Four million teachers from around the world have called for retailers to boycott selling the new game Bully: Scholarship Edition. Actually, Bully isn’t a new game but a sort-of director’s cut of the original PS2 title. Regardless, teacher unions from around the world worry about the implications of a title they feel glorifies the act of bullying.

Eight teachers’ unions in Canada, the United States, Britain, South Korea, Australia and the Caribbean have banded together in order to request the boycott of retailers. “We’re asking retailers to be responsible,” Emily Noble, president of the Canadian Teachers’ Federation, said yesterday. “Yes, they can sell it and make a buck out of this, but is this the kind of marketing that they want to be [doing], selling games that glorify violence?” (more…)

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When it was rumored the other day that Epic might be acquired by Microsoft, Epic’s Vice-President Mark Rein joked that they should start the bidding at $2 billion. Apparently Electronic Arts thought that price sounded about right for another big time company, Take-Two Interactive. Take-Two is the parent company of 2K Games and Rockstar. So, essentially, Electronic Arts might soon be the parent company of Bioshock and Grand Theft Auto.

While Electronic Arts continues to be the monster that ate everything in video game land, this move actually makes some sense for Take-Two. While occasional hits keep the company afloat, there have been many bombs and Rockstar has shown its only truly viable franchise to be Grand Theft Auto, with the possibility of Bully. Meanwhile, EA Sports has basically pushed 2K Sports to the point of starvation by acquiring exclusive rights to many popular sports leagues. 2K Sports does retain the exclusive third-party rights to Major League Baseball. (more…)

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