As I've said previously : forgive, but don't forget.

I kind of get the impression that the reason everyone gave this guy such attention this week is because we were kind of bored...

That's still not an apology.

I have a question... Are there actually going to be any consequences for what he did? I mean, he basically lied outright. Shouldn't he be punished for this? I mean, he is in a position of power and he has used it irresponsibly. Bioware should sue him for slander. The game was rated by the ESRB people and they gave it a fair rating.

Sorry, this guy just annoys me so much.

/end rant

Even though it's a step in the right direction, I still think his apology falls terribly short. Getting his facts wrong are one thing, but generalizing "Gamer-Nerds" is quite an other. I was personally offended by his statements of people like me being "sexually repressed" and then recommending that we go hire prostitutes.
That said, I listened to his radio show as well. He sounds less crazy when there's someone there to go, "wait a minute, sir!" What does this all mean, well, like GP said, we won. Someone said something hateful and obtuse about us, and we struck back. Gratz guys!

I'm really impressed that he didn't get caught up in the hate mail I'm sure he received in copious amounts.

Hi might have apologized for some of the mis-information that he spewed forth but he never once apologized for the use of "gamer-nerd" in deragatory ways or for his editor telling those who came blasting into the site to "crawl back under their rocks".
The whole thing still doesn't sit well with me nor several others that I know and have discussed this with. He continued to spew mis-information... and then got pissy and decided to start name-calling. Then he backs off his previous comments by apologizing for some of the mis-information (and edited his original articles) but leaves the name-calling thing out in the open.

Guess this will become our next name... right behind pixelante.

The apology is not good enough, what he needs to apologise for in insulting an entire sub-culture and spreading blatant falsehoods about a game he didnt do research into.



That said at least its a start, and I'm willing to take this small victory, since he is showing some movement unlike brick-wall-thompson

Are you serious?

In his "apology", he lied about what he even said in the first place. Are you just forgetting he said that gamers are likely to rape in real life, are perverts, desire beastiality, live in basements, and are nerds? Not a single mention of that in his 'apology'.

He flat out lied about the game. In his apology, he continued to lie about the game, about what he said, and made no mention of the slandering he did of gamers themselves. Now we should just leave him to continue pretending he is a journalist?

No, sorry, not for me.

Until he comes out and says he lied (or at least was wrong) about the content of the game, and about gamers, I intend to be his #1 fan, making sure every one of his postings reminds him that he has yet to apologize for his fake journalism and slander. From where I sit, that's about all I can do is be a constant reminder that the person is a liar.

Not only is this about games, and gamers, but journalism as well. Why do you think there are so many stupid people out there? Because of people like this guy dumbing everyone down. Why is it so common? Because people who know better let them get away with it.

You are a blogger and do a damn fine job at making informed posts. You are also a gamer. Why not take a stand for your passions instead of just saying 'meh.'.

Maybe it's because its an election year and printed lies are everywhere, but I can't stand it anymore. We shouldn't be letting stupidity off the hook so easily.

Well said EZK. The real problem now is that Dennis spoke the Devil's name: "By Wednesday we were angered by McCullough’s Thompson-esque bashing of “gamer nerds.” ".

He shall appear in: 5...4...3...

@Adaptor:

I agree. The industry standard is to publish a retraction and correction in the same place as and with the same prominence of the incorrect reporting. No one can tell from Mr. McCullough's "apology" what were the factual inaccuracies in his article. That's dirt-poor journalism.

My opinion of McCullough remains unchanged. The manner in which he and his editor handled the situation was pathetic. I still think he's a jackass.

Of course, if he'd just said, "I find this game offensive for the inclusion of a 60 second sex scene" instead of lashing out at in the manner he did, I seriously doubt any of this would have happened.

His own irresponsibility caused this.

Mass Effect is just a TASTE of what is to come in the next 1-5 years. More games will start depicting sex in mature manners (not like the juvenile Hot Coffee or Dead or Alive ways) as part of their narratives. When that happens more frequently, you can be damn sure the bible-thumpers will be out in full force...lying as usual.

We're in for quite a ride.

30 second cutscene, not 3 minutes...

