January 16, 2008 -
Conservative pundit Kevin McCullough absorbed one of life's harsh lessons this week:If you want to condemn, you'd better be right.
McCullough, who savaged Mass Effect with some of the most outrageous nonsense we've ever heard in relation to video games, further raised the ire of the gamer community by following up with nasty generalizations about those who play:
The Gamer-Nerd universe exploded in anger over the tone and a couple of the specifics of my most recent column... If the few who wrote me are indicative of the rest of the gaming universe, we know at least they have passion - for their toy-boxes...
Look, if the Gamer-Nerds need their pervy outlets to find true release and inner peace - then make them drive to the outskirts of town and be forced to frequent those places that no one wants in the community to get them...
The inevitable backlash from the gaming community has popped up on places like Kotaku and in a variety of refutations of McCullough's off-the-wall premise, including this one on GamerDad. And, of course, in individual comments to McCullough's rants.
Penny Arcade, however, may have the most insightful take on what McCullough is up to.
Comments
Unfortunately, like good ole JT, people like him arent the type to admit failure when insulting their way out of a situation seems like the better option.
Most of us however realise you can't insult yourself out of any situation, the hole just gets deeper and deeper.
I wont even dignify his response with a rebuttal, he seems content not to even do any research and take word of mouth comments and extrapolate from them (he seems really repressed, suddenly the tasteful scene of implied sex and he is nitpicking moments that could be explicit content).
He is wrong, and the fact is he wont admitt it because he didnt research the topic accurately to beign with and to hell if he's going to do it now, anyone with jounalistic integrity would have at least made the effort to double check rather than falling back on their own convictions.
:: Raises GamerDad's arm in victory! ::
Winner by Intelligence: GamerDad!
Nightwng2000
NW2K Software
Fstdt.com Shiny Mirror award :)
Religious self-righteous fanatical morons are the same everywhere, regardless of the specific religion involved.
Also, gamerdad wins.
Also he's telling blatant lies, but that's nothing new to us. The only problem with the internet is that you don't have to post sources. Oh and the porn. All the porn. The porn that is easier to access than say.... the digital bottom in mass effect?
Man, at least JT was funny.
Buh? I'm still confused by this - the game is rated 12 over here and I haven't seen anything in it that should push it any higher.
and the uk are STRICT on ratings beleive me.
could it be infact that mass effect really isnt that offensive *gasp* shock horror.
gamerdad nails it though.
Just like sugary cereal, your kids may moan for it, but if you dont think its appropriate.. err... say no .
If you're prepared to obviously distort, falsify, and misreport on the content on a video game, why not go the whole nine yards and claim to have actually played the game?
It's like a film critic starting a review with, "Now, I haven't actually seen this film in its entirety but . . . ."
yeah, did you read his excuse for that? something about not needing to go to a whorehouse to know its wrong.....
what an idiot
"jim writes
Criminal element among Programmers
Now the problem that must be solved is the freedom and power that is available to computer programmers.
I first programmed a computer in 1950, I trained rooms full of PhDs and college graduates how to use and program a computer. In 1955 I was screaming to the powers at the RAND Corp. that they must do something about the progression from a normal person, to an programmer becoming an electronic addict.
(And just for fun, one of those computer weighed 250 tons, used 50,000 radio tubes, and filled a 4 story building.)
The power given to these criminal minded people is beyond what you can imagine. If you have a local street gang with guns, they at best can kill a few people in their neighborhood, and people a few blocks away are neither aware or concerned.
However, give a few boys out in the woods of the country of Romania a computer, and they can destroy a billion dollars worth of computers and files across the world. No one seems to identify this as a world-wide problem with a large group of criminal minded programmers.
Power corrupts. But the power to make use of a Computer can ruin the world.
You must know there are a million corrupt programmers who would love to break into the Pentagon, steal from the coffers of a bank, to see airplanes crash into the ground, trains crash in to each other, and every other kind of mayhem that can be imagined that is connected to computers.
Until someone puts aside their accounting structure, admits there is a problem, and spends the billions it will cost to correct problems in the Internet, you and all of us are living under the whims of criminals all over the world. "
Game, set, match.
If you don't care much for this blog and think its readers are a mental mess, then why, pray tell, are you still reading this blog and posting comments to it?
I don't care much for eggplant and therefore . . . I don't ever eat it.
Gamer: "OMG ur a totall retard u stoopid fuck mass effffect is the roxx0rz."
McCullough: "Hm. I see your point. Very well, I will retract my statements."
Gamer: "LOLZ!"
I really wish that the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory wasn't true. Unfortunately, too many people fail to understand that being an absolute idiot/troll/jackass is not the way to go.
As for this writer, he is a hack. He found video games as a hot topic wrote a crappy bias article that only a right wing christian would take serious and then probably seeded links where ever he could. His figuring was it will get him on the news or at the very least on digg, pushing his hit rating up allowing him to feel important. He should be evaulated as if you had come across him on the street, an insane hobo that is looking for any attention good or bad, feel sorry for him and move on.
