January 20, 2008 -
Rockstar's Bully was the video game pariah of 2006.The PlayStation 2 title was criticized by those who - wrongly - assumed that it cast the player in the aggressor's role. Game industry nemesis Jack Thomson even took the game to court in Miami, where he sought - and failed - in an attempt to have it declared a public nuisance under Florida law.
With new versions of Bully scheduled to appear next month, the controversy seems to be starting up again. Bully: Scholarship Edition has a March 3rd ship date for the Xbox 360 and Wii. Meanwhile, an article in today's Telegraph sounds the alarm:
A violent new video game which is set in a school and encourages players to act out assaults on pupils and teachers has been condemned by anti-bullying campaigners and teaching unions.
The game, called Bully, features a shaven-headed pupil who torments fellow students and teachers at his school.
Niall Cowley of BeatBullying told the newspaper:
We're disappointed this game was created in the first place. Some mindless people thought this was a fun, interesting piece of software to create, but it undermines all the hard work that organisations like ours are seeking to do.
Cowley also claimed that publisher Rockstar tried to win his organization's support by offering to make a donation:
It was the most distasteful thing in the world - the idea that we could be bought off like that. We have the interests of the children of this country in our mind, not of the shareholders of this company.
Although Bully was released in the U.K. under the title Canis Canem Edit (Dog Eat Dog), the new versions will revert to the Bully name. U.K. retailers PC World and Currys have announced that they will not carry the game.
Not surprisingly, Labor MP Keith Vaz, a frequent critic of video game violence, chimed in:
The idea that people should be glorifying bullying is just tasteless. It is hardly encouraging good social values for our children. Just the name Bully is going to attract young people to buy it.
However an unnamed Rockstar spokesman defended the game:
It is not a game about playing a bully. It is about the trials and tribulations of a boy in his first year at school. He protects children against other characters. People have to be able to make their own decisions and to judge for themselves, with an open mind.
Comments
you actually ARENT a bully?
and you protect kids from other bullys?
and you actually get punished if your caught breaking rules?
err and why is tis a bad thing?
As Jimmy Hopkins said,
"I only give people what's coming to them" (or something along those lines).
Bully is a really fun game and it looks like the shitstorm is starting again.
Anyway, this is pretty much just like the whole Mass Effect thing where some jack asses take a small portion of the game out of context and turn it into a whole new game that doesn't actually exist. In this case the title of the game itself, "Bully", is what is taken out of context. It called "Bully" there for everyone assumes you're the one bullying people. Most of the game is spent sticking up for the weak, so to speak, so their claims are always bogus.
Oh, and I wonder how long it will take for them to bring up the fact that you can make out with another boy in the game again. Everyone jumped all over that as well before despite it being such a small and insignificant portion of the game. Where is Kevin McCullough when you need him for a good laugh? I could imagine him saying something like "this game allows you to have gay sex with male students and it's some of the most realistically depicted sex scenes he's ever seen and that it allows you to sodomize boys in the shower." We all know how much he loves to use that word "sodomize"/"sodomy", heh.
Taking down (a peg or 3) everryone in the school who has a god complex (except perhaps the principal but I haven't completed the game).
That is all.
Nothing special? Bully is a great game and deserves whatever sales increases these people inadvertantly cause.
"Violent youth crime up a third"
Professionnal (sensational) journalism at it's best.
Um. Well. It is. Your character is sent to Bullworth because of his history of bullying, and when he gets there he sees that he has competition and sets out to become the worst of the worst. On the way though he does his fair share of cleaning up and actually making the place safer, but his original motive and the way he goes about it is definitely not one you want kids following.
Anyone who has played GTA will be familiar with the story. Just put it in a school area instead of a city.
Anyway it's all moot. The original game didn't destroy the school system, and making it HD with a few new cutscenes isn't going to change that.
Um, if I remember correctly, and I think I do since I played the original PS2 version, Jimmy stood up to one of the larger guys and once he beat them, he demanded that he not pick on kids smaller then him.
As for why he's sent to the school, its not because he was bullying, it was because his parents were going on a long vacation or something of that sort.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Thompson_%28attorney%29
and thats all I have to say bout that.
He's a "bully with a heart," if you will. He stands up for those who are unfairly picked on but isn't afraid of getting in the faces of people he thinks deserves it. (Pretty much everyone you meet at Bullworth deserves it, teachers included.)
You're right though, he is deposited at Bullworth because of his family, but his academic history is discussed in the intro segment and his permanent record takes up a whole drawer. Really he's quite a lot like CJ from San Andreas. He tries to go straight but just keeps getting dragged back into the mire. It's an unfortunate position for him to be in, but his non-player-controlled history is not a good one.
Thinking about it, it's a good thing. I guess really you take control of a bully and turn his life around by focusing his inate violent ability in a more productive direction.
I just can't take much more of this. There simply can't be this many stupid people out there. My faith in a kind and just humanity has been absolutely annihilated since I've started coming here.
back to your world of gumdrop fairies and chocolate wishes, then?
enjoy not knowing what laws are trying to be passed until the men come for you, i guess.
Gamebasher #1: Crap. We made complete asses out of ourselves with the Mass Effect thing! How were we supposed to know that the game isn't a sex simulator? Quick, divert attention, NOW!
Gamebasher#2: Hey, look, they're re-releasing that "Bully" game that Jack Thompson, holy crusader, said had gay content and encouraged violent behaviour in kids, despite having never played it. We can't lose!
Gamebasher #1: Okay, take this down. "We were horrified to learn that the murder/sodomy game, Bully..."