I can't wait for the same people to start on movies next! Oh, then we're in fo... oh! Wait! They don't go after movies, do they? Well curses. Here was me thinking that these people actually cared about the youth, stability and "morality" of this world rather than just venting about how much video games are the cause of all the 'moral decay' thats in this world.
What a load of BS. If that arsehole really cared about all the things he said he'd be going after all the big movie production companies. Oh, no! Wait! They're too big for him and his small mind! So, like all doucebags who couldn't get a date for the dance, he thinks up some retarded idea to and blame video games.

I hole-heartly agree with what Steve is going to do. Keep commenting on that lying bastards 'news' about how he doesn't know how to do anything right.
The cunt.

This “apology” was half hearted. But at least he ceded the argument and is leaving us alone.

But he also learned a lesson. The next time he wants to bash a game, he had better be informed.

So my suggestion to everyone is to take the apology at face value and leave this guy to his obscurity.

EZK: You of ALL people should know he most likely has not learned his lesson and that he still probably will be right there pushing.

Of course, he'll be back. Did public display of a complete and utter lack of knowledge of games, gamers, violence in American society, and the relationships between the three ever stop Jack Thonpson? Or Dr. Phil? Or Hillary Clinton? Of course, not. When ya shake the tree and good fruit falls off, ya keep on shakin'.

He still thinks that games shouldn't have mature content.


So he is still an asshat.

why do these people even bother to get involved with things they dont understand? this is just like that RE5 thing that happened awhile back when some blogger called it racist even though the game isnt even out yet. you would think if they take what they do seriously, they would do some fucking research.

Unacceptable apology.

Reason: Sarcasm.

He apologized not out of respect, but fear... The first few words of his blogtalkradio ; "The gamers of the country are mad at me.. Find out why."

If in Russia, people kill each over Lineage 2, imagine what would happen to this sore loser in America...

"It is obvious that I had been misinformed on at least two points of substance in my original column."

That's why people are angry at you. You wrote a column based on hearsay; you overheard someone in Starbucks talking about the sex scene in Mass Effect and created an *entire game* in your head in order to rant about it in your column.

Suppose a photo lab guy took in a roll of your film and discovered a photograph of someone who wasn't your wife, enjoying a drink at a party. Just a friend of the family or something. He then writes and publishes a tirade about the sex games you play with your mistress. Would you accept "sorry, I was misinformed"?

I don't even own an X-box... that isn't something that I concern myself... I have a life to live! I DO real things with my time

Its like McCullough is battling with the morality you get with being human and his ultra concentrated, cultivated outright evil. His knee jerk reaction is to be an asshole and the overwhelming response of logic gave his human heart a small spark, which has in vain tried to fire up.

The guy says that gamernerd is a term of endearment...
But in his radio show he still propogated the stereotype of gamers as anti-social losers by saying that the reason he doesn't play games is that he has a life --- which seems to consist mainly of saying that sex is teh eval!!! On his radio show he said that an adult bookstore was going to open near a school and he wanted to videotape the people that went into it and put the tape online. Nice...

He also kept focusing on gay and alien sex. I mean I've heard of people against gay sex but now there's something wrong with alien sex???? OK...

When I heard this guy had a radio show, I thought he meant it was a nationally syndicated radio show, not an internet radio show without commercials or sponsors.

If you think we can ignore him and he will go away, I must disagree. Look at Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter. They are obvious asshats, yet they continue to draw readers / listeners. I agree that the only counter to their hate filled misinformation is continuous (calm) interjection of truth to refute their lies.

in other words my editor got royally bitched out

"Jesus, don’t dignify this shmuck by referring to anything he says as “a threat.” Some uninformed wanker splooging onto a blog at townhall is a threat to the gaming industry & community in the same way a mouse farting is a threat to the polar icecaps."

Townhall.com is one of the largest conservative political sites on the web, it's readers are politically active, influential beyond their numbers, and not at all opposed to censoring video games if the means/chance provides itself.

So no, you can't ignore this guy. You may not see his influence here in the gaming world, but out in the political one (where I spend most of my time these days) his site's not small fry. They may be crazy and hyper-partisan but they're not harmless.

"I have a question… Are there actually going to be any consequences for what he did? I mean, he basically lied outright. Shouldn’t he be punished for this? I mean, he is in a position of power and he has used it irresponsibly. Bioware should sue him for slander. The game was rated by the ESRB people and they gave it a fair rating.

Sorry, this guy just annoys me so much.

