Media Blames Video Games for Social/Moral Decline

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Check out these two interesting articles:

Original Article: CNN Thinks Mass Effect is Pornographic Homo Eroticism

Sex in Video Game Makes Waves Through Industry
By Evan Moore
CNSNews.com Correspondent
January 11, 2008

(CNSNews.com) - A new, best-selling video game, Mass Effect, made for the Microsoft Xbox 360 console, allows the characters to engage in explicitly graphic sexual intercourse. Some game experts and pro-family analysts say Mass Effect is marketed to young kids and presents a moral danger to them and that the companies making and marketing the game should be prosecuted.

The game is "clearly marketed to minors," Cathy Ruse, a lawyer and senior fellow for legal studies at the Family Research Council, told Cybercast News Service.

"There are cultural implications for feeding porn to kids in this way," and "when you do this, you're teaching them a distorted lesson about human sexuality and human dignity. These are lessons that they will take with them into adulthood and ultimately society," Ruse said.

Mass Effect is made by BioWare Corp., in Alberta, Canada. The game has a strong, plot-driven storyline reminiscent of the Star Wars films or television shows like Babylon 5.

As part of that story, the playable character can become romantically involved with a woman, if playing as the default male character; a man, if playing as a woman; and an alien that looks and talks like a woman, for any play-through. This storyline culminates in a cutscene in which the characters copulate in full digital nudity.

The game is rated "M" for mature, as are many video games, and was banned in Singapore last year, though the decision was later reversed. Mass Effect has sold over 1.6 million copies since its release in November 2007. The game scored "Best RPG" in the 2007 Spike TV Video Game Awards, and it has been nominated for Game of the Year.

Critics blast

Bob Waliszewki, media specialist with Focus on the Family, told Cybercast News Service, "We never shy away from sexuality in the media. It's just a question of how is that sexuality portrayed. One can use the media to portray some very healthy forms of sexuality. And when done wisely with taste and age-appropriateness, it can be done well."

"Unfortunately," he said, "Mass Effect doesn't do that and even goes so far as to allow homosexuality to be on par with heterosexuality and heterosexuality outside of its proper context of marriage."

Ruse said, "I don't know if people are really aware about what's in this game, but [the people who made it] should lose a lot of money, and they should lose consumer confidence, because this is a stupid move."

She noted that "when you expose children, whose brains and personalities are still developing, to degrading and harmful material, you've got to believe that's going to have an effect on the way that they view themselves, others, and the world."

"People try to raise a straw-man argument and say that people from my perspective are saying that everyone who views something is going to go out and become a serial sex killer. Nobody's saying that," Ruse said.

"But, it is profoundly naive to suggest that feeding children graphic sexual material is going to have no effect on their psyche. That's just stupid to think that," she added.

Waliszewki noted that numerous reputable studies from firms like the RAND corporation have emerged over the past four years that show causal links between exposure to sexual images, profanity, smoking, and violence to a higher degree of sexual activity, greater use of profanity, higher smoking rates, as well as higher aggressive tendencies and violent action.

"This is about money," Ruse said. "This isn't about a First Amendment debate. This is about [BioWare] making as much money as it can. It's putting elements in its games which they think will help them sell more games. They don't care about what they're doing to kids."

She concluded, "This is unethical, and they have a duty to be good corporate citizens. There's no First Amendment right to exploit children ... They're making money at the expense of children in America, and they ought to be vilified for that."

The state of the industry

Calls made to the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) for comment were not answered by press time. However, a report from the ESA says that the game player population is older and diverse than conventional wisdom would assume.

According to the ESA, the average game player is 33 years old and has been playing games for 12 years. Also, 38 percent of all game players are women. Women over the age of 18 represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (31 percent) than boys age 17 or younger (20 percent).

The voice of the video game industry also says that parents are strongly involved when their children buy or rent games. Eighty-six percent of game players under the age of 18 reported that they get their parents' permission when renting or buying games, and 91 percent say their parents are present when they buy games.

Furthermore, the ESA reports that the field of choices available to consumers is very family-friendly. Eighty-five percent of all games sold in 2006 were rated "E" for Everyone, "T" for Teen, or "E10+" for Everyone 10+ by the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB).

Cybercast News Service also sought comment from BioWare Corp but did not receive a reply.

Preventing exposure to children

"When parental involvement is at a high level," Waliszewki said, the warning labels provided by the ESRB could deter children from being exposed to inappropriate material. But he warned that "in many cases, where parents are less involved and oblivious to the world of entertainment these days, an 'M' rating is almost a badge of endorsement."

"Parents really just need to be involved in [their children's] entire entertainment world," he said. "There's just too much gunk out there for parents to be 'hands-off.' They have to be involved. They have to know ... what their kids are into in today's entertainment."

Ruse noted that "most states have what's called 'Harmful to Minors' laws on the books that say that selling sexual material that a jury would deem 'patently offensive to minors, which lacks literary, artistic, political or scientific value.' ... might be prosecutable."

