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Bully Gets In Trouble With School
The Miami Dade school district is moving to pressure Rockstar games over its upcoming game Bully. From the Next Generation article: "Last Thursday, a board committee unanimously approved the resolution. A full board vote is expected this Wednesday. Rockstar issued a written statement to the Herald, which said, 'We all have different opinions about art and entertainment, but everyone agrees that real-life school violence is a serious issue which lacks easy answers.'"
What will it take to make sure the First Amendment is no longer trampled here and there???? Here, the school district is acting like a bully...
Anything that could cause future slashdot readers to get bullied more can't be a good thing.......
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
So instead of fighting the bully problem within their own school district, they're fighting a video game company?
What's the matter, James? No glib remark? No pithy comeback?
Is it a good game? If it is then the content really shouldn't matter, if it isn't then all this hype is going to sell it even better.
A lot of slashdotters were probably bullied (I was) and although it may bring up some bad memories, we don't play GTA because we're secretly drug dealers, or black guys riding a bike through the street as we shoot people. We play them because they're fun, which is what games should be about.
People never complained Mario is full of drug refrences (You can't deny it, please don't try), or that killing aliens in Contra is too violent for children. Back when games were mostly aimed at kids (or geeks with an Amiga), we never heard any of this shit.. Makes me really wonder.
I'd love to meet these people complaining and go "Jump off a bridge" so they could tell me "no" and I could reply with "Well if I can't influence you in person how the hell are games ment to convince me when I have full control of them?
I like muppets.
'We all have different opinions about art and entertainment, but everyone agrees that real-life school violence is a serious issue which lacks easy answers.'
So is war, but that hasn't stopped people from playing games based on war for at least thousands of years.
Chess, anyone?
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Again with the 'Rockstar Bully game will create bullies' meme.
For fucks sake; it is a game where you play a kid being bullied. If people play the game, they will understand what it's like to be bullied. If anything, that will reduce the number of bullies (and might even convert bullies who play the game and see what the're doing).
If I where Rockstar, I'd elevate the profile of that game by sueing legislators for defamation/slander/incorrect reporting/lying.
I'm just still amazed that newspapers and politicians can get away with not just distorting the truth but actively lying about something.
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
Rockstar couldn't buy publicity like this. What do they care if some school district has a problem with it? The "uproar" is small in comparison to the benefits they will reap from this publicity. The types of people that were going to buy the game are still going to, and in addition now more and more people are hearing about it and potentially will also buy it.
nothing
I agree, but it should be noted that the games are rated (M) and that a lot of retailers (2/3, last I heard) do currently restrict the sale of M-rated games to adults.
The problem is that parents buy whatever their kids tell them to, then whine when they don't think it's appropriate.
As for bullies: I was bullied as a kid. Then I learned to fight and kicked the crap out of anyone in high school that tried to bully anyone.
If this game is as open-ended as GTA supposedly is, you should be able to be the anti-bully. But, then, GTA isn't really open-ended...you're never anything but a criminal.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
What people fail to realize is that you're not a bully in the game. Here's the game synopsis:
As a troublesome schoolboy, you'll laugh and cringe as you stand up to bullies, get picked on by teachers, play pranks on malicious kids, win or lose the girl, and ultimately learn to navigate the obstacles of the fictitious reform school, Bullworth Academy.
And since when was this "real-life school violence?" Last I checked, this was a video game.
I was bullied as a child, and the thought of kids playing as a bully really turns my stomach.
Congratulations, you've been sucked in by the Jack Thompson hype. Bully is a game where you fight against the bullies. But don't let little things like facts get in the way, will you?
This is the "think of the children" mindset at work. You are outraged and ignorant. That's a hell of a lot more dangerous than any game, especially when school boards are full of people just like you.
2. We have a legally enforcable age rating system for games in the UK which seems to work reasonably well and, to some extent, has taken the heat out of the violent games debate over here (San Andreas is rated 18, so Hot Coffee just wasn't an issue). Isn't the problem with introducing a similar age rating regimen in the US the fact that Walmart (and possibly other stores) will refuse to stock adult rated games thus effectively preventing their distribution and making them uneconomic to develop. I may be mistaken as I don't live in the US to find out first hand, but it's always seemed to be this, rather than any point of principle, which causes the game industry to object to so strongly to age rating laws over there. If the retailers would be a little more reasonable maybe this wouldn't be such an issue?
