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The petition filed with the 11th Judicial Circuit Court asks Wal-Mark and Take-Two to give Thompson an advance copy of Bully in order for him to carry out an independent third-party assessment of the game. This assessment will determine whether or not the game constitutes a public nuisance in Florida and therefore could be banned.
“If Bully is indeed safe for children’s play, then petitioner will be the first to say so,” Thompson said. “If it is not, then not only will the underlying action be brought sounding in Florida nuisance law, but also possibly and most likely in fraud as well.”
Thompson is angry that Wal-Mart has been taking pre-orders for Bully even though the game is yet to receive a rating from the ESRB.
“The ESRB refuses to say and appears to be withholding from the public the rating of the game in order to quell controversy for its corporate collaborator, Take-Two,” said Thompson. “This withholding of rating information from the public about a game that the ESRB has had for over a year is outrageous, made more so by the fact that Wal-Mart is actually pre-selling Bully with no rating whatsoever for the game, to anyone of any age!“
Thompson later likened the act taking Bully pre-orders to a “pharmaceutical company selling a new and controversial drug without prior FDA approval.” He also accused Take-Two of starting “a new wave of successfully orchestrated harassment” against him.
Bully is scheduled for release in October exclusively for the PlayStation 2.
