An exciting (and incredibly simplistic) web video game lets users mow over gay men in sailor outfits as they race a bus to get to the gay bar. That sounds like fun! Update: The game’s creator says it was a stupid project and he’s working to get it pulled offline. Update 2: The game has been pulled.
The game Gay Bus actually isn’t new; it’s listed with a submission date of January 2007. And it’s the work of British student Ryan Pridgeon, who enjoys “programming, art, skateboarding and creating music,” according to his profile on NewGrounds.com, the 11-year-old Flash games and animation site that hosts the game. Ryan “got sick of a few LGBT activists carrying out personal attacks,” he says about why he created the game. “I have nothing against any group of people, but apparently comedy isn’t allowed. Sorry.”
Ah, yes, comedy! That’s what we call running over gays.
Navigating the game is incredibly easy: Just press play, and use your keyboard’s arrows to move the bus across the screen and into the bodies of homosexual sailors. Upon completion, the Village People’s “YMCA” plays.
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Ryan, a 18-year-old southwest England native writes on his blog’s bio: “In my spare time, I like to program and create cool things for you all to see and play with. I started on this road when I was 8 years old, creating simple games using GIF animations and HTML/Javascript. As time moved on I found (formerly) Macromedia’s Flash 5. This is where I really started programming in Actionscript. These days I am proficient with C/C++, Flash Actionscript 2 & 3, HTML/CSS, PHP & MySQL, Visual Basic.NET and C#. Most of my projects are either C++ or Flash Actionscript 3. In C & C++ I make use of the libraries SDL and OpenGL for games, or Nokia’s Qt Toolkit for GUI applications, which are all absolutely awesome.”
Always lovely to see a young man put his talents to good use. Though I’m surprise Apple’s app store hasn’t cleared this one for launch yet.
UPDATE: Ryan writes in that he’s trying to correct his youthful mistakes: “I made that game years ago as a stupid kid. I have nothing against gay people, or any people, and now my life is near ruin because of your actions. I’ve already requested that the game be removed.”
UPDATE 2: The game was pulled at Ryan’s request by by NewGrounds.com, which issued this “eulogy”:
Sceth
It’s funny because it’s a political metaphor for what happens after elections.
Anyway, I see no evidence of homophobic beliefs, comedy is exempt from decency, and 67 is a pitiful score.
fukurmother
Omg, a game where you run over gay sailors!?!?! This is Horrific. I cannot believe it! Seriously though.. that’s not a picture of Ryan.. rofl.
Rachel
Wow, for a group of people trying to prove a point, they sure aren’t above blatant misquoting and making stuff up that wasn’t said.
There’s a better way to go about this than to use Fox News-esque tactics.
Rachel
@fukurmother:
Indeed. This is a picture of a different programmer off YouTube, and NOT Ryan.
This just shows how hastily this article was put together, and how inaccurate the entire thing is.
I’m horrified and disgusted that you would put a picture of Michael- someone completely separate from this whole controversy- on the article.
You guys seem to be trying to lash out against hate speech, and yet in doing so are creating your own shit storm of slander, hate, and defamation. There are people creating hate sites on FB against Ryan, because Ryan “is encouraging bullying of gay people”. How is this not hypocritical?
NotSplintered
Here is an example of how bullying is used in reverse. Whoever can blow harder can come up the winner? Nobody wins, here. Everyone loses. The queer ‘community’ comes out looking like whiners, and the programmer looks like he’s been singled out.
There are SO many anti-queer incidents happening right now. This stupid game should not be the focus.
Talk about splintering. This whole ‘community’ is so splintered it’s in shards and does not know the first thing about combating the real foe.
Devon
Governing As A Democrat: The Video Game.
Kev C
Obama is obviously driving the bus while tossing gay sailors under it.
George C
I’m sorry are you hating on this guy because of what he did in his spare time? When you are trying to stop hate of what you do in your spare time? If he is getting rid of the game, then maybe you should get rid of the abuse?
Daniel
@Sceth: I got a score of 130!
Aaron
Seriously, this is a bit of an overreaction. He was (still is!) very young and he has apologized. I doubt he intended any serious harm, even if the game was indeed offensive (and of course it is).
The fact that the article also seems to be somewhat questionable in terms of accuracy makes me wonder whether the Qweerty’s pursuit of an agenda isn’t doing a grave disservice to our cause and community.
You should pick your battles more wisely.
