January 26, 2008 -
The pop psychologist and author who so enraged the gaming community this week with her condescending attitude and false characterizations of BioWare's Mass Effect has 'fessed up to the New York Times.Cooper Lawrence made her comments to the NYT's Seth Schiesel, who writes of the gaming community's intense reaction to Lawrence's Monday appearance on Fox News' Live Desk. From the article:
The Internet hath no fury like a gamer scorned...
Bound by global message boards, blogs, chat rooms and of course the games themselves, gamers are perhaps the single most intense subculture on the Internet — fiercely protective of their pastime and at ease with the byways of cyberspace...
Irate gamers have flooded the page on Amazon.com selling Ms. Lawrence’s most recent book, “The Cult of Perfection: Making Peace With Your Inner Overachiever,” sending its user-generated rating into oblivion... Many of the reviewers admit that they have not read Ms. Lawrence’s book.
Lawrence told Schiesel:
I recognize that I misspoke. I really regret saying that, and now that I’ve seen the game and seen the sex scenes it’s kind of a joke.
Before the show I had asked somebody about what they had heard, and they had said it’s like pornography. But it’s not like pornography. I’ve seen episodes of ‘Lost’ that are more sexually explicit.
Meanwhile, BioWare CEO Ray Muzyka told Schiesel:
We’re hurt. We believe in video games as an art form, and on behalf of the 120 people who poured their blood and tears into this game over three years, we’re just really hurt that someone would misrepresent the game without even playing it. All we can hope for is that people who actually play our games will see the truth.
GP: We're delighted to see that Cooper Lawrence has come clean. But we'd also like to know exactly how the Mass Effect beat-down was orchestrated by Fox News. As GamePolitics demonstrated in an earlier case regarding Halo 3, another pyschologist was briefed on what to say just before air time (see: How Fox Morning Show Sensationalized the Halo-in-Church Issue). Did something similar take place in this case?
So far we've received no answers to three questions we posed to Lawrence earlier this week:
1.) Did Fox News brief you on the game, and to what extent?
2.) Were you instructed by Fox News to adopt a position critical of the game for the program?
3.) What study from the University of Maryland are you referring to in your comments?
Comments
As a lover of history I have found that when it comes to social change people will believe whatever they want to believe and will die defending those beliefs. Therefore in order to change the minds of not just an individual but an entire society, there must be people who are willing to destroy those who bring about false information.
So long as that destruction is non-physical (only because of the nature of this issue) I couldn't care what the other person does, so long as they understand the consequences of their actions.
If you can name any time in history when there was a societal shift in thought and there wasn't some form of negativity and nastiness involved, I would love to know what it was because perhaps then we can use that as a model.
From the NYT article: "In an interview on Friday, Ms. Lawrence said that since the controversy over her remarks erupted she had watched someone play the game for about two and a half hours."
Even the NYT article doesn't give anything more than the two paragraphs mentioned in this GP item, though. But I'd be interested to read the whole thing. Maybe it was just "After the uproar, I watched someone play the game for about two and a half hours", plus the two paragraphs quoted, but there might have been more.
Too long have games been ignorantly regarded as only appropriate for seven year old boys who want to rescue the princess (fox news: next, shocking details of the innuendo brought about by nintendo in this classic Mario title. Why do you think Mario wishes to 'save the princess' so earnestly! In this next segment, you will learn all of the lurid details)
At least after this videogames may START to be regarded more rightfully as an art form as it has a right to be. I just hope it doesn't take much longer
The number to the show is 877-6-cooper and is on m-f 7p-10p eastern
"Sometimes something happens, and it's so huge, so epic, so damned legendary, that all of the warring factions, all of the reaches of the Internet, all all of the bickering members of the league of Faceless, Nameless Internet Justice unite under one banner. Every one of the magnificent bastards of the digital world comes together in a single hive mind written in binary. United by a cause. United by that one shared facet of every digital vigilante.
We do not forgive.
We go not forget.
We are a legion.
We are one nation under the Internet.
United as One.
Divided by Zero."
And I don't think Denis wants to be on the receiving end of any Tom Cruise analogies.
No! Dont you ever compare us to the majority of the rich and famous...did i mention gullible/crazy?
Seriously though i really think the videogame consumers and companys need to start making examples of people who completely lie about and bash videogames
Cooper may have had enough but that still leaves Fox....news?
As for those people that think the Amazon and B&N bookbombings were childish, I think not. It was basically the only voice we had to draw public attention to our cause that directly impacted the offender. It was nothing more then a new generation protest. We as a group can only fight back with the tools we have at our disposal.
Maybe if we had proper representation on an industry and governmental level such actions would not be necessary. With that said, I do not support the threats and personal attacks that were made by some.
The action itself was nothing more then consumers exercising their voice about a product within a community. It was no different then a church group sending a mailing to its members telling then not to buy something or going on TV and doing it. It was just a different technology and venue that was used to communicate the message.
