Veteran campaigner against violence in games and music Jack
Thompson had brought a case asking for the game to be banned in
Florida as a public nuisance. Judge Friedman has said that though
the game is violent it is not a nuisance.
Bully, which will be released as Canis Canem Edit in the UK, is
due for release on 17th October. It is a school-based game in which
the player becomes a new arrival who has to negotiate his way
through the complex and sometimes violent world of boarding
school.
Last week Friedman surprised civil rights activists by ordering
Bully publisher Take Two to demonstrate the game to him in
contravention of recent legal precedent which does not support
pre-publication rulings on material.
Friedman, though, said that the game should not be banned before
its sale, according to the Miami Herald, which had a reporter in
the court room. "There's a lot of violence. A whole lot. Less than
we see on television every night," he said, according to the Miami
Herald. "Does that mean I would want my children to view it? No.
But does it rise to a point that its a nuisance? The answer is no
from what I saw."
Thompson's choice of the "public nuisance" argument was an
unusual one. Many states had previously passed laws banning the
sale of violent and sexually explicit games to young people but
courts have by and large ruled the laws unconstitutional. They have
found them in contravention of the US Constitution's first
amendment, which guarantees the right to free speech.
"In Florida you have what is called a nuisance statute which
says that a private citizen can get an injunction to shut down any
commercial activity that is dangerous to the public, so I think
that the statute is appropriate to apply to this game," Thompson
told OUT-LAW Radio last month. "I filed the lawsuit to prevent
the sale of the game to school age kids, because this is where the
real danger is."
"In the UK, you embody in your laws the notion that there is
certain adult entertainment that shouldn't be sold to kids," he
said. "No-one is trying to ban it outright, but as it stands now,
regardless of the rating that the game may get, anyone of any age
will be able to buy it and that is just very dangerous. America has
become the land of the free and the home of the utterly
depraved."
Friedman said that he would schedule a further hearing after the
release of the game. Thompson told the Miami Herald that he did not
plan to pursue the case further.
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