Thanks for that. I think I'll rent the game tonight and give a post on it tommarow. Right now I'm incubating/managing casual game projects with short time-frames, but of the prestige titles I'd like to seek funding for, the one I've decided to focus on in light of your dissection is a game about school violence modeled after Beowulf. The key is that it will use a fully realized (but light compared to Facade) AI archetechture for characters so social dynamics can be, well, actually part of the play. I can see "games about school" becoming a sub-genre or at least cross-section of tropes that many games in the next decade wille explore.

I haven't played the game yet but after reading the column I'm really looking forward to doing it. Incidentally, the model for Bully is a series of old Spectrum games called School Daze and Back to School. Probably American players never heard of them but they were very popular in the UK and every other country blessed by the glorious ZX Spectrum (ok, I got a bit nostalgic here). The best aspect of the game was that you could name your professors after your own. Glorious indeed.

excellent article, ian. I couldn't agree more about the games industry in general and bully in particular. the game had so much potential. right now it seems like all there is to do is fight. maybe they are making a statement about the pointless repetition inherent in the high school experience.

one thought i did have was that bully is a partially a drawing back from the strides gta made. after all the hot coffee debacle, Rockstar made a game with a more omnipresent authoritarian structure, eliminated blood and sexual content, and tried to remain a badboy. i think your point is unfortunately accurate; rockstar has shown little evidence of taking games seriously. see manhunt. what do you think of bully in relation to rockstar's other production?

Interesting discussions of the article are taking place at Slashdot and GamePolitics.