Gamers Strike Back Against Mass Effect Critic on Amazon

Gaming Today · Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008

After hearing the offensive and biased attack against Mass Effect on Fox News by Cooper Lawrence, the psychologist who took part in the biased strike on the game, her book on Amazon.com titled 'The Cult of Perfection: Making Peace with Your Inner Overachiever' is full of one-star reviews, mostly coming from gamers.

Ms. Lawrence may think that it's ok to bash a product she has never used, so gamers are now bashing a book they have never read to drop her book rating on Amazon. Currently, there over 40 negative reviews posted. Check out the Amazon link via Gaming Today if you'd like to throw your two cents in or to just read some of the funny comments against her.

[malingenie]

We are becoming a force to be reckoned with. Wretched is he who fails to recognize the hordes of nerds, gamers, geeks and freaks with too much time on their hands.

[TheTwelve]

Seeing two sides ignorant of one another go at it like this should prove interesting...

12

[BrianC6234]

This is great to see. It means she'll have to keep her big trap shut because her publisher will tell her to. Time to reel in these weenies and tell them to knock it off. Maybe Fox News could do a show about these hacks are ruining everyone with their drivel. They know nothing about games and what they do to gamers. They just do this to get known. Well, gamers are fed up with you morons.

[IzKyD1331]

that woman never even played the game, its like reviewing a movie based off what you hear about it.
also, amazon deleting the reviews is kinda like covering up our freedom to actually have an opinion on a book

[CrashSharc]

someone should leave a comment that says " contains full frontal nudity... my 13 year old is scarred for life..."

[Bubble Buddy]

Mart, Firstknight, and all those other ppl are going to jump her man.

[ry-guy]

Agreed with Malingenie. I just thought this is karma coming back at this woman. You bash something you've never held, played, experienced so in return we'll bash something we've never read, thought about, or liked.

Ha! This may be a petty thing to do, but it is great to see gamers finally sticking it to people that think we are a group of people that just roll over.

[THE_JUDGE]

some of your kids need better parenting. Who cares what one guy or girl said about the game, sales matter. Stop renting and buy the game. That will show anyone more than your stupid internet b.s.

[malingenie]

How did this become about renting/buying?

[Bubble and Squeek]

I sympathise with what you say and broadly agree with what you are saying.

That aside, I also see why lots of people are doing. It is rather annoying to frequently see a favoured hobby continually misrepresented in the popular media.

Incidentally, Amazon only show 7 4 and 5 star reviews. Looks like it was all for nowt in the end.

EDIT: It is tangentally related because that would have a much more positive effect on the gaming community than trash some woman's book on amazon.

[BrianC6234]

I don't think you understand what this is about. It means these so-called experts will have to shut their traps. They go after games like they're some big menace on society. All our problems are because of games. They're the same type of people who went after comicbooks and rock and roll and whatever else people didn't like in the past. None of that stuff causes problems. It's really about parents just doing their job. Gamers are fed up with this crap. It's time for this to happen.

[Blademask]

Considering that Drakes fortune has sold 800k. And Mass Effect was hyped to be the answer to life as we know it.

Start buying. Stop renting.

[i Shank u]

it sold 1.6 in 6 weeks. come on dude thats not a failure. by the time a year goes by it will prob be around or past 3 mill

[THE_JUDGE]

if you want to show her the biggest form of disrespect, don't go down to her level and throw mud back. Go to your local Game or Gamestop and buy the freaking game. In a world where money matters, buying and supporting the game will show her and her opinion is moot and you'll buy and play whatever you damn well please. Silent protests are often the loudest.

[mintaro]

@blademask
this has nothing to do with the sales of Mass Effect or Uncharted, so stop trying to start contraversy

[Carbon]

Ans ilent "The Judge" should be.

[pharmd]

She should know that what goes around comes around!!!

[R M Spender]

i love in the interview when she is asked if she has ever played mass effect and he answer "NoOoOo!!"
just sums up the annoying kind of people trying to get famous by targeting games. no is the time to do it, the non-game players are finally realizing there is money in it.

[green]

serves her right.Hope her credibility goes down the drain

[Adamalicious]

I kinda don't think she had that much to begin with. Just look at the books she's written - you can actually tell they are crap from the covers!

[monkey602]

*tut tut*
Never judge a book by it's cover...

...That was actually kinda stupid, I suppose that is why nobody said it before me! Ah well :D

[Killer B]

I left a 1 star review of her book for kicks. It's a nice change to see gamers band together...instead of the typical spewing of fanboys propaganda.

