Thank You, EA

It shouldn’t bother me as much as it did, because it is expected from Fox News to disregard fair and honest journalism, but they went way too far this time. In this clip, from a segment called “Se”Xbox, the host, an “expert” psychologist and a panel of ill-informed reporters spout off on a number of blatant inaccuracies regarding Mass Effect. I give a lot of credit to Geoff Keighley, for whom I also have new found respect, as he attempted to get a few words in edgewise. The words he did get in were to the point and achieved the desired effect of pointing out that they had not played the game and were in no place to make hearsay judgments about the game. The gaming community responded the best way possible by spamming the reviews of the psychologist’s book on Amazon and venting in forums.

However, in a move that I’m not sure that anyone expected, based on the reaction, EA stepped up and defended Bioware’s work in a letter to the show’s producer asking that the inaccuracies be addressed on the show.

The resulting coverage was insulting to the men and women who spent years creating a game which is acclaimed by critics for its high creative standards. 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.

It’s encouraging to see EA, who is usually cast in a malevolent light, sticking up for not only their newly acquired IP but for video games in general in the mass media. Our medium is a threat not only because it is an unknown to them but because it takes away viewers and therefore advertisers. We’re still waiting for that apology and I hope they take legal action if needed since they’ve used the word “slandered” to describe the hard working folks at Bioware.

The worst part of the situation is that Fox News clearly neglected to do any research on the topic or game itself. It appears as someone caught wind of this rant on the conservative Townhall Blog (which, curiously, is no longer available) and ran with it. If they had done a quick search on their own website, they would have seen it was “one of the best-written and best-looking games in a long time,” earning three and a half stars out of four, and one of their top ten games of the year.

Update: Cooper Lawrence, the psychologist on the show, admitted that she received bad information about the game and has since seen someone play the game for a couple hours, saying that she has "seen episodes of Lost that are more sexually explicit."