With titles such as Grand Theft Auto and Manhunt 2 under its belt, developer and publisher, Rockstar Games has become synonymous with the word ‘controversy’ in recent years. So when the firm revealed that it was to re-release Bully for the Nintendo Wii and Microsoft Xbox 360 this year, it wouldn’t have taken a genius to predict that the game would be the catalyst for another wave of moralistic uproar. So, in the light of certain stores refusing to stock it and this writer having to produce two forms of identification in order to purchase Bully, does it really deserve the negative attention and condemnation it has been getting? Xboxic thinks not.

First launched for the Sony PlayStation 2 in 2006, Bully (or Canis Canem Edit - Latin for ‘Dog Eat Dog’ as it was re-named in Europe) is a sandbox-style experience set in the fictional educational setting of the Bullworth Academy. Its protagonist is one Jimmy Hopkins, a teenage boy dumped at the school gates by his mother, who shirks the responsibility of raising her son in favour of spending a year-long honeymoon with her new husband. The game follows the trials and tribulations of the shaven-headed, freckled fifteen-year-old as he struggles to fit in, gain the respect of his peers and learn to deal with everything that the unwritten Rules of the Playground throw at him.

Jimmy is far from the model pupil, having been expelled from seven schools for offences including vandalism, violent conduct and graffiti, but as we soon learn, his morals and ethics are of a much higher standing than both his fellow pupils and Bullworth’s staff. However, this fact seems to, once again, escaped the notice of members of a number of organisations, who have used the event of Bully’s re-release to pipe about the game’s apparent brutality and general bad taste.

In Britain, the National Union of Teachers’ general secretary Steve Sinnott said that “the idea of a game that rewards bullies and those who engage in brutal and savage attacks is irresponsible in the extreme.” However, Sinnott actually done his research on Bully properly, he would have in fact realised that should Hopkins engage in unprovoked attacks on other students, then he is almost immediately reprimanded by the nearest prefect or teacher. Furthermore, assaults on teachers or any adult result in punishment. No one wants to be forced into mowing the football pitch in detention, which actively encourages the player to respect authority figures and those individuals who are weaker than you.

A spokesperson for the Beatbullying charity group has also spoken out, claiming that Rockstar’s creation glorifies and encourages violence, adding that the Nintendo Wii version, which requires motion gesturing to carry out attacks, is “frightening.” From this writer’s experience, flailing the Wii Remote and Nunchuck to attack other pupils with punches, kicks and lunges is far from a representation of the real thing. With no bloodshed or sign of serious injury (everyone gets up and walks away just fine), most playground bouts are more akin to slapstick comedy to the unadulterated violence that it is being made out to be.

One of Hopkins’ most important phrases, repeated throughout the game is that he “only gives people what they have coming to them.” This opinion is a signifier of Jimmy’s maturity in understanding relationships, both between himself and others and the affects others are having on those around him. This stance is proven on numerous occasions throughout Bully, as the game’s central character is seen in situations defending Nerds, advising his English teacher to leave behind his reliance on alcohol and - perhaps most poignantly - telling a much larger antagonist that while there are many pupils that deserve a beating, he should lay off picking on those smaller than him. Jimmy’s social intelligence is further emphasised by the failings of those around him – such as the principal Dr. Crabblesnitch, who dubs bullying as “school spirit;” Russell Northtrop, who seems to relish in the act of assaulting others, and Gary Smith, described as a sociopath on a mission to take over Bullworth Academy, intent on causing mayhem with little or no consideration for anybody else.

Other critics of have slammed Rockstar for changing the game’s name back to Bully in the United Kingdom. The Labour MP Keith Vaz, who has campaigned against violent videogames, said, “The idea that people should be glorifying bullying is just tasteless. It is hardly encouraging good social values for our children. Just the name Bully is going to attract young people to buy it.” That’s marketing, Vaz, just in the same way that films are often given provocative titles in order to create hype and attract an audience. There’s no doubting that the re-naming Bully to Canis Canem Edit (we doubt it was Rockstar’s decision, more so Sony’s) dented its sales the first time around, much in the same way that The Texas Chainsaw Massacre might never have been as alluring to audiences should it have been pressured by the censors into being re-titled, A Haunted House in Texas With Nasty People In It. Bully has been rated so that no person under fifteen years of age should play it, so the fact that children below that age might be attracted to it (and still fire the software up on their Nintendo Wiis and Microsoft Xbox 360s in many cases, we assume) is not the problem of Rockstar, but one for retailers and parents to contend with.

Rockstar’s latest defence for Bully includes reiterating the fact that it is not a game in which players are taught to make other people’s lives a misery, but one in which Jimmy Hopkins protects children against others. A spokesperson for the firm added that people ”have to be able to make their own decisions and to judge for themselves, with an open mind.” And with that said, it is clear that this is what Bully’s biggest detractors haven’t done. In a blatant case of misinformation, they’ve jumped the gun and – as is often the case - used videogames as an easy scapegoat for problems in schools and the wider society. That said, compared to the violence and gore in other videogames, the case for the banning of Bully is ridiculous, whether taking into regard its school setting or not. In fact, when infamous attorney Jack Thompson’s attempts to get the game removed from shelved originally failed back in 2006, a Floridian judge favoured the case of Rockstar because he deemed Bully’s content as nothing worse than what is screened after the television watershed every night.

Let’s just leave it with this thought: did the original release of Bully cause an epidemic of trouble in schools – a rise in violence, stink bomb or egging and slingshot attacks? Are we really to believe that with all the images of violent conduct that minors are exposed to in all forms of media today are to be superseded by, much less harmful and dangerously influential than a stocky, polygonal child giving other virtual characters Chinese burns?

Give us, Bully, and videogaming industry in general, a break.