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For some reason I missed a quarrel in the gaming industry back in January when a “psychologist” was on Fox News bashing Mass Effect, a highly rated RPG by the creators of Knights of the Old Republic. Cooper Lawrence, author of three 1-star rated books, commented on the game:

I can’t tell you how many rebuttals I have for this news clip, let alone Lawrence in general. A narcissistic feminazi, whose three books have a lower rating combined than the lowest rated Xbox 360 title on IGN, had officially permanently damaged her image by opening her fat mouth and bashing one of the best games of 2007 on national television, then continuing to smile fakely after ever comment. Had she any idea of the ginormous number of people in the world that play and love video games she’d have thought twice before saying anything, especially in her tone. She has absolutely no room to speak about video games, or for that matter, anything else.

There are so many issues in the world today, and if 99% of it actually WERE attributed to violence or sex in video games, the result would still be bad parenting. The game is rated Mature for a reason. YES, video game ratings work. NO, retailers do not make a positive effort to ID people when purchasing games. YES, people can’t read. “My eight year old son wanted this game called Grand Theft Auto. I wasn’t sure what it was about, and there was this big “M” on the cover. I’m not sure what that’s about either but I bought it anyway. He seems to like it!” Mr. Person, who doesn’t care about his kids and puts them in front of video games so he doesn’t have to take responsibility and raise them like a real parent, I’m here to tell you that you fail.

Here is my list of morons with the most smarts, in the order of smartness starting with the least, in this news clip video:

	Cooper Lawrence I don’t think I need to say much else about this…human. Someone should fetch its brain the teddy bear in the claw machine stole at the bowling alley I was just at.
	Panel #2 Guaranteed never played a video game in her life. I don’t even remember what she said it was so irrelevant. Failure: for attendance to a news event she knew she couldn’t participate in.
	Panel #3 She is more respected than #2 only because she mentioned a video game. It’s the 21st century, THAT’s what’s happened since you’d crawled out of the cave you’ve been in for forty fucking years. Pac-Man went on to become the highest grossing arcade game ever and the most overly saturated character in video gaming history. Atari went bankrupt, stopped creating catastrophes of hardware and started making Chuck E Cheeses and mediocre software titles.
	Martha MacCallum Kudos for TRYING to research the game. All points confiscated for complaining about the “age restriction” requirement for seeing mild-to-no nudity videos.
	Panel #1 It’s clear that Panel #1 has a six year old daughter. It’s clear that Panel #1 doesn’t mind standing in line at a retail store excited about his purchase of “Princess Enchanted Brides(???)” for said six year old. It’s clear that Panel #1 doesn’t want violent or sexual video games in his home, but the hardcore action movies and pornography on his computer and under his bed are probably ok.
	Geoff Keighley Geoff pretty much stole Lawrence’s thunder by explaining the fact that A) the scene lasts about two minutes of the entire thirty to forty hour gameplay, B) the scene can be avoided entirely, and C) in order for the scene to happen at all, a rapport would have to be built with the character you wish to be involved with; thus straying away from Lawrence’s apparent instruction booklet for Mass Effect: Turn on game. Have sex.
	Panel #4 The smartest person in this clip, and probably the entire program for the length of time it will ever air, Panel #4. This man wins and should be the lawyer for every lawsuit filed against a video game company as the cause for violence and corruption in the world. “At the end of the day … it’s up to the parents to control what their kids are seeing.” What’s that? Parenting?! No…I just buy the video games right?? WRONG. YOU GET NOTHING!

Mind you, this does NOT solve EVERYTHING. What this DOES do is require a parent’s involvement that needs to take place during the decision making process when purchasing video games. I agree with Lawrence on one statement and that’s that late teens are in the beginning of their prime of learning. Therefore, their exposure should be controlled to some extent, or better yet, taught by the people that matter the most in their lives (that’s parents if you were wondering) that violence, sex, language, and anything else in a video game, or any other form of media, is not to be taken seriously, but respectfully.