Makers of ‘Grand Theft Auto’ come under fire for ‘Bully’

Darcy Anderson AND02005@BYUI.EDU Scroll Staff

Rockstar Games is under the public microscope once again for its notoriously hot-to-trot games.

Its first offense was the M-rated Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas in which gamers not only steal cars and kill police officers, but the game also featured hidden interactive sex scenes.

Overwhelming public scrutiny forced the Vancouver-based game developer to re-rate the game “Adults Only.” Soon after, retailers returned 800,000 copies of the game to Rockstar, according to mtv.com.

Now Rockstar is being criticized for games it hasn’t even released yet. Rockstar’s parent company, Take-Two Interactive, announced Sept. 7 that it is delaying shipment of its latest hot-button game, the schoolyard scuffling Bully.

“We need more development time,” Rockstar spokesperson Rodney Walker said. “[We’re] trying to honor our commitment to making innovative and groundbreaking games. All of our release dates are based on what’s right for the game.”

Walker said protests against the game did not factor into the delay. “[The delay is] completely related to the creative process,” Walker said.

According to rockstargames.com, Bully is a “tongue-in-cheek” story of a “troublesome schoolboy” who “stands up to bullies, gets picked on by teachers, plays pranks on malicious kids, wins or loses the girl, and ultimately learns to navigate the obstacles of the fictitious reform school.”

Tongue-in-cheek?Anti-violence groups aren’t laughing. Opposition to the game’s premises drew protesters to Rockstar’s front doors on Aug. 8, according to gamespot.com.

Members of the Washington, D.C.-based youth group Peaceoholics protested outside Rockstar Games’ Manhattan offices, carrying signs that read “Put the cuffs on Rockstar, not youth” and “Prosecute Rockstar Games; they are felons” and chanting “Hey hey, ho ho, Rockstar Games has got to go.”

Bully also has teachers, parents and anti-bully groups up in arms. Liz Carnell of campaign-group Bullying Online said, “This game should be banned. I’m extremely worried that kids will play it and then act out what they’ve seen in the classroom.

“Bullying is not a game by any stretch of the imagination. We have around four suicidal children contacting us every day,” Carnell said.

According to petitiononline.com’s anti-Bully petition, 77 percent of students are bullied mentally, verbally and physically and 282,000 students are physically attacked in secondary schools each month.

The site also says that every seven minutes a child is bullied and at least 16 children annually commit suicide because of bullying.

Not surprisingly, game enthusiasts will have to hold on to their lunch money for a few months longer.

According to gamespot.com, Bully’s original fall 2005 release has been rescheduled for the second quarter of Take-Two’s 2006 fiscal year, which runs from February through April 2006.