Hilarious
I’m almost amused how many people don’t seem to realize just how racist, misogynistic, and homophobic many white male are online.
From Stormfront to sites about video games, they post ridiculous crap they’d never say in real life all over the web.
In fact if you play online games it’s even worse because all you here is “Nigger” and “Fag” in voice chat or see it flying up the chat.
I’m dead serious. Don’t let them find out you aren’t white.
Some grow out of it, some don’t. Regardless they take that same prejudice into real life and while they’re too cowardly to say anything upfront they will show it in their actions by trying to screw you over.
It’s an issue that needs to be addressed but never will be because that would mean admitting there’s a problem in the “white community” and according to most the “white community” is perfect.
These idiots are our future.
Hilarious
And you people defending him make me sick.
These are the assholes who bully gay teens among others in schools.
Read that update closely. “Now that my life is in near ruins because of YOUR actions.”
He’s not remorseful, he’s pissed that karma caught up with him, and his only way out was to fake an apology.
They always apologize when caught. That doesn’t mean it’s sincere.
If this kid was black you’d be screaming for him to be hung from a tree.
Gimme a fucking break.
Kids like him made me quit learning programming because on top of the teacher bullying the shit out of me for being black I also had teens like this asshole bullying me for being black while topping it off with homophobic slurs.
The only way to shut them up was to become the loud angry black man they were expecting.
Karma caught up with that WHITE teacher and his ass was finally fired the following year when he harassed yet another black student.
Stop defending this moron.
Devon
I got a 187, b-t-dub.
Doot
can’t beat 180
Greg Garavani
Damn, I got a score of 47. I suck, pun intended.
REBELComx
It’s a GAY bus, trying to get to a GAY bar, by running over GAY sailors. So it’s a Chelsea bus during Fleet Week? If this was in a movie like “Another Gay Movie”, you all would be laughing your heads off. It’s gay on gay vehicular violence. While some of the people playing the game might be hatefilled and leave homophobic comments, I don’t see how the game itself inherently is.
Lady Macbeth
And he’s not a stupid kid today?
Who ruined whose life?
Ah yes, the guy who wrote the game and published it, that’s the one who ruined Ryan’s life!
What, that’s Ryan? Sheeesh!
Kirin
@Hilarious:
He NEVER said that, though. This article is just making shit up to try to rile you guys up, and you are falling for it.
FYI
What new video game for the perpetually adolescent sociopathic assholes amongst us is next? How many helpless Jews you can shove into a Nazi Concentration Camp oven? How many Black people you can drag out of their homes in the dead of the night and hang from cypress trees in the old South for points? Or how many gay teens you can bully to death that will get you the highest score (in hell)?
The dickless juvenile troglodytes who create this kind of crap only meant to incite a socially irresponsible and moronic mob mentality designed, mostly out of sexual and gender insecurity, just so they can “fit in and be accepted” amongst their local dog pack, really need to grow up fast.
Bortnik
Welcome to the internet, enjoy your stay?
I mean seriously, I pray this site never “uncovers” 4chan
Thomathy
The first thing I did was go and find the game online and play it. I got a score of 136. The game is dreadfully boring. But anti-gay?
I’d like to know how, exactly, this game is different than any other similarly themed game out there (and I don’t mean gay-themed)? I’d also like to know how I’m supposed to interpret the game as anti-gay just because it features ‘homosexuals in sailor hats’ getting hit by a bus?
A bus, by the way, that’s called the gay bus and is headed to a gay bar and is being driven by the player, who may or may not also be gay. I’ll also point out that the game specifically says, ‘Hit them to gain points. Because you don’t like them. Because you’re odd.’
It’s odd for a person to drive to a gay bar and hit ‘homosexuals in sailor hats’ on the way according to the creator? There’s something about that that doesn’t sound particularly hateful to me. It certainly doesn’t strike me as anti-gay.
The only offensive thing about the game is that it’s so boring and has you going about hitting people. Have the authors of this article ever played Pillage the Village? It’s far more violent, is completely devoid of explicit sexuality and, to me, is far worse, if only because it’s not so simplistic.
If anyone is offended merely because the game features a bus labelled gay and has the player aiming to hit ‘homosexuals in sailor hats’ while on the way to a gay bar, I would suggest that the offended reevaluate their priorities and practice at reading comprehension.