However, she also noted that these laws are "very likely not enforced." Rather than new laws, "we need state and local prosecutors with spines and backbones to prosecute some of these companies that are violating the law" in order to prevent children from being exposed to indecent material, she said.

Demonised

Demonised
by Luke Guttridge
6 february 2008

Gaming - both the pastime and the industry - has always enjoyed something of a fraught relationship with mainstream perception, particularly when it comes to the suggestive powers of the mainstream press. This was highlighted again recently, when Fox News ran a report stateside which gave a provocative and false account of the content in BioWare RPG Mass Effect.

In a report brimming with misplaced moral outrage, the Xbox 360 exclusive title was described in no uncertain terms as vaguely pornographic filth, appearing under the title "SeXbox," so-called experts attacking the game as damaging to children - despite the so-called 'sex scenes' being far less suggestive or indeed erotic than anything featured in any number of prime-time TV shows.

In The New York Times', Cooper Lawrence, one of the game's most vocal critics on Fox News, admitted her embarrassment upon discovering the true extent of the game's debauchery, hinting that Fox may even have mislead her before filming. "I recognize that I misspoke. I really regret saying that, and now that I have seen the game and seen the sex scenes, its kind of a joke. Before the show I had asked somebody about what they had had heard, and they had said its like pornography. But its not like pornography. Iâ??ve seen episodes of â??Lostâ?? that are more sexually explicit," the critic conceded.

BioWare owner EA were of course livid with this flagrant misrepresentation, Jeff Brown demanding an apology from Fox, something the channel has so far failed to do - arguing instead, it seems, that EA should come on their Live Desk show to defend the game (against the clearly misplaced charges).

Of course this skewering, as Brown's letter suggests, may be born out of fear: "As video games continue to take audiences away from television, we expect to see more TV news stories warning parents about the corrupting influence of interactive entertainment. But this represents a new level of recklessness." The problem is that gaming is still a relatively niche hobby, at least compared to television and cinema, and it is enjoyed by a disproportionate number of youngsters. So, when older viewers watch reports like Fox's, this is probably the most they'll hear about gaming for weeks if not months; and it doesn't sound good. Little wonder, then, that the greying moral majority think that gaming is in part to blame for US society's ills.

Not that damaging misconception is constrained to the United States, of course, in fact a more serious example happened here in the UK a few years ago - during the Stefan Pakeerah murder case. During this case, controversy-courting Manhunt was linked to the vicious killing, and both TV and newspapers reported that the 17 year-old murderer Warren LeBlanc was obsessed by the game. It emerged, in fact, that it was victim Pakeerah who had played the game, not the other way round.

"The video game was not found in Warren LeBlanc's room, it was found in Stefan Pakeerah's room," a police spokeperson explained at the time. "Leicestershire Constabulary stands by its response that police investigations did not uncover any connections to the video game, the motive for the incident was robbery." Despite this fact, newspapers like the ultra-Conservative Daily Mail did little to assuage the general impression than Manhunt was related to this horrendous event, reports focussing on the game, despite the plain truth that it was seemingly unrelated in any way whatsoever.

In fact, it is believed LeBlank killed Pakeerah in order to pay back a debt related to drugs, The Daily Mail presumably more offended by the game involved than the awful but predictable truth.

Games certainly seem to get an unfair reputation sometimes, it would seem - but mainstream perception can't purely be about old school media's fear of the new boy in town, in fact, I think some of the most outspoken critics simply don't know the first thing about games. Witness the fear most over-40's had for a game controller pre-Wii and you realise how important Nintendo's disruptive system is to the overall perception of our hobby. Gaming isn't just about anti-social teens indulging in ultra-violent virtual sin, rotting their minds; it can also be about exercise, community, family fun and can - whisper it - even occupy the same space as traditional board games, a healthy and more positive counterpoint to the television itself.

Whether The Daily Mail, Fox News and their cohorts will accept gaming as a reasonable pastime, alongside film, theatre, reading, et al, very much depends upon the aspects of our broad industry they choose to focus on. As hinted, the negative bent of most mainstream media over-looks the positive aspects of a hobby which can be far more sociable and mentally stimulating than the stereotype would suggest. Of course, for every "video nasty" there's a Pride and Prejudice, just as in gaming for every Manhunt there's a Wii Sports. Except the mainstream press might struggle to find column inches for the positive impact of the latter.

As I struggle to steer this editorial towards some kind of conclusion, then, I'm reminded of BBC documentary "Wonderland", which last week took a candid look at the bizarre world of Second Life, presenting us with a range of gamers who were seemingly in the process of ruining their lives, or furthering their immersion into the unreal, through various levels of addiction to this most extreme of MMOs. Some of the gamers in question had fallen in love in the game, indulged in virtual weddings, even while losing touch with their own families and partners. The documentary series is of course a new twist on the "funny old world" Louis Theroux formula (having previously looked at a man that eats badgers) but it this mainstream perception of gaming as in some way "extreme" or subversive that needs to be addressed.

Members of the mainstream press: games really aren't going to be the death of civil society or many of the cultural traits and standards we hold dear, and just as cinema, poetry, music and theatre were all once regarded as dangerous, in the end, we'll all come to accept that games are just another form of release, escapism or pure amusement. Nothing more, nothing less.