Just my two cents: I was also bullied when I was young, but the important thing here is that the game will almost certainly get the highest rating allowed - meaning kids shouldn't be able to buy it in the first place.
Why wasn't Fight Club banned when adults could legally go see it in theatres? Surely it would have provoked an international emergency with sensible adults suddenly beating each other up in the streets.
The content of the game aside, these people are almost admitting that parents will buy the game for their kids anyway. This is totally the wrong approach, they should be campaigning to raise awareness of the game's content to parents so that they don't buy it for their kids, making sure they follow THE LAW.
They're RIGHT! Violence in video games does translate to violence in real life!
Why, just yesterday I flew a Cobra attack helicopter in real life against MEC foes! Not only did BF2 cause me to learn how to fly Cobra attack helicopters, it also helped me to learn racism against Middle Easterns and Chinese! Damned foreigners keep trying to take my fu*king base! Die, die, DIE!!
My hatred for minotaurs and other such creatures has SOARED because of so many times playing NeverWinter Nights. My +2 Longsword (nothing to do with Viagara, thank you) should be in in a few days, and if it's not I'll slash the delivery person with it when it finally arrives. If he's Chinese or Middle Eastern, he's really in trouble.
Of course, my absolute hatred for Nazis was at its peak during the days of Castle Wolfenstein. I want to kill all of them because of that game. In fact, my flight to Brazil leaves in a few days. I found out that some survivors are hiding down there and my Wolfenstein-induced blood rage is starting to take over. Grrrrr....
And you don't know how many people died in my neighborhood with a crowbar after I played HL and HL2.
So, I'm quite certain that when I play Bully I'll want to go to the local high school and just beat the sh*t out of the kids until there's nothing but a pasty, red film on the basketball court. And, hey, with violent video games as my scapegoat, I'll get off with a warning while the Bully developers go to jail!
No, that's not my right eyelid twinging. It's your imagination. { wiping drool off of chin }
Disclaimer: To Jack Thompson and the DHS, this is what's called "sarcasm". Look it up.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
I've played this game before. It was 20 years ago, and it was called Skool Daze, and it was perhaps the best game there had ever been at the time. Utterly, utterly amazing.
I've thought for years that Skool Daze could be remade today and be something special. If Rockstar's description here is accurate, I'm really, really looking forward to this game.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Who cares? I mean.. come on. When are people going to realize that games are just that.. games.. not real life. Who cares if you beat the crap out of some nerd on a video game. Unless that video game is controlling some robot on the other side of the earth that is really beating the crap out of some kid, it's harmless!
How about, before going all out on a game that enacts it, you take care of the real fucking bullies that abound in your schools? Perhaps if you, ya know, punished them for their bullying, the intensity of such would decrease.
Instead, almost every teacher or other school faculty (except the cliche cool janitor) who sees bullying just turns a blind eye as long as someone's tooth isn't knocked out. Maybe if we actually did something about it, we wouldn't have to worry as much about games like this, or people shooting up schools. I can't say I condone Rockstar's game, but there are more immediate (and local) ways to stem this than to try and pressure them.
Yes, I was bullied in school. Thankfully, I didn't get the worst that could happen, but it was still enough to seriously drive me to a point of doing some shooting of my own. The problem is that the bullies turn out to be jocks, or the son of the mayor, and the principal is afraid of punishing them, because heaven forbid our football team lose another game, but it's a-okay that people fail remedial math.
Our schools are messed up because people have the wrong priorities. They push social achievement (sports, arts, etc.) and defer money to that over intellectual achievement. Not that schools sports or band is a bad thing- but when it's taking away from the real purpose of a school, which is education, then they become a problem.
rant rant rant
I've heard the mushrooms [in Super Mario Bros.] to be more of a phallic reference, but that's about it.
Then read this criticism.
