This Week’s Misinformed Award Goes to…
I’m going to say it’s a two-way tie this week. First off, we have Fox News, who reported that Mass Effect has explicit sex, full-frontal nudity, and that the game is marketed to children. All of these claims, of course, are completely false, and I wish they hadn’t run such misinformation on their network. The second is the Parents Television Council, who denounced the Entertainment Software Association for its intent to form a Political Action Committee.
Back to Fox News. I’m not going to berate them for misleading the public, as I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume it was unintentional. After all, their sources were misguided as well. What I will do is attempt to set the record straight on each of the major claims about Mass Effect on the Fox News broadcast:
- Explicit Sex: It was not at all graphic or explicit. It was more suggestive than anything, and you can see more graphic sexual relations than this on network television.
- Full-Frontal Nudity: There wasn’t any. All of the partial nudity was from the side or in profile shots. Honestly, you can see far more nudity on the Fox network on a weekly basis, and on Fox it isn’t digital pixel representations of partial nudity, it’s real people.
- Marketed to Children: Also untrue. The game is rated Mature, and very clearly lists the following: Contains Blood, Language, Partial Nudity, Sexual Themes, Violence. It’s right on the box. Honestly, the only people to blame for children getting a hold of a Mature-rated game are parents, and to a lesser extent bad sales clerks at retailers.
That’s really all I have to say about that. On to the PTC…
Grimwell already said pretty much all that needs to be said. But, the fact that the ESA wants to form a PAC to help inform the general public against misinformation like the above is a wonderful thing. It’s part of what makes this country great.
Not to mention, it’s an organization of necessity when so many politicians rail against the game industry like it doesn’t operate within the laws and freedoms of our country, or that it doesn’t deserve the same treatment as other entertainment media like movies, music, television, and books.
They make the same claims as every other anti-gaming entity, such as game developers intentionally subjecting millions of children to graphic material or the fact that a game called Manhunt 2 “still contained horrific violence that was thought to have been completely removed.” You honestly feel that something called Manhunt is NOT going to have violence?
Again, when it really comes down to it, it’s mostly a result of bad parenting and bad retail employees. Request: Please stop blaming your lack of parenting skills on other people. You absolutely have to pay attention to what your children are watching, reading, and playing. I understand that many parents don’t have the time or energy to pay such close attention to your children, but it is your job.
Parents are responsible for protecting their children, it’s not the responsibility of the things children should be protected from to protect children. Does the influenza virus avoid infecting children? No, you immunize your children so they are less likely to get it, and if they do get it, it’s less severe.
Immunize your children from media that is too mature for them. Cancel your cable or subscribe only to a family package. Don’t let them shop alone EVER–not in a video game store, a movie store, a magazine store, anywhere. Take responsibility for your actions and protect your children from being exposed to the things you don’t want them exposed to.
All that being said, I fully agree that Mature video games are being sold to too many children. It’s terrible, and should not be happening. If a game is rated Mature, retailers absolutely need to refuse sale to anyone who can’t produce identification that indicates they are over 18. It’s just that simple.
And, I can tell you from experience, not all retailers will sell to children. I worked at EB many years ago and refused to sell Mature games to many minors. In fact, if I was caught doing so, I would have been fired. And that’s the way it should be.
Now to make you (or me) a little less annoyed, here’s some nostalgia from the first game I frequently played online.
Update:
Author Faults a Game, and Gamers Flame Back (New York Times)
Cooper Lawrence, the person who appeared on Fox News and criticized Mass Effect, apparently spent 2 hours watching someone play the game and had this to say:
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.”
I’m glad that she got her story straight, but next time, please get it straight before you appear on national television and cause so much controversy and further damage the reputation of our industry.
There is always more we can do as gamers to stem the assault on games. I’m trying to help mobilize gamers to join an organization, the Video Game Voter’s Network, to take political action and ask gamers to contact their local representatives and let them know that gamers and gaming are not what some are making it out to be.
I have a short article on my blog (http://www.thegrouchygamer.com/?p=84) about it, and a link over to the VGVN. If you feel at all motivated to do something about this encroachment on our pastime, I’d encourage you to check it out.
While your asking for the retailers to stop selling these games to minors. Try having retailers stop selling cigarettes to minors, or having Minors serve alcohol at resteraunts. These are against the law, but they happen everyday all the time.
Those things DO happen, but not “everyday, all the time.” Recent reports also suggest that most retail chains ARE honoring their pledge to not sell m-rated games to minors much better than they have in previous years, but not yet close to the cigarrette or alcohol rate of enforcement (at least in my state…). We’re doing better than most portray it, though.