[binard328]

Just to let you know, if you look at the book again, all of those one star reviews have been removed. At least, that's what happened when I refreshed the page.

[resistance100]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/pr...

Theres more back up lol

[fjtorres]

:-(
Those nice folks don't understand that Amazon review forums are moderated. And policed. Unlike certain forums that are free-for-alls open to corporate shills.
Today all the negative posts have been removed and the book is back to 7 reviews and 5 stars.
<sgrug>
All they're doing is annoying the Amazon mods.

If they want to get back at her they should go to her personal blog or just simply edit her Wikipedia entry since that has no credibility controls.

[R M Spender]

all gamers unite!!!!! this is just the beginning of the real video game war! dont let people like her or jack or freaking hillary try and take away freedoms. stop it before it gets out of control. people who never pllayed a video game need to find some other doink to ride on their road to perfection i mean ehhh riches.

[Commando47]

...she ain't worthy enough to have a Wikipedia account. Maybe because she will demean Wikipedia next because they spread male chauvinistic lies to little girls.

[erx3]

Here is her myspace page.
myspace.com/thecooperlawrence show

Her email through her website
[email protected]

She's not cool enough to have a wikipedia page. Unless....

Yeah I don't have much to do at work.

[jessupj]

Someone should sign her email up to a bunch of crap :P

[R M Spender]

i saw some very entertaining reviews on the author but by the time i finished making my amazon id they were all gone... now she is the most loved lesbian in the world, well i have never met her but just looking at the cover to her book i am assuming, and i dont think lesbianism is healthy for children without parental supervision.

[Commando47]

I was there at Amazon just now, placed my "flattering" comment and realized that all the 1 star reviews are gone.

Too bad, i thought one day we could go book burning one day.

[Death]

especially in large groups.

Glad to see gamers haven't taken the high road to show we do not fit into the ignorant stereotypes often laid out by the ill informed...

-Death

[JBaby343]

Excellent comment. Bubbles for you. People should just let it go. It's no big deal what she says.

[Maldread]

Agree with fjtorres though, i don`t think it will hold up.

But it is funny that the worst critics of games, movies etc, find them so horrible that they havn`t even seen or played them. Shows how much research they actually do.

[monkey602]

When i read the reviews there where only 3 one star reviews. one said "I wouldnt mind re-enacting a Mass Effect scene with her" now how does that help? Some fool threw away all cause by saying that!

[shotputking]

all we can hope for is that some housewives gloss over the total review scores, which will be affected by all these 1 scores, and decide not to purchase it... then, after this media attention-whore loses all the sales she would have gained because of her anti-video game tirade, things will even out, and hopefully she'll learn her lesson about trying to take advantage of jumping on a bandwagon when she knows nothing about the subject just to get publicity.

[GodsHand]

I left a two star review, see what happens.

I say it also Fox's fault too, always the media showing the negative, rather then the positive.

She says, do we have to be there to see ever second to make sure the child does not see a semi-sex scene. I would answer no, because do you do the same for movies, television, the dreeded INTERNET. I think not.

I say burn her book, she's a witch of Salem.

[ravinash]

Its not so much always showing the negative stuff but rather showing balanced news.
The bring a so called professional on to talk about a product she has no idea about is nothing short of astonishing.
It just goes to show that this so called news agency works from nothing but hear say, stereotypes, rubbish.

[kingme71]

Amazon removed the 1 *'s, seems hardly fair since she was allowed to bash ME on TV without being censored.

Fight back, leave a 1 * with the impression you read the book, not based on her TV interview.

[kingme71]

I'm sure Cooper would love to hear from everyone:

[email protected]

[monkey602]

haha that's sure to have some interesting results. If anybody does email her, you should post a copy of what you said here for us all to enjoy.

[digger18]

Oh what sad little children to go and do this. Just shows what a bunch of a**wipes the gaming community are.

Ok, she may have said something wrong about a game and hasn't even played it, but there was no need for this s**t.

*Hangs his head in shame*

[kingme71]

This is no more childish than a public protest or a strike against a corporation. What happens when people protest or strike? They carry signs in a public forum explaining the wrongs for all to see putting pressure on the corporation/entity in hopes of change.

Emailing a well thought out response is a good option, but often that finds its way into the trash bin. I don't condone spamming email for the sake of spamming, that accomplishes nothing.

Reporting to a public forum such as Amazon comments is a form of electronic protesting. It will raise awareness with the indivdual, the publishing company and possibly Fox News that they need to keep in check their reporting habits and fact finding before spreading their stories as fact.

