clearly are not.
Wow, how stupid can people get...
You had this coming, how do you give your opinion based off 'rumors' you heard. Well, lets see how u like it; Your book is terrible because you can;t write books and its not for younger readers because they won't understand.
SHEESH!
The sad irony is that of all the games they could be singling out as bad influences on children, Mass Effect is truly among those that clearly SHOULD NOT be in the discourse. The game is a (if not THE) shining example of everything that gaming can and should accomplish -- you play a character with real moral choices that pop up about every 3 minutes in the game, and how you deal with people develops a reputation that can and does follow you and influences larger events.
This game is the sort of mature storytelling breakthrough that the gaming industry, Bioware, and Microsoft can be extremely proud of. Mass Effect really lights the way for future models of storytelling in videogames and has singlehandedly advanced the genre, artistically, by at least half a decade.
It strikes me as patently baseless and unfair that a game which really values and honors morality and philosophical thinking the be bearing the brunt of a Fox News swift-boating, and I hope that the publisher's, the public's, the developers' and MS's response continues to be heard.
The woman does not even have a PHD
Also with respect to Cooper's so-called expert report, she fails to realize that if children wanted a sexual experience while their parents weren't home, they wouldn't play through a 30+ hour game to get a three minute sex scene. They might use something a little bit more immediate. Like, I don't know, the Internet.
Make that 30+ hours to see a sex scene that is roughly 30 seconds. I've seen racier content during CBS primetime.
30 seconds? How about 2 seconds of the profile of a female torso. That is it! We don't see them having sex, for all we know they could just be making out.
Mass Effect did not deserve to roasted the way it did on Fox. That was unfair and just uncalled for.
When I first saw the video I was pacing with annoyance. Seeing that other gamers were also upset by it and the ensuing fallout has been wonderful.
The bigger problem this stems from is with news networks use of paid consultants, on call 'experts' to come in and take a side of an argument they often have no real experience or expertise in. But that doesn't stop them from weighing in with broad exaggerated statements as a supposed expert on the subject. This takes the news agency (in this case Fox) off the hook because it wasn't them making the statement, it was just the paid hack. (watch the film outfoxed for great examples of this.)
This is no secret and isn't going to be stopped anytime soon. The media companies have already shown themselves to care less about the ethics and honorable journalism of this tactic. Don't expect FOX to apologize to EA. They haven't apologized in the past for much more blatant discretions.
The real way this can be fought is to go after the media whores that are so willing to wave a phd around while talking out their butt. If the credibility of someone like Cooper Lawrence can be shown in full light to be nothing more than a paid shill causing her books and radio show to tank, other 'experts' will be far less willing to spout out subjects they know nothing about.
I hope her live call in radio show is also flooded with gamers who wont stand for this. All gamers should be relentless towards her until she issues a full apology on her website.
EA should sue if there is no apology.
page: 1 2
Latest from M&C Blogs
JamesonJan 24th, 2008 - 12:19:30
This article makes a glaring fallacy. This whole thing was immature as soon as that women opened her mouth. Her demeanor was tactless and the fact that she laughs (yes laughs) when Geoff asks,'Have you played the game?', a valid question, and replies with a smug no. She was supposed to be having a debate and offered nothing constructive.
Studies show children don't know what's real and not real, the game is pornographic?
What goes around comes around, next time she should do some research and not judge based on her own prejudices (which isn't gonna happen and thus she's dug her own grave)
PROTIP: Children would know what's real and what's not if PARENTS TOLD THEM. And ME is for 17+ year olds. Would you let a 10 year old watch a Rated R film? Or a show like Sex in The City? Then why let them play Mass Effect?
Report this comment