“Marketing” to kids is different than “selling” to kids. The movie industry went through this several years ago. Sure, it was an “r” rated movie, but advertisements for it appeared during teen-oriented TV shows and kid-themed “play” toys (differing from the more mature “scupted” figurines) decorated toy store shelves. Thus: “marketed to kids.”
The accusation doesn’t hold MUCH water for games, though. Promotions for gaming material happen on gaming shows that have a viewing audience of… well… gamers. Gamers are still niche enough that we don’t have many “young gamer” or “older gamer” news sources: we have the same gaming magazines, the same online forums, and the same game-centric cable channel. Promoting- MARKETING a game to the “M” audience also hits the teen audience not because of intent, but because those darn teens are reading/watching/chatting on the same stuff as the more mature audiences…
As a parent of three I’ve often thought that very same thing myself. That’s my responsibility in exchange for the joys of actually having children. Oddly, the PTC addresses the same question in the FAQ on their website, and we are wrong!
Apparently by asserting that I hold the ultimate and only responsibility for my children’s upbringing is actually a defense of the fact that I really want to evade that accountability. /confused.
The assertion that the responsibility lies with game developers is a self-justifying claim usually made by parents who wish to evade accountability.
Everyone is responsible for themselves and their actions, except for minors, whose parents take responsibility. People that want to push responsibility for video games to the producers are like fat people suing McDonald’s. No one forced you to use products, and if you don’t want your children exposed to sex, violence, or Big Macs then make sure they aren’t.
The government has no role in this, especially given the good-faith efforts the industry has made to set standards that parents can understand. My kids don’t play M games, with the exception of my almost-17-year-old son. That’s my choice and my responsibility. Someone asserting that it’s someone else’s just doesn’t make it so.
One of the problems is a lot of the older people in this country still see Video games as things for Children, and not adults. A lot of them can’t believe that anyone in their mid to late 20′s or older would even play video games. With a lot of member of congress being part of this older generation that see video games as children’s Toys and that adult don’t play video games. You can see were there bias and anger at video games come from. They see game (in their mind) like manhunt being play by kids and only kids, not adults. Which is sad that they don’t realize the average age of games is closer to 30 than 13.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/26/arts/television/26mass.html
Cooper Lawrence, the person who appeared on Fox News and criticized Mass Effect, apparently spent 2 hours watching someone play the game and had this to say:
I’m glad that she got her story straight, but next time, please get it straight before you appear on national television and cause so much controversy and further damage the reputation of our industry.
You’re right, it’s too bad she was on tv before she had a clue. Ignorance is the main reason people dislike the video game industry as a whole.
It is completely awesome that she looked into this further. Apparently her credibility means something to her.
Unfortunately, the people that flamed her book on Amazon aren’t probably going to be able to retract as she did when she learned better. One thing, I’ll be she does real research before going on a national television program and giving an opinion based on what someone told her.
I’ll admit that I’m astonished that you think parents feel responsible for their children. Since when? I don’t know what other peoples’ experiences were growing up, but I definitely had a babysitter and it’s name was Magnavox. Video games are still merely the previous generation’s complaint. Their parents said exactly the same thing about their interests (which they have wholeheartedly forgotten) so it should come as no surprise that they turn around and do the same thing.
That’s an interesting use of the word “misspoke”.
Ogrebears: You have it spot-on. I wish there were some of the things in Mass Effect that “somebody” told her they’d heard were in it.
What she and Kevin McCullough are saying is that video games are necessarily “for kids” by virtue of the fact that they are video games, and therefore entitled to much weaker protection than other forms of expression.
In this case, the counterpoint is all about how there’s no such thing in Mass Effect… but what about that much more important point? That even if there were, censorship is more vile and disgusting than there being mature content in a mature video game. Or that just being a video game doesn’t automatically constitute “marketing to 15 year old boys”.
Genda: Amazon will delete the comments from people that obviously didn’t read the book. Otherwise, there’s really nothing for them to retract. The gamers didn’t “misspeak” when they’ve talked about what she said.
Still, Google search for Cooper Lawrence returns pages of links to “Cooper Lawrence admits she was wrong”, etc.
But again, regarding the really important issue, she has admitted no such thing.
She said it was dangerous and wrong for even an M-rated game to contain M-rated content. She’s only retracted the statement that Mass Effect was such a game. She pointed-out that it’s content is no worse than you see on network television (ok, so why the M rating?!), but her ridiculous claims about M-rated video games being a danger to society still stand.