On a side note: G4's the Feed did a commentary about the situation recently on the MMO Report. You can see it at the following link.
http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/682359/The_MMO_Report_Friday_Janua...
Cnet's Crave blog did an article about the situation. The word is spreading slowly but surely to different outlets. You read the article at the following link.
http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9855145-1.html?tag=blog.1
There could be another reason why Fox NOISE did this with Mass Effect AND Halo (both published by Microsoft for a MICROSOFT system), and that reason could be linked to Keith Olbermann (could answer one of GP's wh.
You see, Microsoft also owns a share of competing news channel MSNBC. FOX has been attacking this channel left and right for their "liberal" take on the news. Now, Keith Olbermann is ON MSNBC (and has the highest rated program on that channel). Not only does Countdown (his show) does battle with FOX's high rated O'Reilly Factor, but Keith has called out Billo on a NUMBER of issues (his comments about homeless vets not existing when the problem clearly exists, confusing Americans with Nazi war criminals in Malmandy, the sexual allegations against him by Andrea Mackris, his "War on Christmas" thing). Obviously, FOX News doesn't like this since people are clearly watching Olbermann and are starting to steer away from Billo (KO is also a firm democrat that has verbally assaulted President Bush and is the guy who has gotten press for his "Special Comments" concerning Bush).
Now, FOX has already gone after the NBC side MANY times, doing whatever they can to discredit the NBC News division. HOWEVER, they, until now, forgot about NBC's partner in MSNBC, Microsoft. If they can slime MS for making controversial games, then all one (that isn't thinking) has to do is put two and two together and see what the MS of MSNBC stands for, and think that MSNBC would be an awful news outlet.
I'm probably giving FOX too much credit to actually think something like that through. But search for the controversies with FOX News and what their head of operations, Roger Ailes, has on HIS record, and you could see that FOX might be capable of actually thinking this out and acting on it.
I will say this: I had previously been a defender of Fox News as necessary part of the balance in the MSM, a Right to the other outlets' Left. Now I know how far Fox will go to stay true to their message of hysteria and 'moral' outrage. Balance it one thing, but manufactured outrage is another.
http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/01/mass-effect-mes.html#more
Why? She was a pawn in this entire fiasco. You want her to go back on Fox and apologize? You know damn well Fox would not let that happen. So why are you still going after her? We will see nothing else from her, but that doesn't mean the effects won't still influence her. Now she will think twice about unfairly attacking gamers and she will tell her friends and colleagues to do the same. That is all we can ask from her. She's learned her lesson and any more time we waste on her just makes us look like jerks. Fox is the problem. You can keep poking at the unlucky people they stick on TV to take the heat away from them, or go after them. Let their sponsors know that you won't support them if they support Fox, let EA and BioWare know you are behind them. Do something useful now. To stop the monster you go after the head, not the little toe.
seems like a little organisation and unity can go a long way
truth be told, this woman is probably guilty of only one thing- trusting the fox "fact finders".
to be sure, this is a grievous error in retrospect, but at the time, it probably seemed like solid information to her.
the real criminal here is FOX. just listen to one of their "fair and honest" newscasts...i'm not even going to tell you a certain one-ANYTHING on their so-called "news channel" will show you what i mean, they are pushing a obvious agenda of censorship-combined with heavy right wing fanaticism on the masses.
want to make real change?
let's do to the fox news website what we have done (and yes gamers, i MEAN YOU!) to this so called "expert".
whatever you think you might be able to do, DO IT! i'm not advocating anything ILLEAGAL here, but get creative! if you're not creative,thats O.K.!
just go foxnews' website, and leave feedback on how you feel about what THEY did!
Remember- they put this crap on the air to begin with, and gave misleading information to their "expert".
AND TO THE "EXPERT"- answer the questions!
1.did fox tell you, or lead you, to be biased?
2. exactly what information, if anywhere you given by fox news about the game in question?
and last, but not least, did you contact fox about said game, did fox news come to you,or do you have previous dealings with fox,and this just happening to "come to the table"?
sorry for the long reply, but amazon is facist,and wont let me post unless i buy a book from them.
**** that.
that's what libraries are for, fool.
I don't know about you but I feel it was only a reply to her book and not really us gamers. I bet if there was no book or if we didn't trash her book like she did us and only bitched online. We probably would of never got an apology.
I feel it was just the result to protect her book or something.
As a few others said eariler here.
She would of been better off to not trash this shit on national TV and resite stuff she's only "heard".....it makes her very unprofessional.
From that Xplay report too it seems that she did it to promote her book anyway.
That is what I said from the get-go. Hence my suggestions to go to Amazon and review it. After all the book was promoted; just not in the way she intended. =;}
Serves her right...oh the irony.
And she is trying to come off as innocent somehow and trying to apologize.
