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.
