Mass Effect is Pornographic, Apparently

[fable]

Originally Posted by Brother None

Cute, but EA should know better. Responding just validates the nonsense, it doesn't actually stop it. Good going in giving him more time in the spotlight, EA.

Absolutely. Making errors in the hope of correction seems to be a strategy of the Family Research Council. I remember a number of years ago when a film was made of a novel-poem ("The Last Temptation of Christ") that featured a tempted Jesus seeing himself establishing a "righteous kingdom," raising a family, etc, before rejecting it all at the end. A priest and self-described RCC activist (now associated with the FRC) described it in a lengthy interview on television as horrific, blasphemous--but revealed upon cross-examination that he didn't know the ending, because he'd never seen the film. He was only going upon what he'd been told.

And he plowed on, and continued his denunciation. And got more publicity. The only way to deal with these people who want power is to ignore them, because they gain power through playing the media.

[Siberys]

Saying it's advertised to kids when it's clearly advertised to adults with the ESRB rating of Mature and the explanation "may not be suitable for minors" required by law if it does feature sex, is slander.

Saying it features sex and pornographic visuals in the game when it clearly doesn't, is slander.

Now, it doesn't matter if it effects sales or if it's just a few people on blogs or something, slander is illegal in America, and EA I'm pretty sure is in America unless they've moved in the last year or so, and if said blogger is from America, he is subject to that same limitation in law. Now, not only is the slanderous person from America, but CNSNews is the equivalent of CNN, it's probably up in the top 3 of the most visited news websites.

[Brother None]

Originally Posted by Siberys

Now, it doesn't matter if it effects sales or if it's just a few people on blogs or something, slander is illegal in America, and EA I'm pretty sure is in America unless they've moved in the last year or so, and if said blogger is from America, he is subject to that same limitation in law.

Then they should sue. But they didn't. If someone slanders, you sue, you don't write a public letter asking them nicely to please reconsider their opinion. You know they won't.

What Loki said is true, this is probably just EA pumping out some extra attention for their game, because nothing sells like someone screaming "THIS HAS TITS IN IT" on the side walk. If EA were actually interested in stopping them, they would sue. They have a good case, as you point out.

[Xandax]

Originally Posted by fable

It's been said for some time that many of Hitler's most stalwart, high-ranking followers really weren't anti-Semitic maniacs, just cynical opportunists. But whether true or not, they still gave the speeches they did, and had an enormous effect on many people of the period. My point being that whether one believes something or not doesn't necessarily have much to do with the influence one has over people, using this same issue.

There is no evidence that the Family Research Council is made up of people who fear sexuality. This may individually be true for any or all of them; but there is every evidence based on their own press statements, interviews, letters, and actions, that they urgently push an agenda favoring the Roman Catholic Church as the center of government and control of people's moral lives in all respects.

So you are welcome to believe that fear is the motivator behind their actions, but I've sees no examples of this over the last several years that they've been in the spotlight. And they make the news fairly regularly, over here.

For the rest, we're getting off subject. If you want to discuss whether the desire for sexual control implies fear of sex, we probably should take it to SYM.

Considering this entire ordeal is sparked using presumed sexual content in a game, I beg to differ indeed. Both the Fox newsbit was focused on this, as was the "original" piece. Prior to release, there was focus on this as well.

Whether the people spewing the propaganda believe its or not, or it is their prime agenda or not, doesn't really matter much, but it is the specific at the core here.
And the only way it can get momentum if is there indeed are (some) people who think it has a "news" value, and it has that, because it fits nicely into the society in which it occurs. So yes, I do see it differently, and while it is "control", it is control using specific buttons to push on specific people to gain publicity.
It is the same in every country, where various issues will push specific society segment buttons, so to speak. It just happen to be "graphic sexual" content in this case.

[BuckGB]

It appears that Cooper Lawrence (the woman from the Fox News clip) may have caused some damage to her career by bashing Mass Effect.

Since the clip's airing, her latest book's listing on Amazon has been subjected to the "Kane & Lynch" effect with nearly 500 negative reviews piling up. Her other previously released books seem to be taking a beating too. Some of the reviews are pretty hilarious, from accusing her of using sex to sell her books to claims that the books are tainting our children's minds. Gotta love vigilante justice.

