Ryan ChartrandRockstar Games: The one video game company that can’t release a single game without making national, and sometimes international, news. How many developers can boast that?
Whenever Rockstar is making headlines, it usually means the infamous attorney Jack Thompson is on a mission to burn down their headquarters in Manhattan (unless they’re off making ping-pong games for unknown reasons). This time, however, Thompson isn’t alone in the fight against Rockstar’s latest game, “Bully,” which lets you bully kids around in a free-to-explore school. This time, Thompson has Tony Blair to back him up.
Wait, Tony Blair? British Prime Minister Tony Blair? Suddenly an anti-video game activist? In fact, the UK is going all out for this monumental, world-changing event known as the release of “Bully.” Blair will have a special meeting with Keith Vaz, who many call the “UK version of Thompson.” Imagine Bush having coffee and biscuits with Jack Thompson as they casually talk about children terrorizing their teachers in a video game they have never even touched.
That’s right, never touched. Although Thompson tried hard to get “Bully” before every gamer who already pre-ordered it, he failed and still hasn’t touched the game. Even his new hero Tony Blair admitted in front of the House of Commons that he “hadn’t seen the game himself.” I can only imagine what Blair will be led to believe in this “special meeting” consisting of sitting around and predicting what might be in the game, while stressing the fact that one store already banned it. Brilliant.
What about in good ol’ America? Obviously, our hard-working president doesn’t have time to sit around and do nothing, so Thompson usually gets stuck with those immoral judges who care nothing about children (how dare they). When a judge recently approved the sale of “Bully” come Oct. 17, Thompson stood up for the dying children of America and said, “Next time you promise a ‘hearing,’ I’ll bring a parent with me whose kid is in the ground because of a kid who trained to kill him or her on a violent video game. Try mocking that person, I dare you.” He dares you. After all, when you’re talking about kids in the ground, you’re obviously not playing around.
The judge, who actually saw the game and may very well have played it himself, responded rather simply: “There’s nothing in the game that you wouldn’t see on TV every night.” This begs the question, who do you trust? A man of justice who saw the game in action or an attorney who never saw the “Left Behind” game yet called it a “mass-killing game” that, as he says, personally broke his heart?
All the hilarity of Jack Thompson aside, it’s important to know, from the perspective of professional video game writers who have previewed the game, how terrible the game truly is. First, the game is rated ‘T’ for teen, meaning you won’t hear a single F-word or see the amount of blood you might experience in a zombie-thrashing, gore-filled M-rated game like “Dead Rising.” Gamespot.com said in their latest preview of the game that “the game comes across much like a lighthearted PG-13 movie” and “you spend more time in the game defending weaker children from bullies, not bullying them yourself.” But who believes those losers when you could listen to your all-knowing leaders who just came out of a room with a theory about what the game might be like?
Trust whoever you wish, but keep in the back of your mind that some people are insane and simply need something to do for a living (such as making other people’s lives a living hell). If you do decide to support “Bully” and continue to allow Rockstar to exist, let Jack Thompson’s words ring through your mind when you try to sleep at night.
Know that you have “consigned innumerable children to skull fractures, eye injuries from slingshots, and beatings with baseball bats,” you child-hating video game player, you.