Bully Banned by Some British Retailers

stormhair writes "The BBC is reporting that shops in the DSG Group (Currys and PC World) are banning Bully from their shelves. A spokesman says: 'We took a view that because it touches on a sensitive issue — violence in school — that it is not a product we would stock.' DSG has withdrawn other games from their shelves in the past — Hitman and Manhunt."

Comments

No biggie

[Pharmboy]

Sounds like they are trying to be responsible retailers, according to their own reasonable definitions. Every store should have the right (and does in most places) to stock what games or products it wants, and if they think a title is not good for their customers, they don't stock it. Not sure why this is news.

I am sure some will scream "censorship!", which is of course silly, and only the government can censor. I call this "setting standards for what products you carry". If you really want Bully, I am sure there are plenty of other places that sell it.

Re:No biggie

[Broken scope]

Eh,there has been a roaring discussion on gamepolitics today about this. The store that does this claims it is doing this to help their "Familiy friendly" image.

Then they take pre-orders for vice city stories, the new scarface game, and the next GTA.

Family friendly my ass. This is pure knee jerk reaction, it has nothing to do with settign standards.

Re:No biggie

[LargeWu]

It's pretty apparent, they come right out and say it - they object to school violence specifically, rather than violence in general.

Re:No biggie

[squiggleslash]

The fact that someone has the right to make a stupid, mis-informed, panders-to-ignorant decision does not make it any less stupid, any less mis-informed, or any less pandering to ignorant. Just as they have the right to make that decision, people have the right to complain about it. In a context where people are making the most outrageous and clearly untrue allegations about the game, a retailer who refuses to stock it on the basis of largely, apparently, bogus allegations deserves criticism, whether it's their right to refuse to stock it or not.

Every time there's a story about some institution promoting this kind of ignorance, there's always someone who comes up with the whole "It's their right!" bullshit. But nobody is saying it's not their right.

Quit it with the straw men and address the issues here. Stop acting as if everytime someone has the legal right to make a decision, it's somehow beyond criticism. Dixon's decision is very much open to criticism, far more so than Rockstar's decision to make the game in the first place.

Re:No biggie

[m0rph3us0]

Maybe Families find that killing people is something they value, while beating up kids at school is not. Many people are OK with the concept of prisions, but not kidnapping / unlawful confinement. It's their store, if you want to make a store that stocks only gore games, go right ahead, and when the city council won't grant you a business permit we will rally right behind you. Freedom is the ability to do what you want, not make others do what you want.

Re:No biggie

[thatguywhoiam]

Every store should have the right (and does in most places) to stock what games or products it wants, and if they think a title is not good for their customers, they don't stock it. Not sure why this is news.

Of course they can carry what they like. The 'news' part is, they've done this without having actually seen the game (banned before it went on sale). So in this sense they can ban all they like, but we know for a fact that this was indeed a kneejerk reaction; they simply decided the controversy would cost more than selling the game. On that one I think they are probably wrong - but this is not a major games chain primarily, so its just WalMart all over again.

Re:No biggie

[grumbel]

I am sure some will scream "censorship!", which is of course silly, and only the government can censor.

In a strict sense that is of course right. However what Walmart and other big retailers do results in practically the same situation. Publishers try very hard to avoid AO raitings, because an AO game simply couldn't be sold since the large retailers won't stock it. Its of course still the publishers that decides what should go in or out of a game, but ultimatly they get it dictated by Walmart and friends. The choice between 'publishing what you want and going bankrupt' and 'publishing what Walmart says and getting stuff sold' isn't exactly a free choice.

Its of course everybodys decisions what he wants to stocks and what not, if large retailers however get so large that they are close to monopoly they get far more influence then they should have.

Re:No biggie

[laxcat]

I don't know if they're reacting to the game itself or to its (most definitely misinformed) reaction in the public. But misinformed or not, the reason they state for not carrying this game just happens to be true. I played 4 hours or so of the game last night and it most certainly "touches on a sensitive issue -- violence in school." Overblown in the media? You bet. But the simple fact of it is this game has plenty of violence in it. No guns, sure. No one dies, sure. But I've beat up like 20 kids already with pretty much no consequences. Some people in the community might, and justifiably so, take offense to that.

It should also be noted that a good number of these beatings were required to progress in the game.

That said, I don't feel as if the US rating of "T for Teen" is wrong. I understand the rating is even a little stiffer in the UK.

-1 Misleading

[voice_of_all_reason]

Clearly they are not refusing to stock it because of its content -- the British apparently have some fetish against single-word titles.

Are they offering Pong, Gorf, or Combat? I rest my case!

Re:-1 Misleading

[Broken scope]

It is called canis canum edit (Dog eat Dog) in europe.

PC World and Currys...