What comes around, goes around, I guess.

[fable]

Originally Posted by BuckGB

It appears that Cooper Lawrence (the woman from the Fox News clip) may have caused some damage to her career by bashing Mass Effect.

Since the clip's airing, her latest book's listing on Amazon has been subjected to the "Kane & Lynch" effect with nearly 500 negative reviews piling up.

Um, Buck, no offense, but what world do you live in where self-proclaimed, "media personalities" lose out because of airing disgusting, controversial views? Ann Coulter? Rush Limbaugh? Being loud, obnoxious, and getting lots of negative attention: this sells books. Not a matter of opinion. Fact.

[BuckGB]

Even though she might sell more books over the publicity she gets from ignorant, unresearched claims, throwing hundreds of negative reviews at her products on Amazon has to be hindering the sales there to some degree. Their search system is geared toward producing results with higher review scores, so those people who are just searching for a self-help book (or whatever classification they fall in) with no prior knowledge of her exploits most likely a) will never get to her books when browsing the search results or b) will decide against purchasing a one-star book when similar four- or five-star books are also available.

At the very least, perhaps it will make her lose a little sleep knowing that her books are some of the lowest rated on Amazon and are now associated with such tags as "hypocrisy", "ignorant", "garbage", and "junk."

[fable]

Originally Posted by BuckGB

Even though she might sell more books over the publicity she gets from ignorant, unresearched claims, throwing hundreds of negative reviews at her products on Amazon has to be hindering the sales there to some degree. Their search system is geared toward producing results with higher review scores, so those people who are just searching for a self-help book (or whatever classification they fall in) with no prior knowledge of her exploits most likely a) will never get to her books when browsing the search results or b) will decide against purchasing a one-star book when similar four- or five-star books are also available.

At the very least, perhaps it will make her lose a little sleep knowing that her books are some of the lowest rated on Amazon and are now associated with such tags as "hypocrisy", "ignorant", "garbage", and "junk."

Buck, I can only repeat: do you think the tons of negative reviews for people like Ann Coulter have done anything other than make her a bestseller? Just because plenty of negative posted reviews shouldn't work, doesn't mean they do. Taking a loud, controversial, violently wrongheaded stand in a book is a winning strategy to sales that has been proved time and again, which is why it's repeatedly used. I could wish it were otherwise, just as you do, but that's not the way reality works. Sad, but true.

[Loki[D.d.G]]

I agree with what you are saying, fable. Here's a summary: For every informed user/buyer out there, there will be five airheads who will regard the increased hype as a sign the personality is good, and rush out to purchase his/her works.

Despite a little bad karma, she will still make lots of profit form this little stint. Maybe the rest will come back later to bite her in the butt.

[Brother None]

Anyway, now Fox is claiming they asked EA to come over and clarify, but EA didn't respond.

Gotta love messy PR.

[BuckGB]

Surprisingly, Cooper Lawrence has now apologized for her slanderous remarks:

In an interview on Friday, Ms. Lawrence said that since the controversy over her remarks erupted she had watched someone play the game for about two and a half hours. “I recognize that I misspoke,” she said. “I really regret saying that, and now that I’ve seen the game and seen the sex scenes it’s kind of a joke.

“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.”

BioWare's Ray Muzyka even chimed in:

“We’re hurt. We believe in video games as an art form, and on behalf of the 120 people who poured their blood and tears into this game over three years, we’re just really hurt that someone would misrepresent the game without even playing it. All we can hope for is that people who actually play our games will see the truth.”

[Loki[D.d.G]]

Originally Posted by BuckGB

Surprisingly, Cooper Lawrence has now apologized for her slanderous remarks:

Ahh, probable death threats from avid gamers to Ms. Lawrence methinks.

[fable]

I wouldn't expect her or her group to climb down for long. They'll bounce back with more accusations, and soon.

[Tricky]

..with smirks on their faces reminiscent of monkeys who suddenly figure out that repeatedly hitting other monkeys with stones will earn them free bananas.

[AvatarOfLight]

Originally Posted by Tricky

..with smirks on their faces reminiscent of monkeys who suddenly figure out that repeatedly hitting other monkeys with stones will earn them free bananas.

Gotta write that one down XD

But seriously, it's not every day these kind of people admit a mistake. Cheers to that at least.