Gaming Steve: A Small Victory For Gamers Against Mainstream Media

January 26, 2008

A Small Victory For Gamers Against Mainstream Media

Earlier in the week, I covered the various ignorant media pieces going about, including the flak Mass Effect was unfairly receiving. I found this video to be the epitome of how the main stream media covers games ("Porn! Violence! Won't someone think of the children?!"), and how gamers should respond ("Did you actually play the game?"). Well it turns out that the mis-representative nature of the piece has somewhat been repaired by guest Cooper Lawrence admitting the following statement: "I recognize that I misspoke".

Fox news had psychologist Cooper Lawrence on the show as their "expert" to defend their already preconceived notion that Mass Effect was a pornography simulator, marketed to 15-year-old boys, and that you could only play as a male character. The host of Spike TV show Game Head, Geoff Keighley, did his best to fight these clear falsifications, and pointedly asked Cooper whether or not she had played the game, to which she giggled and responded "no".

Cooper Lawrence decided to apologize to gamers today, saying "I really regret saying that, and now that I've seen the game and seen the sex scenes it's kind of a joke". Of course, this is probably attributed to gamers hitting her back were it hurts: the wallet. During the past week, over 400 negative reviews were added on amazon.com to Cooper's book, The Cult of Perfection: Making Peace With Your Inner Overachiever, with many of the reviewers saying they hadn't read the book, but simply that they had simply heard it was bad. Cooper had reportedly just asked someone nearby before going on the show what the game was like, with their reply being "it's like pornography". That's some really expert research right there.

While it's nice to see someone apologizing to the gaming community, it's really too bad this is what has to be done to achieve it. Some might say falsely reviewing her book was unfair, but gamers only did exactly what she did to them: talk about something they knew nothing about, and act like an expert about it. Lucky for Cooper, Amazon has removed all the reviews from those who clearly didn't read the book. I also suspect many more people saw the news program and now have many incorrect assumptions about Mass Effect, than those who now have incorrect assumptions about The Cult of Perfection.

EA also responded to the news report, pointing out all the incorrect facts Fox had on the program. Fox has said they would allow EA to come on television to defend their case, but this isn't what EA or gamers want: we want Fox to say they broadcast falsifications about Mass Effect, and apologize for doing so.

Cooper got the falsifications of her book erased from Amazon, but I highly doubt Fox will do the same with their distorted reports.

Posted by Clayton Ashley at 8:30 PM | Comments (15) | Posted to Culture |

Comments

I wish we could've administered a harsher punishment. I hate these sort of people.

Posted by Paroxysm at January 26, 2008 10:56 PM

Great article Clayton.

Anyways, it's nice to see that she admitted she was in the wrong and apologized for it.

Posted by Sub at January 26, 2008 11:24 PM

i guess we'll never know, but you have to wonder if she would have said anything, if not for the reviews situation.

Posted by happydan20 at January 27, 2008 1:12 AM

It makes me sad they can have an "expert" on that has absolutely no experience at all in said field. They could be (and lets face it, they pretty much are) doing this in subjects that actually matter.

Posted by Sub at January 27, 2008 1:22 AM

Admitting she was wrong was the only correct thing to do after she made a huge error. The lesson to be learned is that you shouldn't claim something as fact publically unless you know what you are talking about. Many of the comments made on Fox News by the panelists were slanderous, and I don't think EA will be as nice next time around. I'm not sure that other companies like Take Two will allow lies about their games to go unchallenged either.

On the other hand, many gamers did the same to her, badly reviewing a book they didn't read. Maybe it's the old-fart in me, but that was the wrong thing to do as well.

Posted by Robert Gauss at January 27, 2008 1:44 AM

As some may say:
LOL, What a NOOB

But seriously, she got what she deserved for that.

Posted by Munchkin5 at January 27, 2008 9:56 AM

Okay - the gaming press is going after the so-called "mainstream media" - kudos. But before you get all celebratory - perhaps you should look up the word "falsifications."

We wonder why the gaming community gets no respect? Perhaps we should try earning it - by doing our research and (gasps) actually writing sentences with clarity.

Posted by papaboom at January 27, 2008 1:31 PM

I guess a lot of gamers think revenge is the only way to make things right? That shows character right there.

Posted by Guest at January 27, 2008 2:24 PM

At Guest (Whoever you are):
Please remember a small group of people is not necessarily representative of an entire section of people as a whole. For instance, If the majority people that posted comments on YouTube were representative of everyone that visited the internet...well, think 28 Days later meets Joystiq.

Posted by Sgore at January 27, 2008 3:23 PM

Game companies are stupid. They should have never put themselves in those positions. What can you expect when most of the developers acts like 14 years old kids and promote their games the same way.

Posted by jdun at January 27, 2008 5:04 PM

Oh I know Sgore. And I don't think it's anywhere close to the majority of gamers who feel that way, but 400+ angry gamers leaving bad Amazon views still seems like a lot to me. Sorry if I made that sound a little more generalized than I meant it to.

Posted by Guest at January 27, 2008 9:27 PM

I just saw the video of the show and my main thought right now is: Damn, I'm sooo glad I don't live in the United States! Absolutely no offence meant, by the way. But it just dazzles me how they can pull off such one-sided "news"...

Oh well: Video games have come to stay, such uninformed news just have no chance in the long run, I'm sure of it.

Posted by Doubleclick at January 28, 2008 7:36 PM

The reason why Fox will not report that they lie on air, and know it, is because they have won several law cases (and appeals on the ones they lost) about how they falsify reports and require (on pain of termination) reporters to knowingly lie on air. Apparently it's their 1st amendment right to lie to their viewers.

The only thing you can do is not watch Fox News, or Fox.

Posted by Dave at January 28, 2008 7:59 PM

You can say whatever of Fox News but in the end they have twice as many viewers then their next competitor, CNN. If you're going to blame someone blame it on the game developers.

Nintendo is the only good game company that doesn't make an ass of themselves. The rest acts like 14 years old kids. They need to grow up.

Posted by jdun at January 28, 2008 11:18 PM

Ok, seriously, if she is getting all huffy about that, why not go after TV shows like America's Top Model or countless other programs where women are objectified and specificially setup to have a sex appeal in order to boost ratings. Should these not be looked into first? I mean kids can access these shows far easier then they can a game. Even if they downloaded the game illegally, it would take several hours on a fast connection and most parents would check in on their kids within that time. So, access to most games rated Mature are far less accessable within a family that cares then a TV show. Anyway, thats my view on things.

Posted by verkinix at January 29, 2008 9:30 PM