Granted this is Fox's usual crap they pull. The fact she came on fox with a hidden agenda makes her just as guilty. IT's one thing to promote a book...it's another thing to bash something you have no idea what you are talking about to promote said book.
And you are most likely correct. But to continue attacking her as such only degrades our argument against her. She's a small time fish and not worth the continued effort. We have made our point to her as best we can. She will think twice about attacking us again like that, and hopefully, others will learn from her mistake as well. The problem is no longer a teeny-bopper author but news outlets that sensationalize problems that don't exist in the first place.
It will require big dogs like EA, M$, Sony, SEGA, Vivendi, Nintendo and others to put aside marketing differences, petty hatreds to unify at least politically (not an impossible thing) to establish a stalwart defense of the art form domestically and internationally and to advocate for the community in any venue it is required. Education & resolve would be the keys to success. In this type of endeavor given the marketing talent as well as creativity and planning skills within the collective industry I dont think anything would be able to oppose such a juggernaut. The real question is not "how" but "when"...
One part of the objective has been achieved. A very minor one at that.
Unless I hear or see the words "I'm sorry" this isn't over by a long shot.
And until I see some sort of movement from Fox based on EA's response, nothing there has been achieved. In fact, Fox is in full denial mode saying they offered EA a chance to speak and is essentially saying that since EA doesn't want to sit down with them, then Fox was totally in the right with how they handled the situation.
No one reading this should be happy with how this is going. Are we making progress? Yes, but it is slow and more still needs to be done.
Go here to rate Martha MacCallum. Let me know if you guys can find anything else.
http://www.dailytech.com/Fox+News+Recklessly+Misrepresents+Sex+Facts+in+...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNoN403tXU4
Ben
Yeah, Fox News will definitely run a report on their own retardation. Especially if someone they had on the air once tells them to.
Seriously, there's no point in bothering with Lawrence any further. It's accomplished everything it's going to.
Ball's in EA's court now.
Personally I disagree, I could care less about the software company having emotional problems because someone states their opinion, personally I'm more upset because she apologized. The only reason she gave in was because her popularity was fading. This culture is becoming increasingly immoral because of the media and someone needs to do something about it. Nobody really cares that she was wrong about the exact content of the game, the gaming community just can't take a blow of the truth. And give me a break about the companies statement regarding art, sure, it can be, but the companies goal is to make money, it has nothing to do with art.
(continues to rant)
Btw, she IS the victim, every game on the shelf is rated M now, God forbid someone tell parents to display a little discretion, this culture is ridiculous. I've only been here 16 years and i already hate it. Maybe if we weren't so focused on pleasure and worried about more important things we would have this problem. Think about how much money a shopping mall cost, now imagine how many people that could feed. Americans are economically elite to a large percentage of the world, not only are our needs met, but we get spoon fed every little thing we could want. It's not such a bad thing, but how inconsiderate it is to horde wealth and say "we earned it" when there are millions of people starving to death. What a selfish attitude! Yes, there are homeless in our country. we could pay the national debt AND raise their standard of living to ours if we weren't so FREAKING GREEDY.
Ok I'm done... lol, I let off some steam.
Harrassing her more will just make us look like assholes, not help us.
GP: Agreed... deleted, and DON'T repost it, please.
At least that for all this time, we have to be careful on who we portray ourselves as.
I for one try to do things peacefully and individually,
Yes there are allot of M rated games than what there were, but there are so many E rated games and even T rated games that never get anything on the news all because they don't attract the negativity that the Fox News looks for,
Many great examples of games are available from the Super Mario Galaxy's and Wii Sports to the Final Fantasy's to the Mass Effects and GTA's while some of them are negative, many of them are positive examples...
Yes there are violence and sex in videogames, but so is everything else....
At least that the Big 3 have a rule that does not allow any game with an AO rating on their console, or else Fox News would have portrayed Videogames in a far more negative light...
Sadly many of my own Videogame Ideas that deal with love and even sexual relationships will needed to be tonned down or rejected because of this unless if I make them for the PC and the Internet, or make them for sale in Canada or Japan where those sorts of games can be sold without any problem....
It's a shame really that Videogame Companies have to sit back and deal with this instead of standing up for their rights and freedoms to design games without being treated to this sort of treatment...
At least they don't do this in Japan or Canada....
"You looked at The Cult of Perfection: Making Peace, by Cooper Lawrence. 20% buy this alternative: No More Heroes. 12% buy this alternative: Burnout Paradise"
Oh, the irony.
Adam Sessler puts it well at the end of this clip: http://youtube.com/watch?v=VBTh1xy5XAI
"I haven't read your book, but it completely sucks. I, for one, feel that it should be kept out of the hands of impressionable young women, for a fear that they, too, might develop into the appalling simpleton that you have demonstrated yourself to be."
Then again, he has more to gain and not a lot to lose.