Mass Effect - Fox News & EA Debate Sex

Originally Posted by Thaurin
I have to scream at this point: WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH SEX!? We'd never have this kind of idiocy in Europe.

Under ultra-right-wing, morally authoritarian governments, the US has had it's priorities all mixed up for a very long time. This is due to a puritanical/hypocritical hardline form of ultra-right-wing religiosity (advocated by folks such as Pat Robertson & Jerry Falwell) entering their government and policies. They don't tolerate sex or soft drugs, but instead they embrace gun culture and tolerate the highest homicide rate / incarceration rate among all western nations.

Yep, nipples on TV and pot plants in the garden are the greatest threat to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and they must be eradicated !

Of course EA also does this to protect their investments e.g. Bioware and Pandemic. Pandemic has a new game on the way called 'saboteur' which takes place during WWII(2) and my guess is that this games also features some sort of optional love scene. It, therefore, would be stupid for EA not to their best to protect their investments. Hence, the line 'the parent company of Bioware' in the statement.

I don't get the Amricans obsession with sex either, but I think it has to with fear of society falling to pieces if anyone just could do as they please - in terms of sex. If we look at both Holland and Denmark, people having doing this for the last 30-40 years. And society still stands.

When a new corporation like Fox News Channel (FCN) distorts facts about a videogame that is being made by Bioware, a subsidiary (now) of EA, EA really has no choice other than to react swiftly and vehemently setting the record straight.

As for the the 'why not sue now' question, I hink it is common courtesy to give the other party, in ths case FCN, a chance to retract the false, inaccurate statements made towards a game, in this instance, Mass Effect, before carrying out the slightly disguised legal threat in the statement from EA. Another sligtly disguised threat is the whole 'this comes straight from John Riccitiello, the (big) boss of EA'. EA certainly has the mucsle & the money to take on Fox News Channel (& Fox News Corporation).

As for the good of the gamers, I think it actually will benefit gamers in a way. Many people have pointed out that the average gamer is now about 30-35 of age, while many gamers also are women. I have consistently pointed out that the ESRB's ratings are guidelines, not mandatory and also that parents should be monitoring what games their children and teenagers play.

As for EA's motives, of course they're trying to protect their investments in Bioware and Pandemic as well as looking out for their own business interest as well. I'm fine with this since EA knows that if EA does not say anything about this, they will not sell as many games at they, EA, have hoped to gamers.

EA probably also knows that in the long run, FCN's inaccurate report and blatant lies about Mass Effect will hurt the whole gaming business, simply because it will mean that developers and publishers will be attacked again and again and that this could (or will) lead to developers and publishers not developing any other other games than pacman, pong and pinball. Not that there's is anything wrong with these games, but the gaming business has evolved since the 1980's.

I don't, however, think that FCN will correct their mistakes. And then maybe EA will bring out the big legal sticks. They certianly have the corporate money to do so.

/aries100

Funny how a while ago we were only hearing about Liberals/left-wing/Democrats complaining about video games (Jack Thompson, Hilary Clinton, bla bla), and now it's conservatives/right-wing/Republicans. The former want to control the media due to their nanny-government mentality, and the latter due to their hyper-Christian values mentality. Man, I hate party politics. Both sides just call the other idiots, and both of them are right in this regard. They're just zealots.

And as Brother None already said, there's no arguing with zealots. Their minds are already made up, and they just ignore facts. The fanatics who watch these kinds of shows only hear what they want to hear, and when arguments come up, they only shake their heads in disapproval and wonder just how a person could come to be so wrong. Then more and more of them hear about the issue and it gains momentum and importance until it reaches the White House. Then we're in trouble.

What amuses me is that no one will even do enough research to bring up the fact that BioWare's previous game, Jade Empire, offered FIVE different realtionship options: guy/girl, girl/guy, girl/girl, guy/guy, and guy/girl/girl (threesome, baby!). I guess no one cares since they didn't flash a booty about three seconds.

What a world.

Well, Fox is of course milking it by inviting EA to debate the issue in another segment of the same show, but one of the 'experts' on their panel, self-help author Cooper Lawrence, is already eating her words. It may have something to do with this.
(And I have to say that at least the first page of reader reviews I read were from people who actually had read the book, unlike Ms Lawrence and her experience with ME.)

Awesome. There really is some justice in the world.

I wouldn't go that far--just an ugly tit-for-tat display of pot-kettle-black.

Personally I'd be much more worried if my children were afficted by the violence on TV/games, not the sex. What's the ratio violence vs sex in computer games? 1:100?

I'm not saying I believe game/TV violence causes huge problems in society today - I'm just saying that if either sex or violence caused any problems at all, it would be the violence.

At least that's my opinion.

Originally Posted by aries100
As for the the 'why not sue now' question, I hink it is common courtesy to give the other party, in ths case FCN, a chance to retract the false, inaccurate statements made towards a game, in this instance, Mass Effect, before carrying out the slightly disguised legal threat in the statement from EA. Another sligtly disguised threat is the whole 'this comes straight from John Riccitiello, the (big) boss of EA'. EA certainly has the mucsle & the money to take on Fox News Channel (& Fox News Corporation).

I really hope they don't. Can you imagine how FOX would spin it? 'Evil game company uses profits from turning your kids into sex fiend highschool gunmen to stifle the truth'. No one would even notice the verdict.

Yes, that may well be. But if Fox did that, (and I have no doubt that they will try to do so) my best guess would be that all the gaming communities would be in uproar. And do their best to say something against this 'stupidity'.

The fact is also that Microsoft is (still) the publisher, while EA is the parent company of Bioware. And EA apparently is tired, like so many os us are, to listen to the faulty reporting when it comes to games and especially gaming with children.

/Karsten

Originally Posted by aries100
Yes, that may well be. But if Fox did that, (and I have no doubt that they will try to do so) my best guess would be that all the gaming communities would be in uproar. And do their best to say something against this 'stupidity'.

I'm sure that prospect has the good folks at Fox quaking in their pants. What with the gaming community consisting of sex-crazed high-school psycho-killers and all.

Some folks at Loading.Ready.Run have put up a spoof of Fox News' Mass Effect debate.
Could probably have been the real thing and nobody would have noticed.

I enjoyed that video a lot! (is it me, or do these vids just keep getting better and better?). Fox can sell it, but not everybody's buying their BS. I doubt gamers are the only ones who can see through it.