Judge Clears Bully For Publishing

stupid_is writes "The BBC are reporting that Judge Ronald Friedman has cleared Bully for publication in Florida. Jack Thompson is, predictably, critical of the decision, stating "You did not see the game, you don't even know what it was you saw." after Take-Two gave him the game, along with someone to play the game for him to watch before he made a decision." This is a follow-up to our story last week about Take-Two handing over copies of Bully per court order.

Thompson said what?

[iainl]

Don't lawyers normally get into some sort of trouble for calling Judges incompetent twats who don't know how to do their job?

So..

[dr_dank]

''You did not see the game,'' Mr Thompson told the judge at Friday's hearing. "You don't even know what it was you saw."

Unless I missed something, Thompson hasn't seen the game since it's unreleased and is criticising the judge who did see it. Amazing.

I'm starting to think that this guy is a clever guerilla marketer who brings attention and boosted sales to his clients via the media and legal system. Just look how well 2 Live Crew sold records after a protracted legal battle waged by Jack Thompson.

the game isnt the problem

[192939495969798999]

if your kid is playing the game, then that's at least X minutes he or she isn't out actually bullying kids. How about taking some measures against actual bullies, instead of just going "boys will be boys" when Jerk Junior beats up yet another kid for lunch money, or kicks yet another puppy, or lights yet another cigarette at age 9? I'd be more concerned about the kid who shows up at 9 am on a school day to buy the game...

Re:Thompson said what?

[nuzak]

Jack Thompson is special. He's found that if the Florida Bar takes disciplinary action against him, he can simply sue them and they'll roll over onto their backs, whimper, and pay him twenty grand or so.

I suspect he can be disbarred in any state where he practices pro hac vice, but I doubt other states bars will even want to hear it. And this case was in Florida anyway.

Re:Jack Thompson needs to learn a lesson here.

[soft_guy]

Fred Phelps (the "God hates fags" guy) behaved in a very similar manner to Jack Thompson over a long period of time. Eventually he was disbarred. Jack Thompson will probably get himself disbarred eventually.

Re:the game isnt the problem

[Frymaster]

if your kid is playing the game, then that's at least X minutes he or she isn't out actually bullying kids

well, i doubt real bullies would play this game anyways, since the objective is defeat bullies, not be one.

if anything, the game has the potential to have a strong message of empowerment for all those kids who spend recess stuffed into lockers.

Re:You did not see that game...

[Dan East]

You're taking it out of context. From the next sentence in the article, "Mr Thompson criticised the decision to have an employee take him through the game, arguing he could have avoided making violent choices."

In other words, since it was a pre-release version, and since the judge was only shown what the Take-Two employee decided to demonstrate for him, it's hard to tell what the judge actually saw. I can't even count how many games can be played in a much less violent way if so desired (like not using fatalites in Mortal Combat, or not doing head shots in TFC, etc). Entire areas of the map could also be avoided (like fighting inside of shcools).

Dan East

Re:So..

[DangerSteel]

I think you may be onto something. It would be brilliant to hire him to "fight" your game in court with obviously losing strategies like he has been applying. How much would that be worth to a company?

Re:Free Will

[businessnerd]

The problem here, and also the problem in a lot of other cases where people tyr to ban games/movies, is that those who are demonizing these games, have no idea of what they are actually about. From what I have read about "Bully", the game is about making choices, not about murdering your classmates. The player is confronted with many common schoolyard situations and has to make the choice to either take the high road, or the low road. Furthermore, if one does take the low road and decide to harm his/her peers, bad things will follow. You are punished, people think you're a dick and don't want to be your friend, etc. Does this sound familiar? Possibly to what happens in real life? Given, the audience here at slashdot, I'm sure many of us were picked on by bullies during school. Where are we now, and where are the bullies? In my situation, I have a well paying job and a college degree from a well respected university, and one of my bullies is barely a high school graduate working at a supermarket and going nowhere. I think this game reflects this pretty well, from what I've been told. Also, Thompson claims this game is a "Columbine Simulator" yet I remember reading that there are NO GUNS featured in the game. The closest thing is a bat.

Addressing the bigger picture, we often see this with movies time and time again. Some titles that come to mind that were very controversial BEFORE being released: "Bubble Boy"(don't make fun of immune deficiacy people), "Saved" (don't let people know how self-righteous and hypocritical fund. christians are), "The Ringer" (don't make fun of the special olympics) and the list goes on. All of which were chastized for one reason or another, because they allegedly made fun of a group of one group or the other. Most of these groups were going off of previews and had not actually seen the movies, or talked to anyone involved in it like a director to find out exactly where this movie goes with the controversial topic. How can one disagree with a movie you have not seen!!!!!!!??????

A similar story I saw on Digg was that a man wants to ban "Fahrenheit 451" (yes that's right the book by Ray Bradbury about book burning) from his Texas school distric because his daughter told him that there was foul language and innappropriate material. He confirmed his daughter's claims not by reading the book himself (oh no heaven forbid), but rather by thumbing through the pages to the parts that had the innappropriate material outside of their context. Just for that reason I decided to pick up the book and start reading it. Honestly, although I'm only about halfway through, I have not found anything in the least bit offensive, in or out of context (although i'm hoping for a steamy sex scene in the second half of the book).