/end rant"
Sueing him would be very unreasonable. He apologized isn't that enough? It's not like he killed somebodys baby. All he did was say some very ignorant things.

it would make bioware look like penny pinchers if they sued.

@swat

I don't think Bioware (or EA, or MS Game Studios/whoever own the rights to it) would look like penny pinchers. To gamers (the people they care about), I think they would look like heroes. The guy is insinuating gamers are rapists. Since townhall is filled with and run by like-minded, holier-than-thou, politicos and trashing gaming is a universally safe bet to earn scare points with their generation, there is little us gamers can do to stop this filth. We can spam emails and articles, but given the territory, they are plenty used to it anyway.

However, Bioware, EA, and MS all have alot of power and money that we don't have. If they wanted, they could get results very quickly that we cannot. This guy made serious allegations we aren't really able to defend but through co-ordination that usually doesn't exist and brute force. If one of those companies were to stand up and take action on our behalf, I would applaud them.

Personally, I think it's likely they may have had something to do with the article being pulled. They scoffed and called names after gamers flooded the site and offered factual rebuttals. Then, all of a sudden, the article is pulled? I have a hard time buying that they suddenly took us seriously. Maybe.

I know I'm interested to find out why the article is gone now. Do they actually have some standards there? Was there a change of heart? Was there a threat of legal action?

BTW, I don't know that a suit would need to be seen through, it just needs to put a good scare into them.

The guy's column entry is gone, and he's gone back through his blog entries and edited out most of the original rhetoric that pissed people off. (And sure, he had some pretty nasty things to say originally, but we've all dealt with JT long enough to have been called worse.)

I had quite a few words for the guy myself when he first popped up on the radar, but in the past couple of days, he's made more concessions than just about anyone else we've ever seen on this site, and he seems to have backed off the topic entirely now.

Let's give it a rest.

Well, he does seem to have a good idea of how the internet works. If you want to discredit a group of people, just bash them unfairly. You'll get a massive response, and, inevitably, at least one of those responses will be some douchebag kid sending you a death threat. Then you can quote the death threat and say, "See? This is what these people are like!" Jacko does that all the time.

"persuasive power of gamers when they unite against a common threat."

Persuasive power? If we had that then we would never come across as nerds with no life. We were arguing facts about the game. This isn't an issues debate where there is two sides and whatnot this issue is pretty simple. Mass Effect is not nearly as bad as the man describes. That's it.

Oh and if we have persuasive power, why not use it on politicians?

Guys, let's not be angry at him after backing off, half-assed or no.

let us rather be glad we have corrected him!

The first anti-game person that I respect. It takes a mature person to admit it when you're proven wrong. And now that he has withdrawn most of the claims, this seems somewhat reasonable!

This is great news, and I hope that other pundits can be reined in as well.


JT will probably either agree with or lie about the nature of his acusations, and say that he was silenced by pixelante thugs.

"Gamernerd" is a term of affection he says? What's wrong with Gamer? Hell, it's even one less syllable.

@ Thefremen

Perhaps. But Anonymous had no real part in this by the looks of things. then again I could be wrong.

Our best bet, even as anons, is to let the thing go (rules 1 and 2 are our friends here too.) . The guy has eaten the shit he posted, good for him. We have better things to do with our time. I guess he learned to do research.

On the other hand, that was a pretty funny arc, err... thing to see through.

Now let's focus on something which might be a bit funnier to poke at. This wasn't worth a good old faux news scare about y2k causing computers to explode.

And I guess he understood the fact that we are adults, for most of us. The thing, now, is to make the rest of luddites of his kind understand that.

And, come on, can research actually hurt?

The usual MO here is not that the facts were wrong, or that the apology came. The purpose was to disseminate the misinformation. Plant it in people's minds who don't know much about gaming or the game itself. Then in a few months or so when another round of "let's trash video games" rolls around, this will be in the backs of the minds of his intended audience. It won't matter that he was misinformed or just outright lied. It's not targeted towards people who are informed, it's about people who are uninformed and don't really think or care about the issue, whose unconscious perceptions will be jerked around by this. Those people have already read the original column, digested the information, and skipped on. The apology comes after the true intended audience has moved on, and the true intended audience never hears it or the fact that he was wrong.

Good to see that someone is able to realize that they screwed up... BIG TIME.

