14 DAY TRIAL // Rockstar has managed to create some of the most controversial games ever and to offend tons of people who had nothing to do with gaming and could not understand that virtual worlds and real life are two completely different things. Anyway, as a result of the offended people's complaints, many ads for Rockstar's games have been withdrawn from the market, no matter if they were simple banners or television campaigns.
One of the latest games released by the company, Bully: Scholarship Edition has managed to attract lots of negative publicity because of its controversial nature: the main character has to bully kids as school, disobey rules and so on. Of course, as you can imagine, Rockstar tries to promote its own vision of the title, but not even that is acceptable from some people's point of view.
According to website brandrepublic, 31 complaints from offended television viewers were received by the Advertising Standards Authority because of a Bully: Scholarship Edition TV ad running in the UK. As reported, the ad glorifies, trivializes and encourages bullying and violence - that's what people who had been victims of bullying themselves thought about it.
The ad shows the game's main character, Jimmy, kicking a wooden box, firing a catapult and bullying his colleagues. Then, Jimmy gets in the headmaster's office and he's told to be "the nastiest little boy I have ever encountered". He replies, "I'm just trying to fit in". And that is the story of something that managed to shock and offend 31 people.
The strange twist is the fact that, unlike other campaigns which had been reported by grumpy viewers, this one did not get banned. Rockstar also said that its game did not glorify bullying, its goal being exactly the opposite: beat the bullies.