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Bully Online has been shutdown just one month after it launched. The community-made project gained a lot of traction since it was announced thanks to its incredible feature set. Whilst fans have flocked back to Bullworth and played with each other, it can no longer be done.
Whilst we don’t know the reason for the end to Bully Online, most people in the community have a good guess: copyright takedown by Take-Two Interactive. More on that later in this article but first let’s take a look at what the modders have said.
A member of Fat Pigeon Development, the team behind the project shared the unfortunate news in a message to the Bully Online Discord server. The message reads:
Bully Online Shutting Down Forever
Hiya @everyone, coming with sad news today. The Bully Online project is shutting down forever, which unfortunately means all the following is going to happen in 24 hours: our official Bully Online server (on swegta.com) will be shutdown, development of scripts for Bully Online will stop, the source code will be removed from swegta.com, all our webpages referring to it will be removed, the launcher downloads will taken down, and all Bully Online account data will be permanently deleted.
Why is this happening?
This will be covered in more detail by @SWEGTA when his video announcement comes up. For now though, know this was not something we wanted.
What’s next?
Over the next 24 hours you are free to play on the server. It’s suggested you get on and get your final screenshots, and backup any memories you want to keep. All the bully online discord channels in this server will also be deleted– Fat Pigeon Development
At the time of writing, Bully Online has been shutdown. The website and such has all been taken offline.
As mentioned above, SWEGTA, the mastermind behind Bully Online will be making a video to explain the situation further. The content creator Tweeted “I will make a proper statement on the situation on the 21st.” This means we’ll be getting a full video revealing what has happened next Tuesday. SWEGTA’s previous Tweet before this acknowledged Bully-MP, a similar project, had seen its website go offline.
Take-Two, It’s Time To Stop
If Take-Two Interactive are the ones behind the shutdown and they almost certainly are, they have to just stop. Bully Online required a legitimate purchase of Bully Scholarship Edition on PC to run. You had to buy the game and give Rockstar money in order to enjoy it. People actually bought the game, when they most likely would not have, just for this mod. It boosted sales a little bit. Even if it sold 1 copy, that’s not harming Take-Two.
Bully is an extremely old game which has no online mode to be looked after by Rockstar. The game does sell copies here and there and was recently put into GTA+ but let’s be honest…Bully Online offered a new lease of life for a game that will soon be 20 years old.
There will not be a Bully 2 anytime soon. We know why Bully 2 did not happen. Even if Rockstar remastered Bully much like they’ve put out new versions of Red Dead Redemption it’s not like it would come with an online multiplayer mode. Red Dead’s re-releases removed the multiplayer. Bully never had one in the first place
You Can Do Better
Take-Two constantly talk about protecting their IP. In most cases, they defend it properly. In others like this, it is just not fair. There are examples of other, large publishers letting fans create and take on the role of supporting the game for years to come.
For example, EA are letting fans run reverse-engineered private servers with mods for Star Wars Battlefront 2. In fact, EA have aided them and are all for this occurring. This is a far more recent game that still has tens of thousands of concurrent players daily and new purchases. Far more than Bully does.
The team behind this even receive donations from fans to help pay for the development and running costs. If EA allows for such community-driven projects, including for an IP they don’t even own, why can’t Take-Two?
Yet another Rockstar project by talented fans bites the dust… whether someone else will attempt to run Bully Online underground remains to be seen.
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