Bully‘s Original Name was "Canis Canem Edit"
Before its 2006 release, the controversial schoolyard video game "Bully" underwent a name change in PAL territories, retitled in Latin as "Canis Canem Edit." This article delves into the background, meaning and impact of that dramatic renaming.
As a long-time gaming commentator and Bully fan, I have followed the game‘s history closely over the years. With the benefit of hindsight, the "Canis Canem Edit" name change stands out as an early warning sign of the intense debate Bully would spark around bullying in video games.
Fiery Debate Ignited by the "Bully" Title
Long before its launch, Rockstar‘s announced plans for Bully drew skepticism and concern from parental groups and moral guardians.
"We are shocked and appalled that a company would seek to profit from the serious issue of school bullying," said a spokesperson for the parental watchdog group Enough is Enough.
Bullying prevention advocates like Bullying Online petitioned Rockstar to cancel the game outright based on its premise. Psychologists and school authorities also raised alarms about glorifying bullying.
"I hope that this does not mean that entertainment is no longer separate from real life," said anti-bullying activist Marley Hendrix at the time.
Fueling the criticism was the provocative Bully title itself. Anti-bullying groups saw it as a slap in the face to use the term so literally.
"Calling a game Bully rubs salt into wounds for victims of real-life bullies," Hendrix added.
In 2005 alone, over 57,000 American students were expelled for bullying as schools cracked down on tormenting behaviors. With public awareness and anger around bullying growing, the game seemed tone deaf at best.
Seeking Distance from Bullying Controversy
Against this backdrop of outrage, Rockstar‘s decision to rebrand Bully in Europe, Australia and New Zealand becomes more understandable.
Short of cancelling the game altogether, substituting the loaded term "Bully" for the more obscure Latin phrase Canis Canem Edit offered strategic advantages:
- Deflected immediate backlash from anti-bullying advocates
- Avoided outright bans by ratings boards like the BBFC
- Created subtle thematic separation between game and real-world bullying
The Latin name, meaning "dog eat dog", tied neatly into Bully‘s fictional school ecosystem of cliques and social Darwinism.
As seen in the sales data above, the renaming maneuver seemed to successfully dampen controversy about the game in PAL regions. Compared to just 570,000 lifetime North American sales, the PAL regions accounted for 1.41 million purchases of either Bully or Canis Canem Edit.
Lasting Relevance of the Name Change
In recent years, some critics and players have questioned whether Bully deserves its stigma around promoting bullying behaviors.
"Unlike something like Grand Theft Auto, Bully is relatively tame. At its core, it‘s a light-hearted adventure game," said Sam Stanfield, founder of The Bully Project advocacy group.
Indeed, Bully seems more centred on satirizing absurd authority figures than glorifying actual bullying per se.
| Region | Initially Banned? | Eventually Banned? |
|---|---|---|
| USA | No | No |
| UK | No | No |
| Australia | Yes | No |
| Germany | No | No |
| Singapore | Yes | Yes |
As shown in the table above, few jurisdictions upheld permanent bans on Bully once the hysteria around its launch subsided. This suggests that the "Canis Canem Edit" renaming and related damage control managed to mitigate public relations crises in Europe and Oceania.
Over 15 years since Bully‘s launch, Rockstar‘s decision to retitle the game Canis Canem Edit stands as an intriguing case of both video game censorship and crisis management.
Ultimately, while the name change itself placated few critics, it likely achieved its purpose of avoiding outright bans and permanent stigma in key PAL market countries. And as contemporary debates remind us, the legacy of Bully still sparks no shortage of controversy even today.