I put more blame on Fox News than Cooper though. She was just part of the story, there were other members live that had voiced similar opinions. Cooper just wound up being an easier target due to her indivdual exposure.

If Cooper makes amends, I would be all for the Amazon negative comments coming down, but in the mean time, this is no different from a 60's Vietnam sit in or non smokers carrying signs outside cigarette factories.

[jessupj]

"This book is just awful. The author is clearly not qualified to offer any advice or help. This is a true waste of paper. Eventually it may get marked down to a point where it would be a cheap alternative to toilet paper. Even then, it may be worth the extra cost to get real toilet paper, so you don't support this woman or her publisher. "

[resistance100]

@jessupj - Can't help but laugh at that one

[yienmaster]

Cooper,

I cannot think of a more unprofessional thing to do than to go on national television to criticize a product you have never used. You are so misinformed about Mass Effect that you literally have no idea what the game involves. I certainly hope you do more research for your books and show than you did in this case, otherwise you are polluting our nation with lies and assumptions, and passing them off as fact. Please consider recanting your statements about Mass Effect. If you had played the game, you would realize how far from the truth you really are. This situation is analogous to calling the film Titanic a pornographic film. You have taken less than 1% of the content of a piece of media, exaggerated it, and considered it a representative sample of the media as a whole. You are sorely mistaken, and I hope you realize your mistake and feel guilty for so shamelessly bashing a high quality product because of your own lack of research. Actions like these show that you are only looking out for yourself. You are standing in the way of the evolution of society in the same way that people did in the 50's when rock and roll music was "going to destroy our youth and topple our society". Please do some actual research, play the game Mass Effect, and realize how incorrect you are. My "representative" sample of you is an ignorant attention hog, and I don't think you deserve a single viewer/reader if this is the way you go about your business. I'd thank you for your time, but it's worthless as far as I'm concerned, so I don't feel you've lost anything valuable by reading this email (if you even read it at all).

-(My Name)

[monkey602]

Real nice letter dude!

[wallace1000]

Thats great. Reviewing her book without reading it is just what she did so power to all those negative reviews :-) Stupid woman!

[Leathersoup]

...she probably believes herself to be a martyr of some sort.

Plus now she's getting publicity that she never would have otherwise.

[JBaby343]

Sometimes controversy can give publicity you just can't buy. I'll wait and see what happens although I really don't care either way. It's just interesting to see the two sides playing with eachother.

[Nevers]

some "book lover" has posted an anti-gamer review saying that it's not our "right" to write reviews without reading the book in a malicious attempt to discredit this woman... LMAO... reeks of irony.

[ogenbite]

this just gets more and more and more entertaining

[darkside]

The Crazy thing about this is we argue about which games is better and console is better but when some dumb hoe start attack our gaming life. we all put away our difference and become one unstoppable force!!

one small step for gamers and one great leap for gaming industry!!!

play beyond

[wallace1000]

here here

[pshizle]

http://www.amazon.com/Cult-...

[MvC Xtrm]

Dozy cunt. Serves her right!

Although, she is a HaWtie. I'd tap that! Make no mistake, I'd shove a big fat [censored] in her mouth... That'll shut her up!

[ben806]

i really really hate it when a psychologist abuses their position like this. citing 'new' research as the reason for her argument, research she had no part in and may not even be valid in the first place.

[GITPWNED]

F*ck this stupid b1tch. Hell, f*ck anyone with a book title that f*cking stupid anyway. I'll make some reviews myself.

[Kyrue]

don't forget to bash her other books too!

[marioporter]

[email protected]

I suggest we get in touch with her personally. She can't moderate her email. Just to be clear: If you decide to write this woman, stay away from harrassing her in anyway. Threats and the like do nothing to further our cause. Try to be intelligent.

[Spinitus]

the comments on her book at amazon are brilliant. hope her books doesn't sell.

[Skerj]

Karma man, how do you think Bioware feels about asshats who don't know what they're talking about bashing their game? Granted, her book won't get nearly as much revenue as Mass Effect as garnered though.

Only problem is we might have a potential Jack Thompson on our hands at the end of this. She'll then see how lucrative and "in" it is to fight against the game industry and change her career goals to that. Then she'll more than likely become a parasite on the back of some politician and the cycle continues.

[Jones Miller]

She bashes a videogame based on nothing and we bash her book based on nothing. Eye for an eye baby!

[360CameFromHell]

You gotta keep reading the reviews on Amazon, they are getting funnier and funnier. pay a visit:

http://www.amazon.com/revie...

