Bully video game

[william northcote]

The developers of controversial videogame Bully have defended the title in the wake of a threatened injunction in Florida, in the US.

Lawyer Jack Thompson is attempting to stop the game going on sale, arguing it would cause a public nuisance.

The judge in the case has agreed to take a look at the title and play it before reaching a decision.

A spokesman for developers Rockstar said the game had a teen-only rating in the US and a 15 rating in the UK.

Mr Thompson filed his legal action last month, claiming that the game would violate Florida's public-nuisance laws.

They are typically used to prosecute environmental pollution.


There's no blood at all in the game. There's no physical damage
Rockstar spokesman

The legal action is against the US publisher Take 2, as well as retail giants Wal-Mart and GameStop.

"I'm pretty sure that the game is harmful to minors," Mr Thompson told the Washington Post newspaper.

The BBC News website has been shown an unfinished copy of the game. In it, the main character has to defend himself from school bullies as well as form alliances with different cliques in the school.

Tackling the bullies and stopping them from picking on other children is a key feature of the game.

'Hitting girls'

"Hitting girls lands you in serious trouble. You can't hit girls or little kids or teachers and prefects - you're busted straight away," said the spokesman.

Fighting forms a large part of the title but the developers said it was displayed like a "cartoon or Popeye fight".

He said: "There's no blood at all in the game. There's no physical damage.

"Nobody dies in the game. There are no guns."

But the main character can use dustbin lids and baseball bats to hit other children in the school.

He said: "Anyone over 15 knows that hitting someone with a baseball bat is going to cause serious head injury and would not copy it just because they saw it in a video game.

"I'm pretty sure no parent will be giving this to their five-year-olds."

Dog Eat Dog

In the UK, Bully has changed its name to Canis Canem Edit (Dog Eat Dog) and is due for release on the PlayStation 2 on 27 October.

The Rockstar spokesman said the game was "entertainment" and was "out of reach of people who are unable to draw a distinction between what's real and what's fantasy".

He added: "Video faced the same backlash in the 80s, music did in the 50s when Elvis shaked his hips. Now we think of it as laughable.

"I am fairly confident that this vilification of videogames will be looked at in the same way in 20 years when the policy makers have grown up with video games as much as 30 year olds."



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6046932.stm

When will people stop trying to be the police of morality and let us all decide ourselves?

[Human]

They won't. This is the same world that has given us affirmative action, "positive" discrimination and the right for criminals to sue their victims. Society disgusts me....I'm off to hit some people with a baseball bat.

[David Beckerman]

Why is it that people never seem to credit films with inspiring people to do positive things?

[william northcote]

Why is it that people never seem to credit films with inspiring people to do positive things?

It is considered wussy to say a film made you change your life.

[David Beckerman]

But 'Bring It On' was just sooooo inspiring

[william northcote]

True. And would you say an Alan Alda film changed your life as well? Or Billy Elliot made you change your pie and pies supper to go and take up ballet?

[Inazuma]

Jack Thompson is an idiot half-lawyer trying to gut his way out of the sewers that his life has become by picking on the video game industry (so much love here you can almost physically feel it, can't you?) because for some obscure reason people believe that video games make you go out and kill people... come on.. He also said once "the only people that would shoot someone in the face are contract killers and gamers" so I'd hardly take whatever he says seriously.

On a more serious note while there is on-going research into the behavioural influence of video games and effects such as mirror neurons (I think that's the proper term I'll have to dredge up some of the papers I was reading about it) there hasn't been enough of the research to actually come to any final conclusion.

Personally I believe that like good books games with good narrative are simply another way of telling a story. We don't, however, seem to see too many people trying to ban us poor shmoes from reading books simply because someone could commit a crime claiming, hey I read it in a book!

The problem here, in my opinion lies mainly (note not solely, but mainly) on bad parenting. If you don't want your kid to play Bully don't buy him that, if you do buy him Grand Theft Auto becuase you don't like his nagging that don't complain to the Rockstar that the kid is playing it... On that note I'd also like to add that Australia needs (I don't know what it's like in the UK but I think the USA has it) an R18+ rating for video games, it just silly not to have it.

And that's it for my rant.

[Aaron T]

Common sense.... is not common...

Aaron Fields