Rockstar Games, that classy computer game company that brought you Grand Theft Auto, has come out with another winner. And it’s already taking flak for it.

The game is called “Bully;” it’s scheduled for full release in October and is not yet rated. It features a 15-year-old boy in a boarding school who has to defend himself against bullies and (ultimately) become one. There is a variety of weapons available besides fists and feet. And just to make it more popular with kids, they’ve added a school coat of arms and “house” idea to make it simulate the Hogwarts school in Harry Potter.

Grand Theft Auto had the player killing and stealing his way across the country, but Bully brings it home. While the school environment certainly is a universal experience, at least for Westerners, there’s just something sad and sick about making a computer game to glorify the worst aspects of that experience.

Rockstar Games says that, since no children are killed in the game and no blood is shown (at least until you download a patch), that makes the game fine. Anyone with an ounce of sense knows that the primary consumers of games like this are teenaged (or even younger). Let’s get kids vicariously experiencing beating up other kids in school. Like that WON’T have an affect on their thoughts while they’re IN school! Sure, it’ll be given a “Mature” rating and they’ll say it’s not for kids, but watch who they target in the marketing and who ends up playing it.

That’s the whole problem with this type of game. Kids play the game. Kids start thinking in those terms. That’s true of any game, from Candyland to Downtown Back-Alley Callgirl Carnage on Electric Ice! And if we’re filling kids’ minds with images and vicarious experiences involving hurting other kids in school, what’s that going to do to the rates of violence we see in schools? Help them go DOWN??

I pity people who make decisions for game companies like Rockstar Games. One day they’ll have to answer for degrading the minds of our children and promoting hatred and violence in our society.

(And I can’t wait to see what Easter Eggs THIS game has hidden in its depths!)