[LighterShadeOfBlack]

Just to clarify, PC World and Currys are NOT major games retailers, Currys is an electrical goods store and PC World is primarily for PC hardware. This isn't much of a blow to Rockstar at all.

In other news...

[Xest]

...Scientists discover that the amount of Dixons stores in the UK is inverseley proportional to the amount of games they ban.

Keep on digging Dixons, those high street stores are dropping like flies, this kind of stunt isn't going to save you!

On a more serious note it's a shame that our stores seem to so freely endorse censorship but then I've never understoond this country, sometimes we seem to be fairly free in what we can do and say and Americans envy this and other times we seem to be so pro censorship on certain issues yet no one seems to bat an eyelid. Things certainly seem to be done differently here, in the US there's lawsuits to ban bully but shops sound like they're willing to stock it, here individual stores randomly decide to put themselves at a competitive disadvantage by banning it off their own back, I'll never understand that one, I guess they just feel that it strengthens their family friendly brand which I guess is understandable, it is only your run of the mill know nothing about IT families that do shop at Dixons/PC World.

Banned? Too strong a word.

[Half-pint HAL]

Do specialist Heavy-Metal music shops "ban" classical music? No, they just choose not to stock it.

Why? Because they don't think their intended audience want to see it in the shop.

That's all DSG are doing: choosing their stock to suit their market.

HAL

Re:Banned? Too strong a word.

[LoudMusic]

That's all DSG are doing: choosing their stock to suit their market.

I don't know if I'm surprised that /. used a media hype tactic, but you are correct. "Banned" is not the appropriate word. They've simply decided to not stock the product.

A friend of mine ownes what is effectively a modern arcade. He has XBoxes and PCs set up for playing current games and actually packs the house on the weekends, with regular customers throughout the weekdays. Parents often ask him what kinds of games the children will be playing and what activities go on there. He tries to keep it clean and friendly and chooses to not offer certain games. It keeps the parents happy and after all it's their money he's getting.

In some countries this might BE censorship

[davidwr]

If you lived in a country with only one major retailer, or a single consortium of retailers who as a whole decided to not carry the game, then this would be a good SlashDot Censorship story.

Even then, you could still buy it online or from abroad, or from a minor "independent" retailer. But that's a lot more work than going to your nearby Super Mega Mart or even your corner Kwikee-Mart.

Re:There will always be a few

[thatguywhoiam]

I am still curious about Bully, is it realy about school violence? To me getting into a fist fight isn't school violence. School violence involves knives, guns, and sever beatings... Are there any reviews out there on the game yet? or moreo n what the game is HONESTLY like? All I have seen are the numerous articles about that idiot attacking the game, and nothing about what the game is really like.

I can tell you what its really like. Played for hours last night.

First off: it is basically GTA meets Harry Potter. But the violence is nowhere near what GTA was; for instance, nobody ever dies, you can't kill people (near as I can tell). And I didn't see any blood.

What you will see is your protagonist hoodlum kid - who is not particularly likeable - immediately set upon by one of the myriad other cliques in the school (jocks, preps, etc). And yes, they sometimes come at you sporting planks of wood or bricks or slingshots.

And you beat the living crap out of them.

Now, I will leave it as an exercise to the reader if this goes beyond the bounds of 'acceptable' entertainment. I thought it was a blast. It is basically your standard male revenge-fantasy, put into a GTA-like sandbox setting with a lot of crisscrossing plot points that you can pick up and put down at will.

Getting into fights will get you busted by overpowering 'prefects' who are essentially the cops of the game. You 'wake up' at the Principal's Office, or the infimary, etc. when this happens. If you get away, you get away. The only thing you can do to the prefects is a fast kick in the nuts, and then you hoof it out of there (or into a locker, or trash can; many shades of Metal Gear in this part of the game - particularly the hiding in lockers part).

If you attack a girl, she instantly neuters you and runs away at light speed. Then the prefects nab you.

So - its not like Columbine, even remotely. No firearms. No trenchcoats. In the standard Rockstar style, they try to obviate the lighter moral questions by making sure that practically every character in the game is an utter bastard in some respect or another. The prefects are assholes. The nerds are assholes (they can't fight but have other tricks). The teachers are assholes. Everyone is an asshole, including you.

(I tried playing the game initally as a sort of 'noble Bully' and you can do that - but quickly you realise that you are just helping another faction.)

So in the end, the controversy is that kids beat each other up in this game and play mean pranks. That's it. It's rated T for Teen in Canada, and that is a fair rating in my opinion.

Banned? How sensational.

[PFI_Optix]

The stores didn't ban it. They chose not to sell it. They made a business decision and that's their right. This isn't a ban; they won't be preventing others from selling it or kicking in your door to take it from you.

But don't let the facts get in the way of your Slashbotism.