...don't think bullying is any worse than carjacking, random street violence, sex with prostitutes, beheading police officers, gang warfare or any of the other stuff that went on in any of the GTA games. That aside, we've had films and comics and tv shows about children inflicting various levels of violence on each other for years - everything from Dennis the Menace, through Lord of the Flies, to Stand By Me. Or take your pick of any film with some jocks-vs-nerds bullying, for that matter.
I got bullied. I don't see how this game has anything to do with that.
Game dev and music blog
Anyone remember Skool Daze on the c64? http://www.mobygames.com/game/c64/skool-daze The objective, to steal back your awful school paper from the headmaster's office. Common activities include: Beating up fellow classmates, fighting with the school bully, shooting anyone you like with your slingshot and hoping someone else gets blamed, skipping classes, writing obscenities on the blackboard and more. Why are the school's piping up now? This type of game has been done before, granted with not as much exposure until now.
Right after he has apparently slid down a flagpole (a strong reference to receiving anal sex), he finds himself in the proverbial sewers, already feeling a deep low from his initial hits wearing off. But after more anal sex, he is high in the mountains, which psychedelically appear as gigantic mushrooms, an obvious result of his hallucinatory state. And then, after even more anal sex, he finds himself in a castle, but it is of his own imagination, built up of his drug-induced isolation, for at the end he thinks he has confronted the kingpin Koopa, but he quickly finds that it is but another hallucination, merely a pusher goomba, though he only discovers this after, in a drug-crazed rage, he kills this apparition of his nemesis.
That made my day. Thanks to the GP :)
The purpose of blaming Rockstar is to direct attention away from themselves, and it's working. If it wasn't Rockstar, they would be blaming Bush, or Harry Potter, or anything else but themselves for how they are taking our tax dollars and failing our children.
Interesting you should mention Crazy Jack. Since the Next-Gen blurb was really short, I went looking for the article they were talking about. A quick google news search found it.
So, who is pushing the school board to do this? None other than Crazy Jack! From the article: "The goal is to make it such a negative thing that the retailers won't carry it," Thompson said. "This thing hasn't really reached critical mass as a [public relations] problem yet; that's what I'm trying to do."
Maybe Crazy Jack is an advisor to Hillary Clinton as well?
Although there is not legal grounds for the school board to do anything, there is a moral standpoint here.
Beating hookers in a game is ok, but this is where draw the line?
There is really no reason for a game like this.
Sure there is; i bet its a fun game to play. Personally I believe there's no reason for the Bible. It serves no real purpose (except to allow weakminded people to be controlled by those who 'spread the word'). Certainly its caused more problems than its solved.
I've got a big problem playing a game that puts me in the position of an antagonist like this (I know, and I don't plan on playing it).
Well, for one, you're not, you're the victim. Can't be bothered to do a little reading though I guess. Secondly, you mention GTA later in your post, what do you think you are there? The good guy?
They are acting upon thier surroundings and developing.
I guess kids just dont' have free will at all.
It is a pity that some turn out to be bullies.
No, its a pity parents are lazy and don't take the time to properly raise their kids. This also manfests itself in other places, such as movie theaters, where you have 13 yr old girls talking through the whole movie.
I'm not equating schoolyard violence to, say, rapists and murderers, but I am equating the exploition there of to be equal. Make a game about harnessing your ability to beat the tar out of (relatively innoccent) school kids, and, in my mind, you may as well be developing a game that lets you rape and murder kids. Developing a vice either way.
You start off saying you're not going to equate the two and finish your paragraph by equating the two. Nice work.
Like I said, one is definately worse than the other, but in my mind exploiting childhood violence, fear, and the feeling that you don't want to go to school because of what's happening to you is just wrong.
You don't even know anything about the game. Shut up already.
But I guess you won't, and you'll continue to just ignore that fact that millions of kids play all kinds of games with people like you deam inappropriate, but yet haven't turned into muggers, rapists and murderers. Just keep pointing to people that are already messed up in the head and say it was the games fault, not the person. Good plan.
