New Bully Release Attracts Controversy In U.K.

[Andy Chalk]

New Bully Release Attracts Controversy In U.K.

A new release of Bully [http://www.rockstargames.com]is causing controversy in the U.K., with several agencies calling for the game to be banned.

Bully: Scholarship Edition, which is slated for a March release for the BeatBullying [http://www.wii.com]. "Some mindless people thought this was a fun, interesting piece of software to create, but it undermines all the hard work that organizations like ours are seeking to do. Our philosophy is about educating young people that bullying is not a cool thing to do, and this leaves us with a bad taste in the mouth."

Steve Sinnott, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers [http://www.teachers.org.uk/], called for the game to be banned, saying, "We're deeply concerned that all the work in cutting out bullying and cyber bullying in school does not seem to have made any impact on the consciences of the makers of this game. The dialog about the pernicious effects of bullying appears to have been ignored. It is an encouragement to violence and intimidation, and those things have a major impact on schools."

An earlier version of the game was released in the country in 2006, exclusively for the PlayStation 2 [http://www.playstation.com]. With that release, Rockstar attempted to dodge controversy over the game's content by renaming the European edition of the game to Canis Canem Edit, Latin for Dog Eat Dog. With this release, however, the company will revert to the more familiar appellation of Bully.

At least one U.K. retailer has already decided not to carry the title. A spokesman for PC World and Currys said, "We don't think this is suitable for sale in our stores. We are careful about what we sell and this is something we have decided not to list."

But a Rockstar representative claimed the game was intended to send a message about overcoming bullies, calling it a tongue-in-cheek "comedic romp" that received critical acclaim and sold well in the U.K. "It is not a game about playing a bully," the representative said. "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."


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[njsykora]

Better headline.

'Ailing UK newspaper tries to revive readership by wailing on videogame.'

The Telegraph wasn't even on Bully when it first came out here, that was all the Daily Mail and the Murdoch papers. The same goes for PC World and Currys. Only clueless mothers buy games there as most of their stores are out of town centers unlike Game and Gamestation.

 

[Watershed]

*Sigh*

Just once, it'd be nice if people actually played the game before publishing crap about it.

 

[Blayze]

I'm sorry, but any organisation called NUT does not have the right to be taken seriously.

Our philosophy is about educating young people that bullying is not a cool thing to do, and this leaves us with a bad taste in the mouth."

Have they ever attacked the Beano for encouraging bullying? A lot of the Beano's characters are basically bullies, after all. Oh wait, I forgot. Attacking the Beano doesn't sell a campaign as well as attacking videogames goes.

 

[Goofonian]

Can someone please make a hookey simulator, and then release it to retail with the name hooker.

Edit - FYI: Hookey is a game similar to darts where you throw rubber bands at a board covered in bent nails to score points.

 

[Easykill]

^ It's also slang for skipping school, you could just call it that.

 

[Dry Ice]

i played bully and that game has nothing to do with bullying at all, i think its just the name, there for it was called cannus douche edit or somthing daft in the UK.

 

[ProjectileVomit]

if the first game makes you fight against bullying, why go through all the fuss of banning the SAME game again? (rhetorical question)

 

[hickwarrior]

maybe because they want easy publicity and all, and want our feathers to get ruffled?

Anyway, like shadow said, people need to play these games before saying negative stuff about them. Maybe they'll say 'no comment' if we asked if they played it, or try to avoid the subject of the question.

Meh, i think above comment is just common sense for this.

 

[ukslim]

However ill-founded these accusations are, I smell the influence of Rockstar's publicity machine. Rockstar thrives on controversy.

When a game's called 'Brain Eating Zombies', the natural assumption is that you play the guy trying to defeat the zombies. Why not make the same assumption about a game called 'Bully'? Answer: because someone's feeding these people the idea that the game's about the glory of being a bully, in order to kick up a stink.

 

[sorpaqq]

I played through Bully again very recently and I still can't believe that this got such a gigantic amount of controversy based on a few people's assumption of what the game would be like. It's obviously because the game was called Bully, set in school and made by Rockstar and people just assumed it would be a bad game, fair enough then it's okay to have suspicions about the game but you don't launch a full blown campaign against a game based on such a small amount of information. One thing that always annoys me is that these people were constantly saying that their main goal was to combat bullying and put a stop to it but they went about it by campaigning against a game that turned out to be about stopping bullying and improving the school which is the most pointless thing anyone has ever done and their time would have been much better spent if they had protested actual bullying instead.

 

[luckycharms8282]

Im guessing they have never even played the game, and judge it based on its title. I bought and played the game when it came out five years ago and, from what I remember, your character does little to no bullying. I distinctly remember a mission where you help another student by fetching a roll of toilet paper for him. What bully would do that?

It was a fun game. Haters gonna hate.