10 Overblown Video Game Controversies

Bully was like a junior version of Grand Theft Auto. Instead of stealing cars and blowing up gang members, you were beating the snot out of jocks and attending classes. You could even fulfill your lifelong dream of stealing a fire extinguisher and bludgeoning the teachers with it until they pass out, like the rebel inside you always wanted.

Some groups were weary of the game before release, assuming that it promoted bullying as hilariously horrible. In actuality, the rebellious teen Jimmy Hopkins is led to take on the worst that the school has to offer, such as the narcissistic preppies and the brutish jocks, in order to make school life better for the oppressed students.

The government of Brazil classed the game as psychologically harmful to adults as well as children, and even implemented a ridiculous fine of a million Brazilian real (over £200k) to anyone who attempted to sell this banned game. Which is like caning a child with a barbed wire bat for passing notes in class.

Then came notoriously uninformed American senator Jack Thompson, known for his painfully underdeveloped arguments about the dangers of video games. Thompson described Bully as the sort of game that simulates school genocide. With stink bombs and slingshots? Really?

Even when he took his argument to court and received a crushing, humiliating defeat, he remained unmoved that a game about rising up against bullying would persuade players to commit mass violence.