Wow that guy looks like hes on some sort of illegal substance
big puffy red eyes
loss of hair
lime green tie
general sleezy look
One Hundred dollars says he played through this game 20 times trying to find the "porn".

oh and the radio description=
Banking on the reliability of Common Sense over Partisan Politics we take back the turf that has been yielded to the dastardly devil dogs of immoral, anti-God, liberalism...

Wow...ChristianGamer i have to say...i think you might have a point there lol.

ah well hes just trolling gamers for fun and profit leave him alone or sue his ass pick one... dont just blog about it

oh he didnt really give an apology
in fact 20 min into the radio cast he calls all gamers lifeless douche bags(basicly)

GP is not /b/, end of story. At any rate, this guy and Hal Turner should host a show together.

I think his deletion of the old post, and his deletion of the "gamer nerd" comments is his own way of giving an apology by manner of not perpetuating the hateful speech. He's censoring himself.

In my opinion, the guy is seriously trying to make up for what he did. Humility is a bitter pill to swallow, so don't go knocking him if it takes a while to go down all the way. He's doing what he can, and he's trying to meet us half-way here. He still has his views, and some immature gamers emailed him in pretty dumb ways, and under those circumstances we can never expect a full "Hey, I fucked up, I'm sorry" type of post.

Take it and run with it - this is a guy who is willing to learn from his mistakes, unlike certain other would-be-censors.

The question then remains, 'what would satisfy as an apology?'.

I, personally, think this will do, in a way, there's only so much you can demand of anyone's pride, how much would any of us be prepared to admit our beliefs were wrong if it came to light that something we believed was actually wrong? You have to give people room to step down into, in a way, that's what Diplomacy is.

I suppose we have to, as a group, be prepared to meet people half-way on their beliefs, and agree to have some disagreement with them. That doesn't mean we stop defending our right to play and enjoy the games we so choose to in the privacy of our own homes, it just means that we have to accept that their are people who believe that doing so isn't good for us. I think we have to do it, if for no other reason, because we risk becoming the very people we are trying to defend ourselves from if we don't.

[...] [Via GamePolitics] [...]

GoodRobotUs makes a very good point - we can only expect so much of a person's pride. If we refuse to meet them halfway, we're being completely unreasonable. There is a give and take to such things, and we must give a little to take anything at all.

He didn't back down from anything. He turned around on some minor things without addressing the major. He picked his battles to make him seem less toolish. No one changed his mind and there was no victory. He's a slime of the highest caliber.

You know what? This is just one of a new wave of people that discovered Mass Effect in the usual "a little birdie told me" kind of way. Fox News also got their "fair and balanced" report on the game's sexual content and with their own line of rumor-mongerers. With it comes Spike TV's Geoff Keighley kicking butt at the critics who admit to not playing the games. You can view it here:

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/usermovies/163925.html

The main point of my critique of Mr. McCullough was that apparently he still think that gamers are 17 year old nerds who live in the parents' basement. They clearly are not - as other gamers have pointed to Mr. McCullough on his blog. The average gamers are today over 30+ and many gamers are female, ranging from 25% to 50% of the gaming population, depending on what game game genres we're talking about.

He also seemed to have misunderstood somewhat or completely what the ESRB ratings mean. They are not mandatory or legally binding neither on the state nor on the federal level in the US. Stores like Wal-Mart etc. can decide to card anyone that will be a game rated M(ature). But it is up to the stores to make such a policy - if they so choose. Also, the sexual content in the game is entirely optional and can only be seen if you get involved in a relationship with an NPC you can romance. He seems to have missed this, too. So did Fox News apparently....

Anywho, I'm glad that the gamers seems to circle the wagons, thus defending our hobby - pointing out to the critics of the hobby that this hobby is just as valid as reading books, watching tv, or playing soccer outside. (although, you should do these things, too - of course...)

If mr. Cullough etc. have watched a certain guys blog on IGN they would have seen that Shepard can dance in this game :) So you could as well claim that Mass Effect is a dance simulator.

On the Bioware forums, people have posted about both mr. McCulloughs attack and the attack from Fox News. Sadly :( , though, these threads get locked, since it is viewed as 'political'. I don't see it as such and even on the Bethesda forums we can discuss this - if it is in relations to games.

/Karsten