[Chard!]

That's shit. Those "sex scenes" are more like mild cuddling.

[Anheg]

Christians, cant live with them, cant shoot'em

I love alien porn in my video games, what else would make me play them?

[cuchulann]

Ah, yet another episode in the unending story of people trying to point the finger at a big corporation in hopes they can get some money out of them rather than dealing with the fact that there are just too many people in the world who should not be allowed to breed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nojWJ6-XmeQ

[Soul Sojourner]

If I ever play the game, I'll make my own judgement. People are responsible for their own decisions and choices. Even if there were actual sex scenes in the game, if parents are willing to be ignorant to their kids playing it... so what? That's their stupid mistake, not the companies. The only thing that I would think bad about that, is if the rating was incorrect. It would then be adult, not mature. But I doubt the game even has that shit, and I presume the ratings to be correct. Fuck the media.

[Mercy]

That's just like them saying that Dead or Alive Beach Volleyball had the naked characters...every gamer was like "nuh uh!" And there totally is...

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That's just like them saying that Dead or Alive Beach Volleyball had the naked characters...every gamer was like "nuh uh!" And there totally is...

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I have no idea what any of that means but you made me laugh my ass off!

Thanks Mercy!

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EDIT: I should probably point out that the second article is in opposition to the first one (in case anyone skipped it).

I like this quote:

"As video games continue to take audiences away from television, we expect to see more TV news stories warning parents about the corrupting influence of interactive entertainment. But this represents a new level of recklessness."

[Mercy]

lawl. I didn't read any of it...just scrolled to read responses.

And I will clear up my statement that you totally didn't understand.


The video game Dead or Alive : Extreme Beach Volleyball for the Xbox came out and there was a cheat code that allowed you to play with all the girls naked. And the news said told parents, etc. etc. a ton of gamers were like no way, that's totally not there. But the cheat really is there and you can play with a bunch of naked asian girls naked.

[Chard!]

you can play with a bunch of naked asian girls naked.

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ROFL

[Soul Sojourner]

lawl. I didn't read any of it...just scrolled to read responses.

And I will clear up my statement that you totally didn't understand.
The video game Dead or Alive : Extreme Beach Volleyball for the Xbox came out and there was a cheat code that allowed you to play with all the girls naked. And the news said told parents, etc. etc. a ton of gamers were like no way, that's totally not there. But the cheat really is there and you can play with a bunch of naked asian girls naked.

[snapback]39156[/snapback]

Funny, how you say "naked" twice. You must really like that game.

That's like the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Coffee House cheats. You can get girlfriends in that game, and when you get to a high enough point with them, if you have the cheat activated you're able to have sex with them. Trust me, I've tried it! I think there was two coffee house cheatcodes that did slightly different things, but I don't remember the difference and I only tried one. It was supposed to be a part of the game rockstar removed but was still there. Haha, yeah right. They left it there on purpose.

[420]

It was supposed to be a part of the game rockstar removed but was still there. Haha, yeah right. They left it there on purpose.

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Yes, every video game in existence has unused content/code that was either unfinished or disabled before release. You seem to be implying that Rockstar was being defiant or subversive or possibly making some kind of statement by not removing that data.

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[Soul Sojourner]

Nah. What I'm implying is that they left it there on purpose, so that people could access a part of the game they had 'removed.' Not out of defiance, not for making a statement. Nothing like that. Simply that they created it to be part of the game, and wanted to keep it without deleting it. Otherwise, why else would there be two versions of the Hot Coffee (this is what it's called, I looked it up, it's been awhile) cheat? I see it as a way to still make disabled content accessible, while being able to cover their ass by saying they disabled it, which they did. You can't normally access that stuff, yet people still can. I know if I were in their shoes, I'd do the same thing if I didn't want to delete a part of the game, but knew the media would be all over it if I didn't and would probably lose sales as well (as it would have to be adult rated probably).

On a side note, GTA: 4 and Saints Row 2 are coming out... and I simply have to play the shit out of both of them. Soo... I'm considering buying an Xbox 360, as there are other games I like and want to play too. =D But seriously, GTA: 4 looks sweet from the shots of the game and some of the stuff I've read. And Saints Row 2 is upgrading vehicles, adding more cars and trucks as well as motorcycles, boats, planes, helicopters (and other vehicles it was deprived of in Saints Row 1). The thing that sounds best about SR2 though, is the storyline. It sounds as if the main character from the first one comes back and gets revenge on a certain group of people for what they did in the first one. I don't want to say more though, in case I spoil something for those who haven't played Saints Row. =D

[Chard!]

I think GTA is retarded but meh.. I'll end up playing it anyway.

[Anheg]

but GTA is so fun! I dont do missions or anything, I just run around and beat people with clubs and commit a hate crime every 11.24 seconds

[Soul Sojourner]

KiLL PRoStitUteS wiTH DiLdo... eaahahhhAhhaha!

On a side note, video games rule your media wannabe-better asses!