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Bully <\/article>\nIn October 2006, Rockstar released Bully as a PlayStation 2 exclusive. The game, developed by Rockstar\u2019s Vancouver studio in Canada, was a subversion of the formula that had made the publisher\u2019s games famous. Where in other Rockstar titles, like the Grand Theft Auto series, players controlled a criminal free to cause mayhem around an open-world city or state, Bully put players in control of Jimmy Hopkins, a high school student at the Bullworth Academy boarding school. Rather than kill people, Jimmy got in fistfights. Instead of guns, he had stink bombs and slingshots. Rather than pull off robberies or heists, Jimmy pulled pranks and went to class. Coincidentally, the game was set in New England, Mad Doc\u2019s backyard.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Bully was critically and commercially successful, receiving the highest possible review scores from outlets like <\/span><\/span>X-Play<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> and <\/span><\/span>1UP<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>, and a game of the year nomination from <\/span><\/span>GameSpot<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>. In March 2008, Take-Two Interactive, Rockstar\u2019s parent company, announced that the game had sold more than <\/span><\/span>1.5 million copies<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>. For comparison, Grand Theft Auto IV, released in April 2008, sold more than <\/span><\/span>8.5 million copies<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> within its first month.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Back over at Mad Doc, Empire Earth 3, released in November 2007, was <\/span><\/span>critically panned<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>. The company was in a tough spot, a former Mad Doc employee says. \u201c<\/span><\/span>Mad Doc, up until being acquired by Rockstar, was pretty typical of most independent game studios in that it mostly survived by working on IP from publishers, while trying to develop and pitch its own games,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Those tough times would be alleviated by a new partner: Rockstar. After the success<\/span><\/span> of Bully on PlayStation 2, Rockstar approached Mad Doc about developing Bully: Scholarship Edition, a remaster with new missions, characters, and items. Mad Doc led the development of Scholarship Edition\u2019s Xbox 360 and Windows PC versions, released in March and October 2008, respectively, while Rockstar Toronto developed the Wii port.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n In April 2008, Rockstar announced it had acquired Mad Doc Software for an undisclosed amount and renamed the studio Rockstar New England. Speaking in a <\/span><\/span>news release announcing the acquisition<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>, Rockstar co-founder and president Sam Houser said that <\/span><\/span>making Mad Doc a Rockstar studio would \u201cenhance our core technology and further support our commitment to creating progressive and innovative gaming experiences.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re eager to bring our expertise to bear in the character-driven, open-world stories that make Rockstar Games titles so uniquely compelling,\u201d Davis, who became studio head of Rockstar New England after the purchase, said in the release.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n According to developers <\/span><\/span>Game Informer<\/span><\/span> spoke to, opinions on becoming a Rockstar studio were positive at the time. Some staffers, such as 3D artist Tim Samuels, were excited by the prospect of making games for one of the biggest developers in the world. \u201cI thought it was actually really, really cool,\u201d Samuels says. \u201cIt\u2019s like, <\/span><\/span>Hey, Rockstar!<\/span><\/span> I mean, these guys are triple-A. They\u2019re No. 1, on the top. […] We just took it in stride and started working.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cRockstar itself […] you say, \u2018I work at Rockstar,\u2019 people were really in awe of that,\u201d one former developer says. \u201cIt was nice to have some clout to a job. You know? I was excited to work on anything that they had, because most of the games that they\u2019d churned out [had] been pretty golden.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n However, some say that they gradually started to see Mad Doc\u2019s workplace culture disappear after the acquisition, and that crunch became a more prevalent issue within the studio once it was under the Rockstar banner.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t get me wrong \u2013 during the making of Empire Earth 3 there was crunch [at Mad Doc], but it was handled well,\u201d says a former developer. \u201cThere were days to make up for it. No one was cracking a whip over our heads. Every now and then we would have \u2018fire drills\u2019 on Fridays. You could put the fire drills in air quotes because it was really just the producer at the time; it was his way of letting us out early. There was a much better balance between work and life.