Mass Effects: Game for the (Se)X-Box?

Posted by Alex in Toy & Video Games on January 25, 2008 at 6:26 pm


When Fox News featured a story about sex and digital nudity in the video game Mass Effect for Microsoft’s X-Box, "psychology specialist" (what does that mean?) Cooper Lawrence - despite not having played the game - warned of the dangers of video game objectifying women.

The result? Gamers worldwide - despite not having read her book - are spamming her Amazon page with bad reviews! (However, Amazon wasn’t amused - they’ve deleted these reviews.)

Kotaku has the whole story - Thanks Marie!
- Keighley Sets Mass Effect Record Straight … Or Tries To
- Quack Gets Amazon Book Rating Spammed



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COMMENT

20 comments to "Mass Effects: Game for the (Se)X-Box?"

  1. Lea
    January 25th, 2008 at 6:50 pm

    Well, at least everybody is uninformed on all sides.

    >.<

  2. Geekazoid
    January 25th, 2008 at 7:18 pm

    It’s Fox news, well what do y’all expect

  3. Levi
    January 25th, 2008 at 7:34 pm

    who is playing video games?
    http://www.theesa.com/facts/gamer_data.php

  4. Retrokatze
    January 25th, 2008 at 8:41 pm

    *snerk* If they get their panties in a twist over “Mass Effect”, I want to see their reactions to “The Witcher”!

  5. skreidle
    January 25th, 2008 at 8:44 pm

    Man, I was seriously disappointed when I heard about all the graphic sex and nudity in Mass Effect, and went to YouTube to have a look.. hell, they could broadcast that in the middle of the afternoon and the FCC wouldn’t bat a lash.

  6. Ali S.
    January 25th, 2008 at 8:48 pm

    Ah, Faux News strikes again! ;)

  7. Tim
    January 25th, 2008 at 8:53 pm

    Psychologists are idiots. They observe and lie about their observations. They are qualified to opine about nothing and they are overpaid in the process.

  8. biltmore
    January 25th, 2008 at 10:00 pm

    Faux News = Sensationalism at it’s best

    They would’ve even give Geoff more than 10 seconds to talk before they cut him off. And the fact that she talks about the game being sexist, then proceeds to call him “darling” (talk about condescending) on National TV is just screwed up. Geoff quickly informed them that you can play the game as a woman too, and that you can’t just have sex with the characters … you have to build a relationship with them, then you see 20 seconds of the most soft core day time TV soap opera sex you’ve ever seen in your life. I’m talking side boob here, and that’s it. Not “sex from many positions, and graphic nudity”. There is no nudity at all. Freaking ridiculous.

  9. biltmore
    January 25th, 2008 at 10:00 pm

    They wouldn’t even*

  10. Josh
    January 25th, 2008 at 11:34 pm

    I am not even going to bother to even say what is wrong with her except that she is way up there with Hilary Clinton and Jack Thompson which are complete idiots.

  11. Miranda
    January 26th, 2008 at 12:04 am

    If there is one popular game that DOESN’T objectify women or alienate female gamers it is definitely Mass Effect.

  12. Steohawk
    January 26th, 2008 at 12:43 am

    What Tim said is pretty much in-line with what I blogged about today. Psychology is nothing more than a modern, “scientific” version of leech-craft and witch-hunting. Even the gathering of statistics is prone to bias, not to mention the conclusions drawn from them. If you look at psychological studies from periods in which there was lots of discrimination against women, blacks, gays, Jews, etc., you’ll find that such biases were reflected in the results. It isn’t any different today, except that there are different biases.

  13. matt
    January 26th, 2008 at 3:18 am

    fox = bullsh*t

  14. Jim
    January 26th, 2008 at 5:06 am

    This just makes me scared/sad/mad about the world that we live in. If a simple sci-fi adventure is lied and generalized about in this manner then just imagine the spin that they put on “important” news stories (and they do!). Pathetic.

    “…and I’m definatly not gonna let Mass Effect in my house.” - fascist a**hole

  15. James
    January 26th, 2008 at 5:36 am

    FAUXNews sucks anyway.

  16. Orjans Morjan
    January 26th, 2008 at 10:57 am

    Don’t take this out on psychologists and psychology!!!
    They are needed and save lives when!!

    SHE ISN’T ONE! She is a “psychology specialist”, i.e. a quacker that doesn’t know jack sh*t just POP-PSYCHOLOGY.

    A rule of thumb: If they have are marketing a book with a full cover picture of themselves, YOU CAN DISREGARD THEM!

  17. ted
    January 26th, 2008 at 11:04 am

    Tim, Xenu loves you. Accept the fact, and get over it already.

  18. biltmore
    January 26th, 2008 at 12:21 pm

    Here’s an update to the story :

    http://kotaku.com/349296/ea-vs-fox-lawrence-recants-mass-effect-judgem ent

    She doesn’t apologize at all, just says that she regrets making those comments about the sexism & such. If you ask me, she made a statement so people would quit trashing her books because all those negative reviews won’t result in sales for her. Her statement to the New York Times was short, and she really didn’t apologize for anything … she’s not really admitting fault with herself and her ways of researching. I see no “I’m sorry, I should’ve done my research before going on National TV and making an ass out of myself”. She’s just as pathetic now as she was before the NYT statement.

    I’m all about forgiving people, if they say they’re sorry. Clearly, she did not apologize for anything. She just “regrets” saying those stupid things … but she’s not sorry for her crappy research skills.

  19. Ben
    January 27th, 2008 at 12:02 am

    News bulletin:

    Women are objects. Men are objects. Sculptures are objects. Puppies are objects. There are times when it’s simply pleasant to run your hands over an object, or just look at it, or… etc. It’s fun to be an object sometimes. Trust me on this.

    A little self-confidence and you, too, can enjoy the many roles we naturally play in day to day life, relationships, flirting, working, etc.

    Or, you can indulge in political correctness, the endemic disease of the lame. Consequently, life will suck for you just that little bit more, and the rest of us will have to listen to you whine about it. sigh.

  20. MoonCake
    January 28th, 2008 at 8:40 am

    damn i hate fox news… anyone see the “fox attacks” documentary? it’s exellent.

    ‘mass effect’ is for mature audiences, no? i mean, it IS a first-person shooter, and the intricacies of the plot are probably a little more complicated then your average super mario bros… so why are people surprised that there is sex in it? the only thing it’s missing is alcoholic beverages and prostitutes! but wait– the GTA series and the Sims, even, have covered those. but wait– it objectifies women! well, what about ‘portal’ from the orange box series? that one is about a woman trapped in an experimental maze in which the experimentor tries to kill her once her tasks have been fulfilled… why wasn’t that one targeted?

    here’s the point: video games are just that. GAMES. they depict war scenes, criminal activity, crude violence, nudity, sword fights, and lots of death. but you know what they also entail? pure entertainment. we do in games what we shouldn’t do in real life. plus, if “researchers” are scared these activities depicted in games will “cause” kids to copy the actions, they’re wrong. kids do bad things and get the wrong idea from bad parenting. if kids can’t distinguish between “make-believe” and reality, it’s the fault of the person who taught them what reality is.


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