Culture

EA takes Fox to task over game nudity and sex claims

by Alfred Hermida | January 24, 2008 at 10:28 pm

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The mainstream media oftens finds it hard to report on video games, but this segment on Fox TV on the Xbox 360 game Mass Effect is shocking for its inaccuracies.

The piece was so bad that Electronic Arts have taken the unusual act of complaining directly to the network:

In the letter, which cites Kotaku, Jeff Brown, EA's vice president of communications, asks Teri VanHorn, producer of the Live Desk with Martha MacCallum, to clarify "serious errors" the channel made in their Mass Effect story.

"As the parent company of BioWare, the studio which created the game, EA would like you to set the record straight on a number of errors and misstatements which incorrectly characterize the story and character interactions in Mass Effect."

The segment dubbed the Xbox the "Se-Xbox" and got carried away talking about full frontal nudity, despite repeated protests by one of the guests that this was wrong.

EA said that "the resulting coverage was insulting to the men and women who spent years creating a game which is acclaimed by critics for its high creative standards. As video games continue to take audiences away from television, we expect to see more TV news stories warning parents about the corrupting influence of interactive entertainment. But this represents a new level of recklessness."

Fox has responded but instead of admitting making an error, it made this statement:

Fox News Channel has extended several invitations to EA through a company representative to appear on Live Desk With Martha MacCallum to discuss Mass Effect and the segment which aired on Monday. We have received no response.

This fails to address the issue of accuracy of its TV segement, so it is hardly surprising that EA is not happy.

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