Sheppy was referring to Townhall. The comment he quoted is from that site.
AS for the greatness of GamerDad, I whole heartedly agree. I read his response and was well pleased with his no nonsense approach to the whole "controversy" (it is really hard to think of Mass Effect as a controversy.)
E. Zachary Knight
Divine Knight Gaming
OK Game Devs
Random Tower
That is one reason I haven't written my blog post on Blu-Ray. ;)
E. Zachary Knight
Divine Knight Gaming
OK Game Devs
Random Tower
1) Make up lies about a medium the know nothing about.
2) Use childish insults and generalizations when they are called on their lies.
3) Think the government should legislate morality.
4) Hate gays, gamers, young people, women's sexuality, etc.
And guess what? They are both motivated by "christian activism". Connect the dots- these people are fools.
My bad.
Make a few wild and baseless accusations about a popular video game, calling for what amounts to censorship, and you can be sure that it'll end up on sites like P-A, kotaku, joystiq, slashdot, and GP... it would be a page from the Jack Thompson playbook of attracting web traffic, if he actually had enough saavy to make his own web site instead of just e-spamming press releases. Although I suppose if you're addicted to googling your own name, it could be in a playbook for getting better results out of that.
Most likely, them two is swapping e-mails as we speak. Peas in a pod.
He's tried a couple time to establish a web presence (e.g., stopkill(dot)org). In fact, he's currently claiming to be establishing "rescuejustice(dot)com" as part of his campaign against the Florida Bar. However, I think that all his attempts end up being hacked to death.
Some of the worst mistakes happened at the hands of people who were convinced that they knew exactly what they were doing. Chernobyl was being operated by a highly experienced team of experts when it blew. People need to stop being convinced that they are always right and open themselves up to learning something. Since when was it such a crime to admit that you might have been wrong?
--
A man goes to a psychiatrist, and tells him "Doc, I think I have an obsession with sex." The doctor agrees to examine him and begins by showing him various drawings. First the doctor draws a square and asks the man to identify it. The man immediately says "sex". Next the doctor draws a circle, which the man again identifies as sex. Thirdly, the doctor draws a triangle, which of course the patient identifies as "sex". The doctor puts the drawings away and says to the patient, "Yes, I do believe t hat you have an obsession with sex." To which the man replies, "I'm not the one with the obsession! YOU'RE the one drawing all the dirty pictures!"
--
I bet this guy is more obsessed with sex than the people he calls "pervy".
As I mentioned before, thousands of gamers have seen that video and not one that I've seen has mentioned that the females breasts changed size between shots, however, Mr McCullough did.
It doesn't take a genius to figure out who was staring at what.....
In fact, he seems to be quite sex-obsessed- no one else got nearly this excited over videogame sexy time.
10/10
http://kevinmccullough.townhall.com/Blog/
I can respect that.
If I read what he said right, I think he was referring to the fact that the two different characters' breasts were different sizes; he'd assumed that the user had created both characters.
My guess, anyway.
It seriously bothers me, games are becoming the scape-goat for everything. Just wait, they'll be blaming video games for terrorism soon too. Wait, too late.
From what I've gathered of his ramblings (while popping pain relievers and placing a wet towel on my head) is that Kevin McCullough has no clue what he is talking about. His discussing video games is like a three year old discussing Quantum Physics. Five minutes of research would have dispelled any false information about the game that he had. The completely false information regarding Mass Effect proves that he was willfully ignorant, and as the police say, “Ignorance is not an excuse."
By contrast, GamerDad's article was sheer poetry. Someone should forward that to "Mr." McCullough.
Most definitely a permavirgin. Genepool wins again!
Huh. He apologized.
I can respect that.
Only in so far as the ratings enforcement. He never did apologize for pretending that this was Barely Legal Lesbo Catholic School Girls Fun Farm Fest III...
I can't tell if he's being sarcastic or what. He thanks gamers for this? He slaps gamers across the face and then apologizes? I'd like for him to clarify what he meant, but I'd probably just be accused of being some sort of perverted "gamer nerd."
"Of course they themselves probably started hiding their collection of Hustler Magazine under their beds when they were eleven and have thus a good idea of how the "letter of the law" differs from the "intent." "
The good old personal attack. You ignore our retorts, quote the idiots, and then accuse us (again) of being repressed porn addicts. Then you take it another step further and call us anarchists. I'm disgusted.
"Many challenges stated that unless I played it myself then I had no business pointing out its objectionably content. Would they say the same of a strip club at the end of their block or hookers knocking at their door? (Well maybe sexually repressed gamer-nerds would...)"
The whole point of this "challenge" was for you to see that Mass Effect isn't akin to a strip club. Mass Effect is NOT porn, nor are the people who play this game are sexually repressed sociopaths. I take personal offense to this.
I read the "apology"
This is far from substantial - I for one would want him to retract his rants on Gamer-Nerds.