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Shortly after Rockstar purchased Mad Doc, Rockstar’s former vice president of development Jeronimo Barrera visited the studio, the developer continues. Barrera was there to field employee questions but left some feeling uneasy about their new employer.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cOne of the first red flags was when someone asked about hours and weekends and stuff like that,” the developer recalls. “Jeronimo\u2019s answer was something to the effect of, \u2018Well, we don\u2019t work <\/span><\/span>every<\/span><\/span> weekend.\u2019 He’s like, \u2018For example, I\u2019m not working <\/span><\/span>this<\/span><\/span> Saturday.\u2019 The emphasis on the word \u2018every,\u2019 and then \u2018this,\u2019 were a little disquieting in their effect.\u201d (In 2019, a report from <\/span><\/span>Kotaku <\/span><\/span>detailed Barrerra’s <\/span><\/span>reputation within Rockstar<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>, citing multiple employees describing him as “abrasive” and “volatile.” One employee also accused Barrera of sexual assault while working at Rockstar. Barrera categorically denied all of the allegations of misconduct.)<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Shortly after the purchase, developers at Rockstar New England began work on numerous projects. There was still work to finish on the PC version of Scholarship Edition, but the studio also assisted in the development of other Rockstar games, such as Grand Theft Auto IV\u2019s two story expansions and Red Dead Redemption. In addition to support work, Rockstar New England was given the chance to develop its own game, a sequel to Bully.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n According to some developers, it was a chance to prove themselves. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n The late 2000s marked a shift in direction for Rockstar. For much of the company\u2019s early history, it released games at a rate that co-founder Jamie King called \u201c<\/span><\/span>relentless<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>,\u201d sometimes developing or publishing as many as 9 or 10 new releases a year, not including ports. While the Grand Theft Auto series has been a massive moneymaker for the company since the success of 2001\u2019s Grand Theft Auto III, the bulk of the publisher\u2019s library from its first decade was padded out with forgotten games, such as Surfing H3O, Austin Powers: Oh, Behave!, and State of Emergency.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n After Grand Theft Auto IV launched in 2008, that schedule slowed down. While Rockstar still released plenty of ports of its older games on new platforms, which it continues to do today, its number of annual games dropped to one or two. After the launch of Grand Theft Auto V in 2013, which went on to become one of the most successful entertainment properties of all time, Rockstar stopped putting out new games on a yearly basis. Its next tentpole release wouldn\u2019t come until five years later with the release of Red Dead Redemption II\u00a0in 2018.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n The change in the company\u2019s release schedule also marked a shift in direction for its games. Early on, Rockstar put out a hodgepodge of titles of different genres and qualities, but after 2008, the publisher began to lean further into more expensive, more prestigious releases, often focused on an older audience and built around gunplay. The company touted the tech behind its games more \u2013 such as L.A. Noire\u2019s facial capture technology<\/a>. Its development budgets sometimes reportedly pushed more than <\/span><\/span>$250 million<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>. A new Rockstar game became an event, something that didn\u2019t happen often.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Rockstar New England\u2019s plan for Bully 2 was in line with this vision, according to developers on the project. It was a chance to let the Bully series sit alongside Rockstar games of the time, such as Grand Theft Auto IV and Red Dead Redemption. It was a chance, as one former developer recalls, to \u201cshoot for the moon because even if we don\u2019t quite make it, we\u2019re already much further than if we had aimed a little bit lower.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThere was a lot of focus on character, very deep systems, seeing how far we could push that, and putting it up there alongside a GTA,\u201d one developer on the project says.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI think that they wanted to bring that kind of [world] to the Bully universe,\u201d another says.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n For developers at Rockstar New England, this meant making the world of Bully 2 bigger and deeper than that of the original game \u2013 and putting a considerable amount of resources into its creation. While <\/span><\/span>Game Informer<\/span><\/span> wasn\u2019t able to get an exact number of people working on the project, three people say almost the entire studio worked on Bully 2, at some point, with overall headcount estimations being around 50 to 70 people.