Quote: "In this case I think giving the game a rating which says it contains an adult theme and is unsuitable for children is enough. After that its down to the parents to decide what is suitable for their children and monitor what they play."
The broadcast as a whole, this was basically the major point they seemed to be trying to make.
That the game is completely available to children and contains scenes that they should not be viewing, which if it does or doesn't I've posted both YouTube links to the broadcast and the worst scene in the game for such things. Quite frankly I feel they're over-rating about the scenes being of an overly graphic nature, but even still the game is rated M (17+) with a very clear indication that it contains Violence and Scenes of a Sexually Explicit nature.
EA in this respect covered their asses. The only time that the scenes were mentioned by Bioware themselves (and it was only one staff member) was in a passing comment during a Sci-Fi special called "SCI vs FI: Mass Effect" which is currently available to download and watch via Xbox Live Marketplace.
Now the other half of the discussion was that parents don't have control over what their children do on the consoles. With one saying that "Dads play these games, and while both are out a kid could just pop it in and play without their knowledge"
If we put aside the fact that it takes quite a while to get to that point in the game. The parents should not be leaving their children unattended for periods of time if they are under 16. I'm sorry but it's the law both here in the UK and US that minors are not allowed to be without parental or guardian supervision for more than an hour (if the child is under 13 you are NEVER to allowed to leave them unattended) .. that is the law under "child neglegence"
So we're left with children between 13-16 who can't legally play this game that could potencially do so for say an hour each day.
Well anyways... when you stack up against this that the title is available for the Xbox 360 ONLY at present, a console that provides passcodes for using account; as well as full resources such as timers for when the console may be used without an admin account as well as a specific account restricter that disables games with higher ratings than the account is given from being played.
Quite frankly parents have only themselves to blame if their kids are playing this game without their knowledge.
Staff at EB Games will REFUSE sale, YES even in the US without providing a form of identification; although some may not bother.
Here in the UK it is ILLEGAL to sell games to people who cannot provide such ID. What's more is if you look under 25 the retailers are required to ask you for ID.
So, in the end the only people capable of getting this game are those who can play it really. Unless the parents buy it without bothering, then the blame falls squarely at their feet.
That is the end of this. Not that the game is unreasonable but that parents are just frankly too self absorbed to take enough of an interest.
RTFM, Read the back of packages, Put the Parental Controls on your childs console accounts.
As a parent you have all the tools at your disposal to make the games they play safer than anything else they will experiencing including Movies, Television and Music.
Next time you're speeding and get pulled over, use the excuse "but I didn't know" see if they buy it as quickly as the parental public does with consoles. At the end of the day this is purely a parental issue IF parents wish to complain.
The rating here in the UK is only 12, not even 12A (the latter meaning and Adult must purchase and agree it's alright for their child. Replaces PG for the most part)
Given we have the strictest system next to Germany worldwide for setting ratings, the fact that the US has higher... then Fox make this sort of stink about it. Quite frankly beyond shocking!
As for those of you and honestly Krilik I firmly don't believe you've bothered to view any of the related media on this subject either given the comments you've made since claiming to have done so. If you don't have a full understanding on the subject then STFU
Only comment on stuff that you have experience and knowledge about, which a good portion I've seen responding quite frankly don't.
Fact here is Fox is trying to blame developers, console manufacturers and anyone else they can for parental failures. Something the general public laps up simply because they don't want to believe they could possibly be in the wrong.
Often I ignore this stuff, simply because the games they pick on are just the gaming equivilant of low-brow crap.
This time however, they have taken what quite frankly is one of the most high-quality products ever to grace the computer game industry. A title that will have an impact on how stories for games are going to be approached in the future... and now it's marred by this bull****
I don't care how you want to spin it to make Fox not look so bad for what they've done. The damage is now done. This industry needs to see more games like Mass Effect showing Action can be blended with a deep and insightful story that goes beyond "Dude, Kill everything that moves!"
That's what is truely pissing me off about all of this, as it WILL have an impact on what publishers and the ratings board will be willing to allow. We'll be one step closer to more generic storyless crap than ever before.
Relationships are a very important part of life, and story-telling.
In both it can often lead to sex which is another huge part of most peoples lives.
Instead let's pop a bullet in someones brain and ignore that sex ever happens cause it's taboo still aparently.
All I can say is grow the hell up!
This is the 22nd Century, not the sodding dark ages.
Mass Effect is the first game to really show that your actions have consiquences in a way that can either make or break how others see you.
That is what eventually leads to the sex scene in the first damn place, unless you treat the people you choose to be with correctly... you won't get it.
Playboy, Penthouse and Baywatch objectifies women. As do most TV Soaps.
Mass Effect however shows a number of different types of women, with different personalities the ones who remain around you the whole game are very strong carrear minded; who will not jump in bed with you at the drop of a hat.
IMO it actually shows if anything the correct way to treat, and be around women if you want to get anywhere. If you acted like you do in the game with most lasses you wouldn't get very far, but it doesn't sodding objectify them in any fashion.
Oh and add to this, the gay scenes; aren't just between women. Although not something I watched, because I'm a bit squeemish about that sort of thing; one of my mates got the two lead males to hook up.
Was nice of Fox to make a mention of how that might make children all confused about their sexual orientation; although you notice they also never said that about girls either. I have a feeling they believe all gamers are 10-16yo males.
When in reality it's 18-30 mixed (in-fact for the most part it's 50-50 now)
