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.

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.

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.

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.

Parents are responsible for protecting their children

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!

The fact that parents are ultimately responsible for their children’s upbringing does not free the entertainment industry from taking responsibility for their product. The assertion that the sole responsibility lies with parents is a self-justifying claim usually made by people who wish to evade accountability. It is much like pumping sewage into a town’s river, while maintaining that parents are responsible for protecting the health of their own children. Parental responsibility is the beginning, not the end, of the story. The next question is, to what extent do those who use public resources like the airwaves have a responsibility as well?

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.