Re:good comment

[endemoniada]

I hate to say it, but your founding fathers weren't really unbiased either. You took a country by force from its very natives while basically comitting mutiny against another country. Of course they needed guns.

You don't anymore, though. Sure, you might think you need it because of crime or whatever... But consider this: would there really be so many robberies and so much crime, if it was much harder to get ahold of guns? Would kids simply open their fathers closets, take the gun and shoot their classmates in school if not _everyone_ had a weapon?

Sorry, but that argument just doesn't stick. You have the highest crime and murder rate in the world for a reason. And it's not JUST because of viodegames ;)

Re:good comment

[apendrag0n3]

While that may be true in your state/municipality, it is NOT true in mine. City ordinances are in place that STRICTLY enforce the Movie and Game rating systems. There are HEFTY fines associated with being caught violating those ratings-based ordinances>

Re:good comment

[hobbesmaster]

I bet those strict ordinances wouldn't survive a court challenge.*

*Assuming that you are living in the US.

Re:I just don't know anymore...

[DoctorDyna]

Actually, as far as I know, "Hot Coffee" wasn't even a mod. It was coded into the game, just like everything else. Before release, the developpers "hid" it, by removing a few key lines, much like turning off PHP support in Apache. The "hack" that enabled it, simply reconfigured the game so that it was once again enabled.

I think thats where alot of the hot coffee trouble started. If it was actually a mod, like CS, then they would be attacking the people who made the mod, rather than going after the software designers who created the game.

The part I don't get is why some of these "video game sex and violence" crusaders are so afraid of life in general. Scene: Man and woman in a room. Woman is kneeling in front of man. Man has a gun to her head. He pulls the trigger. Blood and brain matter are scattered across the wall. Man grabs handful of leftover brain, eats it. End of scene. Hey! this is great TV! Rated R. Let's stick it in a video game! nobody cares. Now, Scene: Man and woman in a room. Woman is kneeling in front of man. Man unzips pants. Woman performs oral sex on man. Man does pants back up. Walks away grinning. End of scene. Rated X. Holy shit. Hide your kids. Do pennance. If it's in a game? Better look out, you'll be in court next time Johnny's parents walk in on him and little Suzi.

Bullshit double standards. Like George Carlin said one time, and I quote. "Don's act disgusted. Half of you are going to go home and go down on each other tonight. If you're willing to swallow cum, let's not make believe something I said was disgusting ok folks?"

That's a relief

[Sloppy]

Good thing a judge cleared before it was published. We wouldn't want something to get published without permission from the government!

Re:Interesting

[cvd6262]

This is anecdotal, but interesting.

A few years ago my undergrad department was planning to build a new building. One of my professors recommended me for a committee that was designing the new labs. In the meeting, professors were scribbling on graph paper to show the layouts they wanted. I decided I could do better in WorldCraft, which I happened to have on my laptop. After a quick demo, they had my laptop on the LCD projector and were directing me to move equipment, furniture, lighting, etc., around until they were satisfied. I then compiled the map, and ran it in Half-Life to get screenshots to show the interior designers what we had in mind.

Of course, for scale and realism, I inserted a couple Half-Life scientists in white lab coats.

Showing some of the professors, who were younger, and, I thought, less likely to be offended, I typed "/impulse 101" into the console (that's the grant-all-weapons cheat), and blew away one in-game scientist with the rocket launcher. The scientist's body gibbed, with half of the skull skidding to my character's feet. Then I went up to another scientist, pulled out the shotgun and shot him. Blood splattered on the terminal behind him, he staggered, and then collapsed.

Far and away, most professors I tested felt the shotgun was more offensive/disturbing than the rocket launcher. (And, yes, I did randomize for the order effect.)

I attribute this effect to the fact that the shotgun was much more realistic than the rocket launcher.

Re:good comment

[TheScottishGuy]

"But what if we need to rise up again against some type of authority that abuses its power? What if the day when everyday citizen will need to protect themselves from the authority? Look at what's going on in U.S. today, is it really that unthinkable that we can no longer trust the people who are suppose to be our 'representatives' in the government??" Do you realistically think that if it comes to us vs the government that a handful of gun club members with colts in the besdide cabinet will be of the slightest use against the national guard or the army? think about the situation you're describing, how many people will take up arms against the government? now think about how many people are employed by the government to bear arms, now imagine those two groups meeting in the street, who'd win? rising up against the government is such a bullshit reason for owning guns it's ridiculous. the right to bear arms is not infringed, you can totally bear arms in a well organized militia, in fact in the us you have a choice, army, navy, marines, air force, shit, ypu even get paid for it. two hicks in a dodge ram with a gun rack does not make a "well organized militia"

Re:good comment

[ender-]

I have to call BS on you. It's only costing an extra couple dollars [as in literally $1-2.00] to add the v-chip to a TV, so I'm afraid that's not a valid argument.

I'll grant you, I don't think it should be federally mandated, as that's not really their place, but as a feature on a TV, it's nice to have. It's useful for those of us with kids, and it is totally, 100% non-intrusive for those who don't want or need to use it. Well, except for when the munchkin manages to keep hitting the v-chip button on the remote while you're watching something, and the 'enter password' prompt pops up unexpectedly, but that's hardly the v-chip's fault. :)