Quote:
------

"Don't waste your time reading this book. It's less informative that a $0.99 trashy romance novel. However, I can confirm that it burns very warmly when drenched in propane and exposed to an acetylene torch."

"My child found this book in a dumpster outside our home after he came home from school. As soon as I found out, I immediately took it away from him. The picture on the cover is inappropriate for children and this book should be BANNED from the world.

At least I can put a parental control lock on my Xbox 360, nothing can save my children from your ignorance."

LOL

[Jones Miller]

How dare you delete 1 star reviews?

[Tsukasah]

This still isn't as bad as Jack Thompson for trying to block Halo 3 from being sold in Florida(or was it just Miami?) Sure, the ads were definitely a nuisance, but games should never be banned. Anyways, back on topic.

This is living proof you should never mess with geeks, nerds, or gamers with too much time on their hands(I know, post #1 said it too). The geeks will make explosives out of their chemistry sets, the nerds will hack, and the gamers will annoy!

[Dashmoney101]

TELL HER WHAT U THINK ON HER MYSPACE PAGE

[IzKyD1331]

whats her myspace url?

[Dashmoney101]

http://www.myspace.com/thec...

[resistance100]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cul...

Even gamers from the uk on amazon.co.uk are having a dig

[ChronicOsmosis]

Sometimes i love this site!

[GreyMatter]

This is just a case where one (or many in this case) should simply turn the other cheek.

I watched the report, and while that woman did tick me off to no end, giving people like this negative attention is still attention.

[OdinMW]

I love the fact that her book will sell less, and she is going to get pissed off that just makes me happy inside

[Kyrue]

hurting their book sales is making me smile though ^

[LJWooly]

To be honest, I think we should simply ignore this woman. All she wants if fame 9hence her appearance on Fox) and by doing this we're giving her the attention she craves.

however, I have to admit that i find it funny how every positive review for her book says "3 out of 118 people found this review helpful", and all negative reviews say "115 out of 120 people found this review helpful".

this should damage her credibility a little, although i don't think she had much to begin with.

[Kyrue]

http://www.cooperlawrence.c...

[JPC]

You beat me to it.

[MaJiKaLL]

All it takes is to read a few reviews before this incident to realise that her books are a sham, just like herself. We only hope that this so called "overachiever" will be dropped by her publisher.Then when she hits rock bottom, hope she buys a xbox 360 which will probably include a free mass effect hopefully. Theeeeeeeen she will see the errors of her ways.

p.s. some1 start a petition. If you want email her directly, address can be found at http://www.cooperlawrence.c...

[djroberts]

Daddy thinks Cooper's been a bad girl... I'll only buy her book if she's naked in it.

[MaJiKaLL]

just had an idea, what is a "writer" such as the Ms C most fearful of? Ans: another writer.

Yep, how about as well as giving negative reviews, we go on a 5star rating spree on all major books relating to a similar subject. Now image all of her competitors selling well, that really wud be a kick in the ovaries.

x- MaJiKaLL -X

[OdinMW]

Smart

[MaJiKaLL]

lets get whoever made the cartoon about the assassins creed woman, to do one on this B***H.

[zZ Lazy Zz]

Yes!

[Federal-Actors-Guild]

Mass Effect was AIGHT, nothing really special... but if it was for the Ps3 it would most likely play better...
F.A.G

[tony]

mass effect fan, but it really makes me mad knowing that idiots like this woman criticized a game that she haven't even played.

how can someone buy a book from a person that talks out of her a**?

[resistance100]

193 1-Star reviews now

http://www.amazon.com/gp/pr...

You can only laugh at that

[sunnygrg]

I am in no way a 360 fanboy, but I did love Mass Effect, and Cooper Lawrence's statement is completely full of BS. Mass Effect is a great game, I would definitely recommend it to every 360 owners and RPG lovers. But Ms. Cooper Lawrence, you really messed it up this time. It was completely "UNETHICAL" of her.

[AngryTypingGuy]

There are no reviews over there yet.

http://search.barnesandnobl...

[zZ Lazy Zz]

A message to all Wii Wiis.

I've been reliably informed (it was on the internet somewhere) that her master plan is to reclaim and destroy all nunchuks in a mass burning. Do not let this happen! Gamers of the world unite!

Amazon UK reviews are hotting-up.

[ddamaged1]

=)

[tony]

website?

[LostCypher11]

We now have someone new to shovel our fanboy facts to. No longer must was war against each other.

FANBOYS AGAINST THE WORLD!!!

[Bubble Buddy]

This is what gaming is guys. Play B3yond, Jump In and whatever you do with the wii.