Miami Court Orders Take Two to Hand Over Bully

Jabrwock writes "GamePolitics.com reports that a judge in Miami ruled that Take Two Interactive, makers of the controversial title Bully, must hand over a copy of the soon to be released game to the court within 24 hours. Jack Thompson, the plaintiff, called the ruling a 'huge victory against the violent video game industry', although Take Two can still appeal the order. Thompson filed a lawsuit asking the court to label Bully a 'public nuisance' and restrict its October 17 release in Florida."

Comments

Are they actually restricting sales of the game?

[rdwald]

Does this ruling actually affect sales of the game, or is it just to let the judge play the game himself and see if it's actually as bad as Thompson claims?

Unnecessary Fear of an Otherwise Innocent Title

[Bones3D_mac]

From my understanding, Bully is actually not the type of game the title and Take Two's reputation in the game industry would imply. So much so, that the game has actually received surprisingly mild ratings from reviewers regarding any sort of violence in the game what-so-ever.

The game literally has very little to do with going around GTA style, beating up defenseless weaklings at random. In fact, it's quite the opposite and promotes standing up to the adversity that bullies present in humorous ways. Honestly, I'd say parents have more to fear from your typical Mario title than they do from Bully.

This movement is entirely motivated by who is making the game, rather than the content of the game itself.

Re:Are they actually restricting sales of the game

[Elemenope]

Thing is - there isn't much more time than that between the handover deadline and the game's release...

And perhaps you nailed it right on the head. Sometimes, when a judge wants to have a little fun with a particularly vexatious or obtuse litigant, he'll take their more absurd motions and put constrainst on them that make their fulfillment render the cause of action moot. So, perhaps this judge thinks it silly and so requested something (like 100 hours of gameplay) that can't be fulfilled before general release to make sure that he won't be placed in the awkward position of having to rule on the legality of its distribution. (And, anyway, wouldn't that be a flagrant case of Prior Restraint?)

Re:Just wait until the see the sequel:

[Elemenope]

Barratry charges are unbelievably rare, and the main reasons are:

1. Everyone involved is a lawyer, so there is a version of that blue wall of silence that every profession has to some degree

2. Our system needs to be accessible, and so it is better overall to err on the side of an occasional asshat filing a frivolous lawsuit and letting it slide, rather than an important casue of action being barred and a wronged person denied their day in court.

3. Courts generally have better things to do than defenestrate annoying lawyers.

Honestly, I think in many jurisdictions it's more number one than number two, but number two sure does make a dandy fig leaf. And number three is always a factor; many jurisdictions have dockets jammed to the hilt and extremely finite resources.