The Cybercast News Service, a conservative site, claims in a report published this morning that best-selling Xbox 360 title Mass Effect contains "explicitly graphic sexual intercourse."
The charge seems to be based on a well-known episode in the game in which there is a romantic liaison between the player's character and an NPC. However, in our view, it's quite a stretch to describe what appears onscreen as explicitly graphic sexual intercourse, which generally denotes hard core pornography.
Mass Effect is far from that.
However, a lawyer (no, not that lawyer) quoted in the article specifically refers to the game as porn. From the CNS piece:
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," ...Ruse said.
In describing the scene, CNS writes:
The playable character can become romantically involved... This storyline culminates in a cutscene in which the characters copulate in full digital nudity.
The article also quotes Bob Waliszewki, described as a media specialist with Focus on the Family. Waliszewki seems especially troubled by the fact that two women are involved in the love scene:
Unfortunately, Mass Effect... even goes so far as to allow homosexuality to be on par with heterosexuality and heterosexuality outside of its proper context of marriage.
Attorney Ruse also painted the love scene in the game as porn in the legal sense:
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.
We need state and local prosecutors with spines and backbones to prosecute some of these companies that are violating the law.
Regarding CyberCast News Service, SourceWatch reports that:
Cybercast News Service (CNS) is a subsidiary of the conservative news monitoring group, the Media Research Center (MRC)...
Media Research Center Inc. is a conservative media watchdog group run by president and founder Brent Bozell. The Center... is funded by larger right-wing foundations...
Brent Bozell is also the founder of the Parents Television Council.
Here's the video. Do you find it to be "explicitly graphic sexual intercourse?"
Comments
For your complete and utterly ridiculous ignorance, I suggest you be quiet, take a look at the facts, and go back to whatever decrepit hole you came out of.
1. This game is rated MATURE. not TEEN, not EVERYONE, MATURE. that means if your not 17 your NOT getting this game.
2. The scene in question is not pornography to such a point it makes me wonder do you get off when a gentleman asks you to dance or something of that level.
3. How can it be marketed to kids when the commercials only come on at night.
4. How can you say this lacks artistic value when it`s obvious just how much work went into it. you can`t
Uggghhhhh... *moans* I slammed my head on the desk every time I came across bullshit in this article.
1. The game is “clearly marketed to minors”
Ah yes, the first *facedesk* moment. I wonder where people get this idea from, that games like this is marketed towards children. Maybe it's the fact that these people are still in the 80's where the majority of gamers were probably around 10 years old. Ah, too bad times have changed and the average gamer is much...much older now...
Nevertheless, I have never seen a freakin' ad directed towards children. Y'know like marketing strategies used by tobacco companies to attract children...
“There are cultural implications for feeding porn to kids in this way”
The second facedesk. Psh, The bloody internet feeds porn to children much easier than a game.
...And that's for parents who doesn't use any sort of filtering system on their computer.
"This storyline culminates in a cutscene in which the characters copulate in full digital nudity"
Third facedesk moment. It's funny when they say it, they almost make it sound like a porno flick when the most graphic thing seen was an ass... [Personal opinion warning] Seriously, what is up with people worrying about nudity anyway, it IS our natural bodies after all, I see no big deal. Almost like the same thing with the word "fuck" why is that word really bad? But I digress...
"Unfortunately, Mass Effect… even goes so far as to allow homosexuality to be on par with heterosexuality and heterosexuality outside of its proper context of marriage."
A really hard, fourth facedesk...
What the hell? This sounds so anti-gay right here. I'm personally 98% straight (Hm? The other two percent? Well, everyone has a bit of gay in them, don't deny it) but I am honestly of people who directly/indirectly bash on people just because they like those of the same gender. Grow up...
"Most states have ... ‘Harmful to Minors’ laws ... 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."
"We need state and local prosecutors with spines and backbones to prosecute some of these companies that are violating the law."
Oh my head hurts...
Honestly...I would love to know what do snotty little kids have to do with this. Mass Effect is not being marketed towards children, it's a game for people who are 17+... people like ME. Prosecute who? Bioware? Retailers? Psh, piss off... There's no marketing campaings going around telling children to buy the game. It's not like the world is going to end because 12 year old Timmy saw some digital ass for 2 seconds.
Hell, it's not even hardcore sex. Some "porn" that was. I wasn't the least bit aroused. Come back to me when some porn company is going around selling their wares to children.
*blood trickles down forehead*
Oh shit...
“This storyline culminates in a cutscene in which the characters copulate in full digital nudity”
I agree on the face desk for that one 112%. I mean the whole 'save the universe and all life as we know it from the god-like, mind controlling alien machines' is only a sub-plot to these people?
Man oh man, JT must be using the Dark Side of the force to puppet this group around or something...
Also, I'm glad my work blocked the movie, I'm trying to avoid spoilers. Going Infiltrator/Paragon for my first play through.
I would like to question the "clearly marketted towards minors." It's all well and good to make that claim... but can he back it up with anything. Why does he feel that the game was marketted to minors?
If you look at it one way, you could say the magazine Jugs is clearly marketted to hungry toddlers.
For the Flying Spaghetti Monster's noodly appendage.. What the hell are these people on? Dot hey consider everyone under the age of 17 a child? Is there no reasonable medium for these people because it seems like they only see in black and white.
Yes, a brief flash of blue alien girl ass is SLIGHTLY indecent. There are no exposed genitals, no solid shots of the scene, nothing that really constitutes pornography.
The only people I pity more than the people who thought this up are the people who support them. Oh, yes, let's condemn something to the fiery pits of hell with the full power of the American Legal system because it offends our out-dated and overly sensitive hardcore Christian beliefs!