George C
@FYI: In the game you are only trying to get to the gaybar. It says in the game the only reason you would want to hit the gay sailors would be because you are odd. Why don’t you stick to what it is instead of going.. WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT?! *INSEERT OVER THE TOP STATEMENT* I mean if he had wanted to make a game like that, if he was that perverse, then he would have. Instead he made a light-humoured, low graphic game. How are people meant to be bullied from this game “Hey look I killed you from a bus”? People could do the same on GTA or any xbox/pc/playstation game. The little sailors had no names they didn’t represent any person. In fact this game did not bully anyone. The only time it was complained about was now. When people thought it was disgusting, but they have nothing to say in what it has done. Only what it could do or be.
Your last paragraph. Could you actually prove that. Can you actually say that is the reason? See I think the reason is because he was understand a joke, so could all the people on newgrounds the over 200 reviews of people. You know who complained about it most. Straight people, saying it was offensive to gays. You know what came after that in the reviews. Gay people reviewing it saying they were not offended.
Go outside. Get some fresh air. Realise that there is poverty, hunger and wars around the world. Focus on them. Make a difference, instead of whining about a game made a kid.
ForeverGay
Here come the hateros trying to defend their fellow hatero. But this is typical. Haterosexuals spread hate, always have and always will. Hate is their way of life. They then try to play games and say it’s not about attacking gay people because it doesn’t explicitly say it in the game.
Thomathy
@ForeverGay: ‘Hateros’? That’s really original. Certainly, a wonderful name to call someone when you don’t want to address their argument, but rather the sexuality that you assume the identify with.
I’m gay, ForeverGay, and you can perform a simple google search yourself on the name Thomathy on it’s own, or with rational response squad or pharyngula tacked on, but I shouldn’t expect that you’ll go past the first page of results to find comments written under my pseudonym affirming that fact.
And it’s not as though I need to even prove to you that I am gay; I can’t see why my sexuality should have anything to do with my argument (which you fail to address, expect by your ad hominem dismissal).
I can’t see how you’re supposed to be be better than these ‘hateros’ when you use a wide brush to paint all heterosexual people as haters, whose way of life is hate and to spread hate. What you’ve written is perfectly unreasonable and absolutely untrue. Not every heterosexual or non-homosexual is out there spreading hate, hating or making their way of life hate.
I can’t even see how you could be making a valid point anyway, excusing your ad hominem, as the game actually isn’t explicitly anti-gay. Perhaps it is. I’m not defending the creator. My argument revolves around overreaction by and the presumptions of the people who are offended by the game despite the facts that are known. I seriously think there are battles better fought. Further, the creator of the game is already trying to get it taken down (if Queerty reports accurately), so I think questioning the validity of the reaction to this, seriously stupid, game is reasonable.
ForeverGay, you’re an ass, that’s for making assumptions. You’re also a prejudiced coward. Having a nickname like yours doesn’t protect you when you brazenly paint heterosexuals, one and all, as hateful people. Fuck off.
Thomathy
I mean to have written in my fifth paragraph,
…I can’t even see how you could be making a valid point anyway, excusing your ad hominem, as the game isn’t explicitly anti-gay. It may be anti-gay (though the creator and the game itself as evidence don’t support that conclusion). I’m not attempting to defend the creator; My argument revolves around overreaction by and the presumptions of the people who are offended by the game despite the facts that are known. I seriously think there are battles better fought. Further, the creator of the game is already trying to get it taken down (if Queerty reports accurately), so I think questioning the validity of the reaction to this (seriously stupid) game is reasonable. I don’t think it is. I don’t think it warrants the reaction it got…
The poor sap who's picture you posted
@fukurmother:
yeah, it wasn’t me.
I just want to know how they got me confused with RyanPridgeon, in future, do not post my picture before you check your sources, maybe there should be an additional update saying “the previous picture we posted was not RyanPridgeon”
Frankly, I don’t really have an opinion on the matter, programmers program, and this was just some silly game made years and years ago by some kid, I doubt there’s really any homophobic undertones in it really.
Mr. Enemabag Jones
“Stupid” kids grow up to be stupid adults. Stupid kids are somewhat dangerous, but stupid adults are very dangerous. I’m glad the little turd who programmed this absurd game, got his ass called out on the carpet for it.
And to those defending him–Go fuck yourselves.
NavyMike
Accck! Well, I will be extra careful the next time I cross the street to get to my bar. Then again, I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing that number my fellow shipmates have on in the videogame…then, again….maybe I will!
Mike
got a highscore of 188
Mike
just played again 193