The video game bullies

U.S. senators and conservative groups want to ban "Bully," citing fears it could cause another Columbine. But research on kids and violence -- and the game's own merits -- expose just another round of political gamesmanship.

By Farhad Manjoo

Read more: Technology & Business, Politics, News, Farhad Manjoo

Jimmy Hopkins, left, in a screen shot of "Bully."

Nov. 11, 2006 | The enchanting and addictive new video game "Bully" is set in an imposing red-brick and ivy-covered Northeastern boarding school, that familiar launching pad for so many adolescent epics. Like Holden Caulfield, Jimmy Hopkins, the game's blank-faced teenage antihero, is a mess of internal impulses. He's a bad kid. Your job, unexpectedly, is to help him do good. In a typical early mission, for instance, Algernon, one of the neediest nerds at school, has been set upon by a gaggle of bullies. Rotund, whiny and afflicted with an overactive bladder, Algernon is the archetypal outcast. You've got to escort Algie to the bathroom before he wets himself, fending off all the bullies who want to harm him along the way. If you get the fat kid safely to the john, you'll gain some respect among the nerds and your standing in school will climb.

Does this sound like a task one might find in a game that critics have taken to calling a "Columbine simulator"? "Bully" was released to the public on Oct. 17, but it's been the subject of raging debate for more than a year now. The debate illustrates the precarious political and cultural position that the video game industry finds itself in. A bipartisan gang of politicians (from Hillary Clinton on the left to Sam Brownback on the right), school officials, child-rearing experts, and family-values types blame games for inducing all manner of delinquent, antisocial and dangerous behavior in children. It's an old claim, and there remains scant scientific proof for it -- but that seems to matter little in the fight over "Bully."

"Bully" was bound to spark controversy. For one thing, it's made by Rockstar Games, the company that produced the indulgently violent and hugely popular "Grand Theft Auto" series. For another, "Bully" is set in a school. Critics have long feared the worst from it -- that "Bully" would be "Grand Theft Auto" on campus, encouraging every long-suffering adolescent malcontent to live out his nihilistic revenge fantasies on school grounds.

Since long before its release, "Bully's" critics have suggested the game might cause irreparable harm in teens. In March, the Miami-Dade school board passed a resolution urging local retailers not to sell the game, warning that it could "serve as a violence rehearsal simulator on which teens will prepare, either wittingly or unwittingly, for acts of violence in schools." The nonpartisan National Institute on Media and the Family, one of the many national organizations that aim to clean up pop culture, says "Bully" encourages antisocial behavior. Experts at the Bullying Prevention Program at Clemson University fear that the game might exacerbate schoolyard altercations,and have encouraged boycotts. Days before the game's release, the industry's most relentless opponent, crusading Miami lawyer Jack Thompson, took his case against "Bully" to court, arguing that the game violated Florida's public nuisance laws (usually used to prosecute environmentally unruly corporations). In response, Judge Ronald Friedman ordered Rockstar's parent firm, Take-Two, to show him an advance copy of "Bully" so that he could determine its legality; after reviewing the game, he quickly ruled that "Bully" posed no nuisance.

Yet the very idea that a court screened a game before its release chills many in the industry. The move is in line with legislative efforts offered in a handful of states (including California, Illinois and Michigan) that aim to bar the sale of games like "Bully" to minors. In March, Clinton and fellow Democrats Joe Lieberman and Evan Bayh proposed just such a measure in the Senate, seeking to fine retailers for selling "mature" games to people under 17. But because federal courts have previously struck down similar state bills on the grounds that they violate the First Amendment, the Democrats joined with Republicans Rick Santorum and Sam Brownback to push through a measure calling on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to study how video games affect children. The move was considered a way to solve the constitutional problems that have so far bedeviled attempted bans on selling games to minors -- if the CDC can prove that games cause violence in kids, then courts might agree to overlook free speech concerns.

But can anyone prove that games pose enough danger to warrant prohibition? Politicians often quote the views of leading scientific and medical groups, many of which have adopted tough-sounding views against games. In 2005, the American Psychological Association declared that exposure to violent video games "increases aggressive behavior, increases aggressive thoughts, increases angry feelings, decreases helpful behavior, and increases physiological arousal." The American Academy of Pediatrics has adopted a similar view.

But scientists who've looked into the research are critical of these conclusions. The main problem, they point out, is that it is exceedingly difficult to design psychological experiments that show how games work on the adolescent mind. Making a kid play a game for 15 minutes in a psych lab is a very different experience from playing at home for hours. And how do you measure "violence" in such a setting -- is the game harmful if it makes a kid more likely to hit a doll (a measurement used in several experiments)?

As a result of such difficulties, studies have yielded various views as to whether and how video games affect kids. Some show that violent games make kids more aggressive, while others show they do not increase aggression. One meta-study that reviewed a number of experiments into violent games found that they slightly increase aggressive behavior, but another meta-review found that the longer kids play such video games, the less tendency there is for the games to affect behavior. "The fact is that there isn't a lot of very good research to back these claims up," concludes Jonathan Freedman, a psychologist at the University of Toronto, Scarborough. "The argument is very weak."

Lost in the political debate and scientific struggle, meanwhile, are the dazzle and complexity of the games themselves. "Bully" -- whose basic storyline has the main character fighting, cajoling, tricking, befriending and escaping the school's various cliques in an effort to upset the established order -- re-creates a labyrinthine virtual world, one even more layered than the legendarily deep environment of "Grand Theft Auto." But "Bully" is remarkable not only for its sophisticated artificial environment but also for the sheer cleverness of its plot and the striking originality of its characters. Here is a game that's funny, that you play for the biting satire of its storyline as well as the action.

After watching a Rockstar rep play "Bully" for a couple of hours, Judge Friedman summarized the game this way: "There's a lot of violence -- a whole lot,'' he said in court. But, Friedman added, "less than we see on television every night."

Considering this, maybe we shouldn't be talking about banning "Bully." Instead, given its depth and smarts, maybe we should be applauding it.

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