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The British Columbia Teachers’ Federation, the Canadian Teachers’ Federation, and teachers from throughout the Caribbean, the United Kingdom, and North America are calling on parents to boycott the mean-spirited and harmful video game: Bully–Scholarship Edition to be released on March 4, 2008. The producer of the video is the Vancouver-based Rockstar.

“Instead of ridding the schoolyard of bullies as the promotional materials claim, this video trivializes vicious bullying,” says Irene Lanzinger, president of the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation. “It stereotypes female students as either sex-pot cheerleaders or overweight losers.”

In both the 2006 version of Bully and the Bully: Scholarship Edition, the American Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), a non-regulated industry rating group, commented that the Bully video game depicted scenes of violence, crude language, sexual themes, use of tobacco and alcohol, and crude humour. The 2008 version also warned parents that the game shows “animated blood.”

“With bullying and school violence high on the agenda of public concerns, teachers and parents increasingly question the impact of violent interactive media on children’s growing minds and bodies,” says Emily Noble, president of the Canadian Teachers’ Federation. “The proliferation of cyberbullying via cell phones, the Internet, and blogs, means that victims can now be bullied anywhere with devastating consequences for the victims.”

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[ 17 March 2008: Message edited by: Timebandit ]

I remember admonishing a couple of friends for engaging in this 'school sport'; but I never had the nerve to befriend him, or to confront the 'jocks' who harassed him even more regularly.

Sadly, the sex scene was the only one of those that would push the ESRB to give any one of those games an 'Adults Only' rating.

But I call BS on the whole impact of violent interactive media on children's growing minds and bodies thing. This is the cover puritans use to work for mass censorship of games, music, films, and TV. It also provides shelter for parents and governments who don't want to deal with the real causes of child-related social problems.

Try to find real empirical evidence of a causal link between violent video games and violent crime. There isn't any. Though we might find it interesting that the rise of violent video games in the 90s (starting from Wolfenstein 3D, then Doom, Quake, Duke Nukem, Unreal, etc etc) coincides with a major drop in violent crime rates in both the US and Canada.

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Originally posted by Proaxiom:
Try to find real empirical evidence of a causal link between violent video games and violent crime. There isn't any.

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You really have no way of proving that the video game increases bullying at all. How are we to know that victims of bullying don't use as a form of coping or resistance? We don't because adults always make policy for youth based on their suspicions and very rarely see what young people are actually doing or how they think about issues.

Do you think that violent video games teach your kid to be a bully? Or is it maybe the incredibly violent society that s/he lives in?

Check it...

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My objection to the bullying game is not so much the violence (although I don't like it), but the fact that the bully/victim dynamic is being promoted and reinforced by further practice.

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Hard to call what the target audience is for this video game... The darker humour and references made are really only going to be caught by people who are post-university (ok, perhaps post-highschool). My younger sister (in her 20's attending university) thought this was the funniest game she's ever seen.

I agree with the boycott for parents... But no more than parents should be watching the ratings for their children. Most that can be made is a case for a 17+ rating instead of a teen.