October 28, 2006
The gaming world has known for a week or so that Bully protagonist Jimmy Hopkins can lock lips with several male characters in the game.Except for Jack Thompson's off-the-mark comments about supposed "gay sex" in Bully, we haven't heard much in the way of moral outrage. On the other hand, the boy-boy aspect of the game is just starting to make its way into mainstream coverage.
Is there a potential business impact of such an edgy design decision?
GamePolitics spoke to Michael Pachter, an analyst who tracks the video game industry for Wedbush Morgan Securities. Pachter, who has always been skeptical of Bully's prospects for commercial success, told GP the game appears to be doing well:
Apparently (Bully is) selling well, but it's early. I expect it to beat my 400k estimate, but it may not beat by much if it fades. It just doesn't have the right name for a big holiday gift item.
What about the potential impact of Jimmy's guy smooching?
To be honest, it's hard to get too excited about it. The game allows kissing of girls, so it is not really that big of a stretch to allow kissing of boys. I think it was an unnecessary risk, and creates the potential for unwanted scrutiny, but it's not the first time we have seen homosexual activity - The Sims had it. Bad idea, because it is not necessary, but not fatal.
Pachter made similar comments to Reuters, which is the first mainstream media to publish a full-blown article on the topic. Pachter told Reuters, "Do I think that many parents would have a problem with their kids seeing it? Yes."
The Reuters piece also reveals that the ESRB factored the boy kissing into Bully's T rating.
Comments
Re: Bully Boy Kissing Bad for Business?
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Admittingly, I may be giving R* too much credit. But it starts making sense when you look at the games they've released after Hot Coffee (Table Tennis, anyone?). They want the anti-gamers to humiliate and discredit themselves.
Program wise, it is just easier and faster to compute.
Each character is derived from a class, a set of attributes and methods in which the character is defined by, and behaves. then each character/instance is given random physical attributes, but retains the same methods.
Kissing is another method in said class. If R* really wanted to NOT put in same sex kissing, then it is just more coding to prevent it, and hours more testing to test it.
Then again, I might have just had some really bad luck with the schools I went to.
"... What's the problem?"
"It's boy on boy"
"OMFGWTFBBQ!!!11 CALL TEH POLICE!!!"
Isn't that always the way?
Lo and Behold, I handed another guy some flowers.
...I didn't trek much further in that field, however it shows that it is there.
If you fear homosexuality, then you clearly aren't ready for the future. I'd discuss stuff like this but im not awake enough to do so.
Or the present, for that matter. But as Nightwing said, only the hardcore bigots will lie about the apparent 'homo' part of the game, JUST to promote their own egoistic world-views.
The frak?
I'm not sure how to respond to that...
Because that's all video games are: product. They're not art.
This is precisely the sort of mindset that holds the medium back from its potential.
Dowa?
In Fable (Xbox & PC) you can marry a guy... or a woman... ...or both...
In any case, it's worth making the point that this isn't actually that unusual and isn't that much of a risk. The fact that a site like GayGamer exists should tell you that there's a decent-sized demographic, probably at least 10% of the gaming population just as purely homosexual men and women are at least 10% of the population at large, and the numbers are higher than that once you factor in the fact that sexual orientation is a continuum and not a series of discrete states. In short, bisexual and homosexual attitudes and behaviour are an inextricable part of human nature -and- our modern society, and the "oh I don't HATE gay people as long as I never have to hear/see/know about anything that hints that they exist" that seems surprisingly common just isn't going to cut it for much longer.
Finally, to address the idea of boy-boy kissing being "unnecessary": I disagree. Bully, for all the distortion inherent in this sort of satire, is a look at the experiences of a kid during his teenage years, when a lot of the choices that shape adult character are made. For a good part of the population, dealing with sex and sexuality for the first time is part of that, and if anything I think Rockstar deserves kudos for including it.
/b
Just like parents who try to ban Harry Potter books, you aim to have something turned away and revised because you don't like a particular aspect of it- turn the other way and puke if you must. Or buy the game and DON'T kiss boys- just because there's a Dark Side path in Knights of the Old Republic doesn't mean I'll try to get the game banned because I don't like the Dark Side (not that tht's the case). I just don't do it and stick to what I DO want to do. But don't expect a corporation to bend over and take it because of one person's whining and inability to just let things go- just because we live in a society where no one shares similar views doesn't mean we should be subjected to restriction by "virtue" of one's person's ideals.
Only if it was true...and if I would of had hot teachers at my school. I don't even really have many hot profs. at college, though it's still considered immoral even at the college level.
