Stephen Totilo of MTV News has fresh comments from embattled and now vilified self-help author Cooper Lawrence, who has been the target of many a gamer’s frustrations following her appearance on Fox News Channel. Her newest remarks aren’t entirely conciliatory, but do continue her trend of expressing some remorse over her brash characterizations of Mass Effect.

In hindsight, I would have liked to have had the opportunity to play this game before appearing on the program. As a developmental-psychology expert, I was asked to appear on this particular show to discuss the broader issue of video games and their impact on developing adolescents, not as an expert on Mass Effect.

All the same, Lawrence is unwilling to incriminate herself and her credentials further.

I firmly stand by the research I cited that violence and sexual content in video games has a desensitizing effect on young developing minds.

Oh, and the whole Amazon deal in which gamers flocked to negatively review Lawrence’s book Cult of Perfection? Amazon has dealt with all reviews that mention Mass Effect, cutting the over 450 reviews - the vast majority of them negative - to just 52. All the same, the sentiment for the work remains largely negative. Perhaps the most hilarious tidbit to note here is that users who visit the page for Lawrence’s book go on to buy, for example, either Advance Wars: Days of Ruin or No More Heroes, titles for the DS and Wii, respectively. Call us naive, but we here at the Watch don’t see the connection between days of ruin and cults of…. perfection.

Lawrence opines:

I believe that the customer-review feature on Amazon.com is not the appropriate forum to discuss an unrelated news segment. I appeared on a news program that provides an opportunity for debate on topics that have been previously covered by the media. Amazon’s customer-reviews feature functions as a platform to review a product sold on their site, in this case my book, the topic of which does not relate to video games and/or Mass Effect.

While gamers may still find joy in bombing the ranking of Lawrence’s book, there really should be some end to the smearing - continuous smearing of Lawrence’s outside works will not rectify the Mass Effect situation, and really will reach a point (if it hasn’t already) where the evils done unto Lawrence exceed her error in judgment in speaking on Mass Effect.

The culprit that remains is Fox News, a body who is currently refusing to set the record straight themselves in an effort to fill a program slot with more guests (EA, BioWare, Microsoft) discussing a hot issue.

Source: MTV News