1) How about respecting the right of self-defense of victims of bullying. How about congradulating the victim for beating the hell out of the bully when the bully picks a fight and brings violence instead of the school rather than suspending the victim. Strangely, feminists who scream OMG HE'S BLAMING THE VICTIM!!! whenever someone suggests that a rape victim partially instigated her rape by dressing like a whore in a very bad section of town while drunk at 2AM, are eerily silent about this which is the ultimate "blame the victim" card. Yes, little johnny or susy was violently assaulted by a bully, but the pushed the bully back so that makes them bad too. That's how the schools see it. You get repeatedly punched and kicked in the face, but if you touch the aggressor, you're now suspended for fighting. Fascism, brought to you by America's "education system."
2) Expel the violent and disruptive students.
3) Enforce the rules fairly, even if the parents are insanely rich or part of one of those untouchable, Always Noble Protected Classes Whose Shit Never Stinks Especially In Front of An Oppressor Class(tm).
4) Finally, and I know this will be the most controversial one, how you about show no love to the wannabe thugs who attack the black and hispanic kids who actually want to learn. If the thugs want to keep it real, they can do that on someone else's dime, on the street where they won't harass the minorities who want to be something other than street trash.
The bottom line is fighting back against bullies is not nearly as good an idea as it sounds. In fact, it's a pretty bad idea. The reason the bully picked you out is that you're weak. You can't stand up to him without an equalizer, and depending on what this is, it can mean escalation; and that doesn't necessarily end up in a good place for you.
Fantasizing about standing up to a bully in a physical way is natural and inevitable of course, and harmless: provided you know better, safer and more effective strategies.
I am concerned about bullying and my kids, which takes more shapes than physical punishement by the way. I always tell them to take good care of their friends, because some day they may need them. Bullies are attracted to weakness, and the greatest form of weakness is social isolation. Any three geeks probably can stand up to any one bully. They're also witnesses.
While I think fantasy revenge is benign, I do have mixed feelings about a game in which you fight against bullies though. I think that amoral violence may in fact be less corrupting than self-righteous violence. It may well be that such a game has more appeal to bullies than victims.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Regardless of what descriptions claim, this game so far looks like GTA set in a school. It could be argued that the main character in San Andreas technically wasn't a bad guy, except that almost immediately he ends up committing some serious crimes. The few screenshots available show a kid who looks like a troublemaker and a group of kids beating the crap out of each other. Given Rockstar's consistency in developing violent games I would expect more of the same here.
I do think that these people are over-reacting. There's plenty of crap out there outside of games. This attention games are getting is pretty much a ploy by politicians to win votes. Parents dont seem to want the responsibility of raising their own kids anymore. If they're concerned about this game, don't let them play it. Don't expect the government to raise your kids for you.
On the other hand, I can't help but think Rockstar is simply looking to get a rise out of people. They're using controversey to sell their games. They certainly aren't creating art here, they just seem to be obsessed with excessive violence. So now they're developing a game which hits closer to home for many people and will be certain to grab plenty of attention.
There were plenty of games with questionable subject matter back in the early days of gaming. However, there's a big difference today. Those old games had crappy, blocky graphics and relatively simplistic gameplay. Games today look fairly realistic, and they provide gameplay that is a reasonable facsimile of real life. It's all polygons and textures, but the experience has a stronger impact than pixelated sprites.
At some point we're going to have games that look absolutely real and when we reach that point we're going to see some serious debates regarding what is permissible. Are we going to allow games where you can tear people to pieces and experience it in all its graphic detail? When will everyone agree that enough is enough? Certainly developers have to be responsible to some extent for the content they produce.
For the most part, such subject may not necessarily drive anyone to reproduce what they've seen. However, it certainly does desensitize people. It makes them indifferent to atrocities. That, I believe, is a greater danger than a bunch of kids suddenly turning into bullies or being inspired to run around carjacking.
School violence doesn't lack easy answers. The answers are very easy, they're just not good for the powers at the school.
If funds for the teachers union were tied to eliminating school violence, there would be no school violence. Those funds are what schools are about, and it's the only thing about them that matters.
If education were about the students rather than payroll, it would be very different than what happens at schools these days.
I discovered this the time I finally snapped. I waited until the bully was totally unsuspecting, leaning against a car talking to someone. Then I ran up and smashed his head backwards into the metal edge of the car roof. Could have killed him, probably gave him a good headache for the rest of the day. He never bothered me again.