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAt one point, I think it was everybody,\u201d one former developer says. \u201cThe studio itself, that was going to be their game.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Three different developers told us that the game\u2019s open-world map wouldn\u2019t have been as big as that of, say, Grand Theft Auto IV, but their estimates on its planned scope describe it as ranging from the size of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City\u2019s open world to \u201cthree times\u201d the size of the original Bully\u2019s school map. What it would have lacked in overall size it would have made up for with depth. For example, Rockstar New England planned to make every building in the game enterable, either by normal means or by forced entry. \u201cIf you could see it, you could go into it,\u201d one former developer on the project says.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u201c[The player] was not going to be driving a car anywhere, so the total playable space [and] land size [was] definitely going to be smaller,\u201d another developer says. \u201cMostly because kids \u2013 he\u2019s not going to be driving \u2013 and also because we wanted these very deep systems. Like, if you can go into every building, that\u2019s a lot of work. We\u2019d rather not have a really massive world; maybe scale that back a little bit just so that we can make sure that we have all these meaningful things in there.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Bolstered by Rockstar New England\u2019s pedigree in artificial intelligence, the studio was experimenting with ways to make the player\u2019s actions more meaningful than in previous Rockstar games. Take, for example, the honor system in the first Red Dead Redemption. If protagonist John Marston helps a nonplayer character, his honor rating rises. But if the player directs Marston to commit crimes, then Marston\u2019s honor falls. While this affects how NPCs react to Marston out in the world, specific NPCs don\u2019t remember his individual actions.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n In Bully 2, however, Rockstar New England was trying to develop ways for characters to remember Jimmy, for there to be good and bad consequences for his actions.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe really wanted to make sure that people remembered what you did, so if you pulled a prank on your neighbor, they\u2019d remember it,\u201d says one developer. \u201cThat your actions had more meaning beyond a 20-foot radius and the five-second memories of the [non-playable characters] near you.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Parts of this system can be seen in Red Dead Redemption II, two developers tell <\/span><\/span>Game Informer<\/span><\/span>. Players see changes in protagonist Arthur Morgan\u2019s behavior based on his honor. If Morgan has high honor, he\u2019s a more compassionate character. If Morgan has low honor, he\u2019s driven by greed and apathy. Similarly, if Morgan robs a store, he can\u2019t just walk back into it a few minutes later as if nothing happened. The store clerk remembers Morgan and denies him service, asking him to leave.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe way that you interact with other characters in the world, more than just with your gun or with your fist, they have some sense of memory \u2013 a lot of that stuff [originated in Bully 2],\u201d one developer says.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cFrom what I remember reading [in] some of the design docs and my conversations with people is that you could build relationships with characters in the world,\u201d he says about Bully 2. \u201cYou\u2019d be, like, best friends with the chef in the mansion or whatever, or the chef could really hate you or something, and that would open up different options. I don\u2019t know to the extent of where that ended up \u2013 if that got pared down into a general \u2018you\u2019re good Jimmy\u2019 versus \u2018you\u2019re bad Jimmy\u2019 or what \u2013 but I know in some of the early ideas being thrown around, you would have that fine-grained level of relationships to other characters in the world.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Beyond the game\u2019s open world, developers describe a breadth of different interactivity options and new features. One detail recalled by two developers was a progressive grass-growing system, where grass throughout the world would grow realistically and players could see individual blades. \u201cYou could go and mow the lawn, and then it would actually be lower,\u201d one former developer says. \u201cYou could actually do a good job, go back and forth, and create lines on people\u2019s lawns, that kind of thing.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/arcader.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/the-version-of-bully-2-youll-never-get-to-play-1.jpg\")
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<\/article>\nHouses<\/h2>\n
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Grand Theft Auto IV <\/article>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/arcader.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/the-version-of-bully-2-youll-never-get-to-play-1.png\")
Bully <\/article>\n