Bioware’s space sci-fi RPG, Mass Effect, has in recent weeks been attacked for supposedly allowing gamers to engage in interactive sexually explicit acts.

One sensationalist columnist writing for a hard-right US website actually claimed the game offered (and preemptive apologies for disappointing those coming through via a google search) ‘customisable sodomy’.

In reality, the game is a poor candidate for anti-videogame critics and commentators. The sex scene is but a stitch in a 30 hour tapestry that shows nothing you wouldn’t see in a lingerie shop window. Indeed, it’s part of a side-quest that most players probably never even saw.

The story, its backlash from the gaming community and the original writer’s subsequent apology played out over a week ago, but Fox News has only just seized upon it for the item below (which actually shows the full extent of the ‘smut’ on air, while leaving the false implication that there’s a WHOLE lot more).

It’s the same old centimetre-deep discussion that goes on in these things, each side blurting their ‘facts’ and perspectives at the other in the two minutes available without listening or engaging. The news item is being used by both sides as a soapbox to preach to reassure viewers of the veracity of their claims. This is absolutely not a field of debate.

However, the truth is that M or 18-rated games should never be marketed to minors (as often does happen either through magazine cover exclusives or web advertising on gamefaqs and so on) so, yes, there is a good point nestling in Fox’s report, struggling to break free of the tangle of lies, misinformation and misrepresentation surrounding it.

But this is certainly not the game to make the subject of such a debate, carrying as it does the fully disclosed warning: ‘Blood. Violence. Sexual Themes. Partial Nudity. Language.’ (Actually, do games have to declare if they contain ‘language’ these days? It’s political correctness gone mad etc.)

But let’s zoom out for a second and remember something: Fox Entertainment owns IGN, one of the largest videogame-related websites in the world.

In both places (Fox News and IGN) the company is simply providing content to the prejudices and viewpoints of their various audiences for profit. There’s no absolute ideology or ethic the company’s adhering to.

‘Over here we hire idiot right-wing sensationalists to slam videogames and keep the core demographic of viewers morally indignant and happy; over here we hire nerdish writers with slim salary expectations and ambitions to review those same videogames.’

If the readership of each outlet hates the other then so much the better: company profits multiply in division.