I tell you people over and over and over again that if the industry wants this crap to stop it has to start getting mean with these people and fight back. Win or lose, having to fight court battles every time you lie or misrepresent something about games would keep the MSM honest and put people like jack in there place.
You can all think i'm crazy, but stories like this just prove i'm right.
That only proves them right, you know.
I think I agree with Yuki in that Bioware, and the industry in general should slap these guys with anti-defamation suits because that's exactly what they are doing when they run these lie filled farces.
@ ChrowX
True, it was slightly indecent to show blue alien butt, however, gotta admit that she does have a rather cute butt at that. Once you go blue, and all that nonsense...
Proves them right how? This isn't about being right or wrong, this is about making a big enough ass of myself to drag them down to my level. You lead them in to make the most insane anti-whatever comments or otherwise make them look even more like the clowns they are then they can by their own hand.
They won't succeed or lose because of my existence, but those who know better can still laugh at them more. And we all win for that.
Then again, being Paragon/Renegade all depends on choices, doesn't it?
Ah, you seem to think they give a damn if they're "accurate". They don't. They're all as fake as when The Undertaker choke-slams soandso or when Superman flies through the skies of Metropolis. They don't believe in what they spew, they only believe it's the most profitable thing for them to say to reach their demographic.
secondly, how the hell do we know if that alien is female?
Now to say that the game is marketed to minors is stupid. I've seen the ads, and they are genralized and toned-back, but clearly not for any specific age-range. You can't complain in any fashon about this game's single sex scene, be it hetero or homosexual, because the game is clearly rated for the mature crowd, and therefore should not be in the hands of minors in the first place.
And why focus on Mass Effect in the first place? Plenty of M or even less rated games have had sexual content, even going as far as to have a "graphic" sex scene. The game Mafia comes to mind, with a sex scene almost exactly like that of Mass Effect. There is some nudity, yes, and a bed; but the actual intercourse is only implied, or at most subtly touched upon.
If we aren't allowed to have any sex in any video game, even if the game is rated appropriately, then why not just go ahead and mandate some law to prevent it? Oh wait, I know! Because that would make no sense. Books, TV shows, and Movies are allowed sexual content; so why not video games? The scene in question takes place in a cutscene only; it isn't as if you control the character during the process, so how is it any different from a movie? Leave games alone, FFS...
i reccomend googling the phrase " why cant i won a canadian" its fairly self explanitory as to why im atheist..
The same people ask why most of the world hate us? Well wake up to crap like this. I recently went to live in the UAE and they are a more tollerant people than the so called 1st world.
ps. im not being sarcastic..
...............okay then, well at least I have the 10 achievement points to look forward to for doing it.......
I've heard that animators hid some stuff in one disney film, but only in a couple of separated frames, so watching it normally it's impossible to see. But if you have equipment that lets you find a particular frame of a movie, there it is. Is that what you're referring to?
I always wondered why no one ever considered this when the whole "Hot coffee" thing went down. Both were cases where a movie/game had hidden content that couldn't be seen normally but required know-how and possibly special equipment, but considering that GTA was already rated M17+, while the Disney move was rated G I believe, I think the Disney movie would have been a bigger issue. Plus, while the GTA scene's impossible to access normally, I believe there was a slight chance you might see the naked lady in the Disney movie if you happened to pause it around the right time and your VCR picked that frame, though the chances of that would be very slim.
All biased aside it would help if this writer could actually write it would also help if his thoughts were coherent and in any form of order. This writers thought process astounds me, instead of going to any form of actual expert they turn to a lawyer? (Its not He who shall not be named but it sounds like they are on the same bandwagon)
Also the fact that they turned to Focus on the Family who are one of the most conservative family Christian groups out there speaks volumes. Hell James Dobson the head of focus on the family accused Spongebob Squarepants of trying to spread rampant Homosexuality. Yeah cause we all know that Spongebob is gay...................Oh wait I'm wasting sarcasm.
Also the little tidbit at the end where they claim to have contacted the ESA but they didn't reply before press time, thats an old trick you call them five minutes before they go to press makes it seems as if ESA is incompetent. Oh and I just have to comment on this quote which just screams "Think of the Children!"
-"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."- I do believe that this is true, most parents are so oblivious to all that goes on in their child's lives that if anything bad happens they have a viable scapegoat /Sarcasm.
point made
this game is rated M for Minor
Anyway I think the makers of Mass Effect should sue for slander.
Seriously, this is what I hate about people. They spew lies and bullshit to make themselves look good in front of people. I hate it so much! People are so damn phony, it's ridiculous...
...Hmph, what I just said reminds me of Holden Caulfield.
...
Yeah! Gamers *CAN* read. Amazing, isn't it?
@ Mad_Scientist
I never actually thought about that. The hidden minigame in GTA compared to the pictures in the Rescuers. *sigh* Realizations like this truly confirms my beliefs of people just bagging on games just to make themselves look better. It's all a fad, just like when Rock 'n' Roll was EVIL.
On behalf of everyone here I would like to apologize for what was said earlier. Some people here just have knee-jerk reactions to this stuff (which is odd seing as how we've heard this kind of thing before).
sounds like a good system you've got there, actually. i know i used to run interference for games my little brother tried to play. now instead of advising my parents on what isn't appropriate for him, i can just talk with him about games we enjoy. (still pushing him to get Rock band so we can jam).
but you aren't Jane Everymom, you're more up to date and well informed (even if just by proxy of your other children) as to how to raise your child. that said, you are exactly the kind of person that Yee, Lieberman and Clinton hate.
Nudity and sex in any context of any kind is porn.
Why bother even reporting crap like this? The guys obviously another braindead anti-games guy.