Which makes my point. If anybody had seen you who was inclined to report you, it would be you who ended up expelled and possibly in jail for assault. It is also not out the bounds of possiblity that you could have killed him, in which case you might have ended up in jail for manslaughter, possibly murder if you couldn't produce.
Bullies don't want to go near someone who will randomly and unexpectedly snap and hit back with potentially life-threatening violence.
True, but unless you are a consumate actor, you have no way of convincing them of this. Furthermore, you are fortunate that the bully didn't come back with his friends and beat the crap out of you. Or shoot you. That's the problem with using violence on violent people: the results are unpredictable.
The reason the bully picked you out is that you were perceived as weak.
There are more ways to be strong than physically strong or capable of inflicting pain.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
You forget Rule #1: You do not talk about fight club.
Of course adults all over the world began beating each other up, but NOT ON THE STREETS! They did it in private! And why didn't you hear about it? YOU DO NOT TALK ABOUT FIGHT CLUB!
...in the real world, bullies NEVER gets in trouble with schools.
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
I disagree wholeheartedly. My son (and other kids) were being bullied by a kid in his school. I tried talking to the teachers, but they said that their punishments weren't having much effect and the kid's parents weren't interested.
So, I taught my son three rules:
I also directly informed the teachers about our plan (their one-word reaction: "good!").
That was two months ago, and after two good smacks in the snout (and one miss - my son missed and nailed him in the eye), the bully is no more. My son wasn't the only one to benefit, either: the other kids realized that this worked pretty well.
I made it clear to my boy that I never, ever condone him starting fights. However, neither will I ever punish him for defending himself.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
How about paying attention to the problem? I only have my own school experiences to base this off of, but I can't imagine that mine were unique. Administrators and teachers seemed to go out of their way to ignore obvious harassment.
Luckily, this never resulted in anything Columbine-like in nature happening at my school. However I have no doubt at all that should that have happened, they would claim to have never saw it coming.
I was excited when I read the title of this story and thought it was about a school taking a stand against bullying. Sadly, it's about a school taking a stand against a game about bullying.
I'd be more impressed by the former.
Congratulations, you've been sucked in by the Jack Thompson hype. Bully is a game where you fight against the bullies. But don't let little things like facts get in the way, will you?
And this is exactly the reason why school boards are up in arms against this game: they don't want anyone standing up to the bullies, because that challenges the social order that exists in America's schools. Bullies have long enjoyed power in America's schools, and teachers and school administrations and school boards have done everything they can to preserve this status quo. Students suffering from abuse by other students have always been pushed aside and ignored, because school in the USA is NOT a place to learn, but to be brainwashed into a social order where intellectuals are second-class citizens and everyone is brainwashed into conformity and taught never to question authority, no matter how stupid that authority is.
This game challenges everything the US school system is built upon.
First of all, I wouldn't say you did the wrong thing. It sounds to me like the right thing in this instance. You exhausted the preferable options, looked at what was left, and took a calculated risk. You were fortunate it worked out well. Even in benign conditions things could have been different.
I'm a martial artist. I help teach people how to fight. I'm aware that sometimes it's the best option, even if it is never a good option. I also know that that a lot of foolish people have a romantic notion of what fighting is like that makes them underestimate the downsides. They look at a story like yours, out of context, and say, "there, the solution to bullying is to pop the bully in the nose." They miss the fact that you tried your other options first. That you weighed the age and physical maturity of your son and the bully, and the probability that the bully would have friends who retaliated.
The notion that fighting is a sure-fire answer is attractive because righteous violence just feels good.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Wrong.
Take an animal in a cage, and over the course of months or years, torment it and beat it. Eventually, what do you expect the animal will do? It'll lose its mind, and attack anything moving or worse.
Why is it that we as a society expect children to endure constant torture and torment without going completely nuts?
Columbine should have been a wake-up call to show what's wrong with the American education system, and how kids treat each other when there's absolutely no penalties for bad behavior. Instead, the killers were demonized and entirely blamed for the incident, instead of the kids in their school who made their lives such living hell that they decided to end them, but not without taking a few others with them.