There is no doubt that some of you may have watched recently the somewhat laughable news bulletin by Fox News over in the U.S. regarding Mass Effect. The segment, which highlighted the supposed use of "full frontal nudity" and "sex" in the game, totally discredited anything Fox News has ever done in the past. While I was watching this I couldn't help but wonder if there was any sense of journalistic skill within the entire department, from the producer to the panel that went on to debate the influence video games have on young people in society.

While the Fox News segment, named Live Desk, was "insulting" and inaccurate in regards to the game, the whole production team represents a large cross-section of the non-gaming public on their views of video games. Two years ago I made a short documentary for film class about classification in video games and the inconsistencies, as well as the perception of the game industry and its products within the community. The conclusion at the end of the documentary was simple; video games began as a child past-time, and after all of these years, although they have evolved and become a much broader and mature form of medium, still maintain the perception that they are for children. This may be the reason why there is no Adults-Only classification for games in Australia.

This is where a lot of the debate over the Mass Effect "sex scenes" comes into play. While the Fox News segment was strongly inaccurate in their "facts" on the game, it highlighted the community's position on opinion for the industry. Not only had no one on the panel played the game, but they all failed to understand the importance of "that" scene and how one would come about it. They also completely disregarded that fact that Geoff Keighley stated repeatedly that the scene was accessible only if the gamer had chosen that specific path and that the interaction was between two alien beings, with no full-frontal nudity or penetration actually visible.

The whole controversy surrounding the game comes months after it was released, and it mimics the controversy surrounding the release of another game that is soon to be re-released, Bully: Scholarship Edition. The Daily Telegraph, a U.K. newspaper, began to beat a dead horse last week when they published an article announcing the public concerns about a game that had already been available on another console for almost two years. It seems as though these people that raise these concerns do it because they have to, not because they genuinely believe that the game represents a wrongdoing. Had any of these wings actually played Bully, they would know that the game is about a new student sticking up for himself in the face of bullies, instead of being about an actual bully. It's the same with Mass Effect. You have these so-called educated people who debate about the moral standards of a particular game, yet fail to understand and respect that quality, emotion and essence the game has to offer. They also quote false aspects that they seem to have convinced themselves are true, all the while representing a network that is filled with bad journalists.