And I just have to ask this. I've played FF7 a jillion times, and I've never gotten a date with anyone other than Aeris or Tifa. How in the world do you get one with Barrett?!?!?!?!?!
I don't know about Barrett, but I know for a fact you can get with Yuffie.
Unless it's:
a) consentual
b) student is of legal age
c) teacher is drop-dead goregous
I love pissing on social taboos, sue me.
I would also liek to think that anyone who plays alot of console games has already dealt and gotten over said issue if they have not already...hell most teens get that people are people and like who they like unless they have been brainwashed.
Disabling it or allowing it would have the same effect on the code either way. Something like that would've been no more than a line or two.
I personally don't care either way. To me it's a total and complete non-issue.
I completely agree with you. Only problem is there seem to be a lot of homophobic people in the US. Debate could go both ways.
As was pointed out, the same amount of same-gender contact was in the Sims series. Once discovered, it may have had a small negative reaction. Beyond that, it amounts to little of nothing. Only the truly ignorant and hardcore bigots will mislead the public, any number of organizations, and government officials to believe that it was anything beyond a kiss and a few verbal sexual undertones.
nightwng2000
NW2K Software
Kissing fully restores health, and after you complete certain tasks gives an additional bonus health bar on top of that, ranging from 25% to a full 100%.
I didn't discover any boy/boy kissing, but it must be admitted I didn't try. Teachers, for the most part, only show up during missions and can't be interacted with... which is a shame, because the art teacher is a stone fox.
Teacher kissing I can understand why it was left out. Teacher-student relationships are illegal and immoral.
Calling the boy-boy kissing "pornographic" is simply ridiculous though. Same sex kisses have appeared on broadcast television.
Could you see that argument being made in court? "Yes, your Honor. If you press the kiss button while you're near a boy, your character actually does kiss that boy!" "...was the character supposed to do something else if you press that button?"
IIRC, this isn't the first time RockStar has done something like this. In San Andreas, a few of the available 2 player locations involved a male character for the 2nd character (like, say, a police officer) and Carl could kiss the 2nd character just as easily as he could kiss a female 2nd player.
Of course I think it's a lot more about just sandbox and let the player do what they want than some big political stand for homosexuality.
It's called polygamy, which is construed by many to be morally wrong- Islam, however, allows it.
"Unwanted Scrutiny" indeed. I'm not saying it should garner that scrutiny, by any means, but most people still recognize MOST forms of homosexuality as negative social behavior, even though such a thing doesn't hurt anybody except mothers who want grandchildren, and the aspect his emotional, not physical, when it comes to THAT regard. Was it an unnecessary risk? Possibly, but not a critical one, and mostly reduced to a gag, I should think. If anything, it's just another facet of the gaming culture's general acceptance of alternative romantic lifestyles- FF7 did it with crossdressing, Metal Gear Solid 3 had a very... er... interestingly touchy character... >.>
Wow, JT makes up more lies! BIG SUPRISE!
Yeak, I know, that's TV, not video games. Still, it seems to be such a horrible thing in the eyes of such bigots, I would be surprised if they DIDN'T bring up a stink about it in those cases too.
nightwng2000
NW2K Software
Having your character in a game kissing another guy doesn't make you gay, it doesn't make your kids gay, and it doesn't make anyone around you gay. It's just a game and, as so many people have mentioned above, nobody short of a few loud bigots are even going to care about it, but since they'll naturally misinform the rest of the public, we'll surely be hearing more of this in the future.
Basically, there is no logical reason why this is worse than girl kissing--other than the fact that in real life, this would cause you to get beaten up MUCH faster than kissing a girl. It's pretty awesome that the ESRB doesen't consider this a reason for an M rating, too.
Jup, you can get with Barrett as well. I tried.
First, in response to a couple of earlier comments: It is a lifestyle choice to move in with your partner. Being attracted to someone is not a choice. Please be careful with the phrase "lifestyle choice," too often it is used to beat people over the head. It really has *no* place in discussions of sexual orientation.
Second, "Why was this necessary?" For the same reason it was necessary to allow the character to use the toilets and urinals. On one hand, is sort of silly and provides some childish humour. But also, it makes the game more credible. It takes you out of the game when you notice inconsistencies, like walking up to an object that you know has a function, but being unable to use it. R*'s freeform games do not impose a strong character concept. You can decide whether you're a badass or a nice guy. You can "play yourself" or play a character. Since romance is an important aspect in Bully, it's only logical that the player should be able to make decisions about their character's sexuality. Before I knew about this aspect of the game, I thought that gay male players might find it rather constraining. Glad to know R* was thinking the same thing.