Bully due in October

By Tom Bramwell Published 10 August, 2006

BBFC says it's still unrated.

Rockstar's boringly controversial console title Bully is due for release in October, CNN/Money reports.

The publisher has started talking a bit more openly about Bully in recent weeks - confirming that the game is in development and reportedly adding that it's now a PlayStation 2 exclusive.

The company has even started to show it off to the press, although the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) told us "it isn't anywhere near ready" when we asked whether the game had been rated yet.

The game stars teenager Jimmy Hopkins, student at the fictional Bullworth Academy, who has to defend himself against bullies using various weapons and pranks.

Which all sounds fairly benign, although apparently not to anti-bullying campaigners and grandstanding politicians, who are concerned it'll be rather closer to Rockstar's previous output than Grange Hill.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (20) Latest comment 6 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • jonnyreb #1 6 years ago

    So, a game that depicts a schoolboy taking revenge against Bullies......and how is that encouraging bullying??

  • OnlyMe #2 6 years ago

    Skool Daze 2006 ftw!

  • Moonprince #3 6 years ago

    Heh Skool Daze...

    There was actually a remake of that using Recess on Sky Interactive recently

  • jack_klugman #4 6 years ago

    So, a game that depicts a schoolboy taking revenge against Bullies......and how is that encouraging bullying??

    Hardly very moral is it. Not that GTA is. But somehow the school setting makes it different.
    Edited by 1 at 10/08/06 @ 11:38

  • Errol #5 6 years ago

    Since when is morality a criteria for games ?

    Is Unreal Tournament moral ?

  • Steroyd #6 6 years ago

    If your talking about Morality what about all those WWII FPS's where we keep reminding Germany that they followed the most evil dictator that caused a World War...

    Surely the Geramns would want to forget that piece of history yet the dead horse still gets kicked.

  • Perry #7 6 years ago

    I'm interested in Tom's comment that:

    "Rockstar's boringly controversial console title Bully "

    Why boring? Because of the title? Because controversy around a Rockstar game? Or because you've seen the game and think it is boring?

  • twelveways #8 6 years ago

    ps2 exclusive :(

  • Flabio #9 6 years ago

    If it's not out till October, the BBFC won't be expecting to see it until mid September at the earliest...

  • smoison #10 6 years ago

    LOL nice one Disc,

    I'm not surprised this is not coming out for gamecube....

    I still believe MS will have a new XBOX within 2-3 years (with 3D googles... mabye not) and will drop the XBox 360 like it did the original Xbox.

  • Floppy #11 6 years ago

    So, it'll come out as a PS2 exclusive, just as the PS3 is coming out. Clever.

    I was looking forward to this coming out for the Xbox, but I guess MSoft just don't want to hand over that elusive 360 compatibility code. Annoying, very annoying.

  • twelveways #12 6 years ago

    I think all games should be released for pc regardless of who designs and produces them. We pc gamers are the innocent victims of this console war, Wheres Kofi when you need him?

  • chupachups #13 6 years ago

    "So, a game that depicts a schoolboy taking revenge against Bullies......and how is that encouraging bullying??"

    If the revenge on bullies is to beat them up, then that's just more bullying, regardless of how sympathetic you feel towards the first victim.

    An eye for an eye just leaves everyone blind, to coin a phrase.

  • rinoaMW #14 6 years ago

    "BBFC says it's still unrated."

    overrated more like.... ;)
    Edited by 1 at 10/08/06 @ 14:41

  • smoison #15 6 years ago

    "An eye for an eye just leaves everyone blind"

    Except in video games its more like:

    "An eye for an eye should be some good fun"

    GAMES PEOPLE GAMES

  • Lex_Luthor #16 6 years ago

    "So, it'll come out as a PS2 exclusive, just as the PS3 is coming out. Clever."

    Half Life 2 anyone?

  • TripleSeven #17 6 years ago

    What about it?

  • NegativeZero #18 6 years ago

    Am I the only one for whom the whole premise of this game seems frightfully boring?

  • Perry #19 6 years ago

    Maybe.....

  • kangarootoo #20 6 years ago

    "Apple could become a major competitor by just opening their Operating System to all computers."

    That won't happen any time soon, not that I wouldn't like it to. Application compatability and customer awareness are the two key problems, not the sytstems you can actually run it on.

    Customers don't think that MacOS is compatible with Windows documents, users and products. They also think there isn't that much software for the MacOS.

    We know that both of these concerns are mostly untrue. But people like the security that well know labels bring. "I don't know much about PCs so I want the one that everyone uses" and so on.

    A bit off topic I know.

    "Half Life 2 anyone?"

    Eh?