:-)
Well it's either that or get rid of all the stupid people.
A very wise man once said, "The problem with America is stupidity. I'm not saying there should be a capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself?"
on topic.
I loved that game unfortunatly it broke so I am going to buy the 360 version. fuck thompson and these hippies.
When I was in 4th grade the told us to ignore bullys and also to never defended your self.
Good job, people. You are doing right on your war against filthy games.
In fact, I doubt those complaining about the game or claiming that it's violent ever played it. They should be ashamed of themselves. Sadly, we will not get an apology from them.
Yeah, that makes sense, and yeah, he was deposited at the school because his parents were going on vacation, but you're right, he had issues, and yes, sure enough, people at that school pretty much deserve everything that they got.
However though, the games not as violent as its GTA counterpart, and at the very least, people are knocked out instead of being killed. Honestly, to me, its not as big a deal as these people are making it out to be.
http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/action/bully/review.html?om_act=convert&om_c...
Preview of the new version:
http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/action/bullyscholarshipedition/news.html...
The Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bully_%28video_game%29
Gee, let's see what those "morally superior" critics missed mentioning:
Character: Jimmy
Background: From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_characters_in_Bully
The main protagonist of the game, the player controls Jimmy Hopkins, a tough 15 year old boy who has been expelled from at least seven schools for offenses including vandalism, graffiti, violent conduct, bad language, disrespecting staff, and in the case of his most recent school according to smalltalk, arson.[citation needed] Unwilling to deal with his problems herself, Jimmy's often-remarried mother soon dumps him on the doorstep of the notorious Bullworth Academy while she sets off for a year-long honeymoon with her new husband. Jimmy then has no other choice but to become a student at the school and face the challenges that await. Despite being violent when provoked, and having an unwillingness to trust new people, Jimmy is a relatively decent kid who possesses a higher level of maturity and awareness than most of his fellow students. Rather than being a random troublemaker, Jimmy claims he only "gives people what they have coming to them".
The school: From the main Bully article on Wikipedia:
The game takes place at Bullworth Academy, a fictional independent boarding school in the New England area of the United States. The school is located in the also fictional town of Bullworth, which resembles Connecticut (this would also explain the high prevalence of 'Old money' and 'Nouveau Riche' influences). The school itself is a classical neo-gothic design and is similar to many other schools and colleges in the United Kingdom and New England, in particular Fettes School in Edinburgh. A reference to the year being 1995 as the setting can be seen in one of the various arcade machine minigames but school sports flags show the school as champions as recently as 1999.
Are the authority figures all as innocent as implied by the critics? While the Principal isn't quite as corrupt as originally designed, his own abusive (bullying) treatment of students is quite clear. In the List of Characters, he's stated as " referring to all the bullying taking place as "school spirit". He also refuses to hear bad about his staff, even expelling Zoe for complaining about Mr Burton hitting on her." While he does come around, his own actions, or lack thereof, PROMOTE the abuse in the setting.
There are a great many things the critics overlook. Perhaps because, while certain ones complain about Rockstar attempting to pay them off, they ignore abuses from other sources that contribute to the victimization of a great many students. Indeed, many cliques are not regarded as "antisocial" despite their abusive treatment of the preceived "inferior" students. Many of these organizations are nothing more than mouth pieces which are too cowardly to face off against the abuser empowering authority figures or the "popular" cliques. As much as these organizations condemn the "unpopular" groups and individuals, they should also being using similar force to condemn the "popular" abusers as well.
Shifting the blame to a video game, or any other media, is just the furthering of that cowardice.
Nightwng2000
NW2K Software
i'm not big on Canadian politics, but i though the hockey teams ARE part of the governing body... :p
I know who Jack Thompson is but the article mentions a Jack Thomson...
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Papa Midnight
It doesn't punish you for riding a bike without a helmet, but it does punish you for riding a moped with out a helmet.
Most of these pundits are either misinformed, moralist idiots or trying to use games as a political springboard. If you ask me, I think most critics fall under category a. Misinformed.
Really all the issue is a bunch of hype nothing more. I don't remember who but someone said 'don't believe the hype' and it looks like a lot of people forget that.
Oh and don't weep for humanity just yet, the US court system has ALWAYS backed up games so there's that.
Doesn't this say more about young people than the game itself?
(I'm a 'young person' at 16, I probably still wouldn't have heard of this game today if I wasn't a GamePolitics reader, and having consequently got and completed the game I have yet to see what was even remotely worth kicking up a fuss about)
Why do you think hippies have anything to do with this?
Really it's just the government and 'concerned parents' not hippies.
1. It's made by Rockstar
2. It's called Bully
3. It takes place in a school
That's it. The pundits just drew an eronious conclusion based of those premises. It's like putting two and two together and getting 5 [insert 1984 reference here]
"U.K. retailers PC World and Currys have announced that they will not carry the game."
Not surprised, they didnt sell the Ps2 version either. But i can buy way more violent games at their shops.... makes no sense...
Makes no sense, especially when compared to its GTA counterpart, I mean, I don't think anyone gets killed, just knocked out. Thats some mighty fine logic them retailers are using.
Thank you for bringing the horse back from the dead!
It is not a game about playing a bully. It is about the trials and tribulations of a boy in his first year at school. He protects children against other characters. People have to be able to make their own decisions and to judge for themselves, with an open mind.
Ok, and what were their reactions to this comment!? Dennis, could you please enlighten us as to the reactions on the part of the douche bags? This is ridiculous! A developer tells the media what the game is about and they have their heads so far up their asses that they wont hear it!