The
decision is the result of a legal action brought against the
publishers by veteran anti-game violence campaigner Jack Thompson.
Thompson wants the game to be declared a "public nuisance" in
Florida and blocked from sale and its rating upped from 'T', which
means it can be sold to people aged 13 and older.
Ronald Friedman, a judge at Miami-Dade County Circuit Court, has
ordered a copy of the game for review in a step unprecedented in
recent times in the US.
Previous rulings on similar issues had established that a
court's pre-publication review of material constituted a violation
of first amendment rights. The first amendment of the US
Constitution enshrines the right to free speech.
"In Florida you have what is called a nuisance statute which
says that a private citizen can get an injunction to shut down any
commercial activity that is dangerous to the public, so I think
that the statute is appropriate to apply to this game," Thompson
told OUT-LAW Radio last month. " I filed the lawsuit to
prevent the sale of the game to school age kids, because this is
where the real danger is."
"In the UK, you embody in your laws the notion that there is
certain adult entertainment that shouldn't be sold to kids," he
said. "No-one is trying to ban it outright, but as it stands now,
regardless of the rating that the game may get, anyone of any age
will be able to buy it and that is just very dangerous. America has
become the land of the free and the home of the utterly
depraved."
Bully is set in a boarding school and involves the player
becoming a school boy who has to negotiate and sometimes fight his
way through school life, with all its cliques and
confrontations.
Rockstar Games, the Take Two subsidiary responsible for the
game, was pilloried for its last game, Grand Theft Auto San
Andreas, after a hidden sex scene was found in the game. Originally
rated for people aged 17 and older, the game was re-rated as adults
only after causing a political storm.
With the game due for release in under a week, doubts are
beginning to emerge, though, about whether or not Bully is actually
very violent. Wired journalist Clive Thompson is one of the few
people to have seen the game and wrote in his review that: "it
turns out the game doesn't glorify bullying at all. Indeed, it's
almost precisely the opposite".
"In Bully, there's no blood, and the stakes are pretty
low," wrote Thompson. "One of the biggest 'crimes' is staying out
after curfew, or wandering around when you ought to be in class.
Even then, all that happens is the prefects hunt you down and put
you in detention, where you play word and puzzle minigames."
The Miami-Dade County Court said that the judge would review the
game with a representative of Take Two. The game is released on
17th October.
