The Bully controversy

[Zimbacca]

http://www.wired.com/news...ml?tw=wn_story_page_prev2

That's right bully does not glorify bullying.  Rather, it seems as though the game discurages it.

*Title changed to better reflect the topic*

[djbeatmongrel]

yeah but it does promote school yard fun, atleast the ltd edition does with the full sized inflatable dodgeball/kickball.

[Sauza12]

Dear brain fried gamer,

It is obvious the your addictive playing of Doom has fried your frontal lobes.  I appeared on 60 minutes and predicted the Columbine massacre just days before it occured on Good Morning America.  Bully is a Columbine simulator and I will not let Take Two mentally molest the minds of any more children.  Trust me.

-Not Jack Thompson



This still won't stop douchebags like Thompson from trying to get it branded as Satans recruiting tool.  Hell, he's in the middle of a lawsuit in Florida right now, trying to get it declared a public nuisance.  http://www.Gamepolitics.com has been providing coverage of the lawsuit for the past few days.

[The Metamorphosing Leon]

*Sigh* Jack needs to die. He's in this for the $$.

[djbeatmongrel]

*Sigh* Jack needs to die. He's in this for the $$.

he should be in it for the bitches

[The Metamorphosing Leon]

Damn straight my brutha.

But with money comes bitches, so he probably already is.

[Izret101]

I thought he got dibarred?
Or is it debarred?

Well his bar was taken away i thought?

LTD Ed. goodies are sweet.

I want the LE version of this game.

[phoenix1967]

Disbarred.

[Sauza12]

Unfortunatley Thompson trained under Keanu Reeves and can now dodge bullets like he's in the Matrix. 

By the way, according to http://www.destructoid.com he's trying to blame the Miami-Miami International fight on Grand Theft Auto.  I don't have a direct link because I'm lazy.

[Cambot]

He should have his bar removed and beaten with it. Then they can give him his bar back.

[Sauza12]

He should have his bar removed and beaten with it. Then they can give him his bar back.

I can't properly express how funny I found this comment.

[Zimbacca]

Found out about this from penny-arcade.  I wonder what Jack Thompsons' gonna say about this.
http://www.joystiq.com/20...-on-boy-kissing-in-bully/

[Izret101]

Well i guess i don't have anything special to say. I found about the boy on boy action in Bully this morning via some VH1 show.

[The Metamorphosing Leon]

This game seems so...Japanese. Kids in school uniforms, questionable content, it's all there.

[Zimbacca]

Jack Thompson's basically trying to get Bully classified as porn.
Look at this article from Game Politics.

Having failed to convince a Florida judge that Bully is a public nuisance, controversial attorney Jack Thompson has a new tactic in what seems to be a never-ending crusade against the game.

Thompson's latest approach is that the game's boy-kissing scenes are essentially porn, thus making Bully illegal to sell to minors. Although Thompson does not use the P-word, the statute he cites would generally relate to such material.

In a letter sent yesterday to several major retailers, Thompson writes:

    “It turns out that the school violence simulation game Bully also contains homosexual activity between the game's hero, Jimmy Hopkins, and other male students.”

    “It is my legal opinion that the sale of this game to minors, which is presently occurring at your stores in Florida, violates Florida's ‘Sexual Material Harmful to Minors Statute,' Florida Statute 847.102.  Each such sale to a minor constitutes a separate felony.”

    “Such sales are occurring to children of all ages because of the game's wholly inappropriate “Teen” rating, as opposed to the ‘Mature' rating it deserves…”

GP offers a couple of points here:

First, the late Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart once said that pornography is hard to define, “but I know it when I see it.” We agree, and we're definitely not seeing it with Bully's silly boy-kissing scenes.

Next, the statute Thompson is referring to is 847.012, and this is what it says (GP has taken the liberty if adding “no” where Bully does not meet the statutory requirement):

    “It is unlawful for any person knowingly to sell, rent, or loan for monetary consideration to a minor:

        *
          (a)  Any picture, photograph, drawing, sculpture, motion picture film, videocassette, or similar visual representation or image of a person or portion of the human body which depicts nudity (NO) or sexual conduct (NO), sexual excitement (NO), sexual battery (NO), bestiality (NO), or sadomasochistic abuse (NO) and which is harmful to minors, or
        *
          (b)  Any book, pamphlet, magazine, printed matter however reproduced, or sound recording which contains any matter defined in s. 847.001, explicit and detailed verbal descriptions or narrative accounts of sexual excitement (NO), or sexual conduct (NO) and which is harmful to minors.

In case you are wondering, kissing doesn't qualify as “sexual conduct” under Florida law.