Speculations of Bully's time setting

[Unknownsoldier]

By time setting, I mean what year it could have taken place. There are numerous different clues, that point to different eras in time which makes it even harder to fully declare. I've included titles of each speculation, and some of them will connect with each other.


INTERNET
In the mission Hattrick vs. Galloway, there is a cutscene in the beginning which shows Mr. Galloway arguing with Mr. Hattrick, then Jimmy walking in, then Jimmy and Galloway have a conversation.

Bully Scholarship Edition: Hattrick vs Galloway

I noticed this part just now as I was replaying all the missions. At 1:21 in the video, you'll hear him say:
"I've tried any number of things to dull the pain; yoga, meditation, needle point, looking at dubious sites on the internet."
Now as human beings, who lived through most, if not all of the 2000's, we should all know internet wasn't really released to the public too long ago.

I've done some research on the internet earlier, as there is no solid answer on Google when you search "when was the internet released to the public". According to my research, the World Wide Web became publicly available on August 6th, 1991.


VEHICLES



This is a screenshot taken from someone on Youtube who replaced the gokart with one of the in-game vehicles. Now we know, CARS in this game can strictly only be driven by NPC's, but with simple modding you can easily allow the player to drive any car.

Back on topic, tell me. When have you last seen people COMMONLY driving cars like this? Down your block, highway etc. And I don't mean those people doing it because they like classic cars, I mean people driving them because it's the only cars we have? Not really that common(or at least not in the USA).



Not to mention, the filename of this car is actually "70wagon".



BULLWORTH ACADEMY FOOTBALL TEAM PHOTO



We've all seen this photo hanging on the wall in the boy's dorm. I believe this can even be seen on the PS2 version. If you look closer at it, you'll notice it says "Bullworth Academy Football Team 1976."

So, let's use these previous 2 things, and see what we can come up with:
• A reference to the internet, internet being released to the public in 1991.
• Old looking cars.
• And a picture referring to the year 1976.

We know internet probably existed in 1976, but was it publicly released? It was released in 1991 as said above. But the cars? The cars and the photo, point right to evidence being that the game may have taken place in the 70's or 80's.

Then again, we can put that all aside, and just call this photo "old". Think about it: we still have PHYSICAL photos from the 80's and before.


CAMERAS

In Bully, you can obviously unlock a camera early in the game. Sure it's black and white, but it's still a camera. Black and white cameras still exist today, but no longer what we'd consider "commonly cheap". Commonly cheap being something basic. Like today, if you had a kid, you wanted to give him/her a basic camera, it would most likely still have color, just lower quality and/or small, possibly for a lower price.

But in this game, commonly cheap would be a black and white camera. Later in the game, you'd also unlock a COLORED camera. And it seems to have really nice image as well. Don't forget, colored cameras DID exist in the 80's. right? 

But in the pause menu, your photo album actually shows a camera ROLL. It wasn't that long ago camera rolls lowered in public usage. And keep in mind, even on the Scholarship Edition(2008), this game was still created in 2005-06. This is a tough piece of evidence to point to, as camera rolls are still used in some places.


Clearing up all that, most of the evidence I listed points to somewhere around the 1970's.

As for the internet speculation, there really are no computers in the game as far as I can remember. The TV in the Boy's Dorm looks pretty modern, or 2006-ish. And in the mission "A Little Help", the TV DOES in fact show color, however it is really low quality. Then again, even today, any TV can show low quality image.

Feel free to post other speculations.

[iscream4u]

The official site says 2006    http://www.rockstargames.com/bully/facebook/

[Hayley]

there's already a topic like this _( :⁍ 」 )_

[Rambo7]

I actually never knew, it's actually 2006 (I guess, this case is closed  )
And BTW, you can find a slim laptop at the Nerds Hideout
I think, slimmer laptop exists around 2005-2006 (but I don't really know)

[Unknownsoldier]

(alright guys lol quit going off topic at what i said. i said "2005-06" meaning they worked on it on '05 but released in '06)



Looks like some pretty low ass resolution. I know they had computers in the 70's though. This computer does look pretty old. Again, the game was made in 2006.



This desktop right here could be something. It's a flatscreen, pretty thick, and the tower itself looks like one with windows XP or 98. The mouse, well. i dunno what that thing is lol.

and there's a joystick on the left. Those are pretty old, but i'm sure a lot of fans would still use them. Considering these are nerds we're talking about, I wouldn't be surprised.

[Owais Qadri]

Yeh bully was released 2006 and they re released it in 2008.

[Unknownsoldier]

Yeah it was almost like GTA V.

GTA V was released on the Xbox 360's and PS3's, then it was released on the next generations, Xbox Ones, and PS4's. Then later, PC.

Bully was released on the PS2's, then it was released on the next generation consoles, Xbox 360's, and Wii's. Then later, PC. (PC, Xbox 360 and Wii were the Scholarship Edition which is more commonly modded)

[PainTrain]

Really, was there ever any doubt that Bully is set in the same year it was released?

Anyway, about the points you made:


-The vehicles

Bullworth is a very small town, and appears to be pretty isolated. To quote Officer Williams after he loses sight of Jimmy "You know this a really small town!" And in case you have never been to one, old cars are very common in places like this. I've been in a small town last year and there were cars from the 70s and 80s everywhere, I could almost feel like I have travelled in time. There were some cars from the 90s as well, but modern cars were a rare sight. And there's barely any cars in the game, two of then look old, so what? What's so odd about having one person or another owning an older car? Even so, what about the Sedan and the "Limo" (parked in Tad's yard in the PS2 version, retardedly replaced by a Taxi in Scholarship Edition)? They have the style of cars from the late 90s and early to mid 2000s.

-The 1976 team poster and the cameras.

It's probably paying homage to that team in specific because it was remarkably good, or it was the champion of some tournament, it was the last time the Bullhorns won anything or whatever. Regardless of the reasons, it doesn't mean that it's a new poster. I see posters of teams from 1979, 1989, 1994 and so on and so forth hanging on walls everywhere. You can also see that the picture is really old due to all the sepia. Jimmy himself earns a digital camera after completing art classes, which takes pictures with a quality infinitely superior to that one. Why would they use a crappy old camera to take that picture when there were ones like Jimmy's around? Also, the simple fact that Jimmy has that camera is evidence enough that the game is sent in modern times. If I'm not mistaken, cameras like that were only developed in the 90s and even then, they were seldom found. The fact that that poster is still on the wall is probably a reminder of a team that made history or just one of the many ways Rockstar shows how poorly kept the boy's dorm is. The fact that she gave a black and white camera as a "cheap" one was probably due to simple game mechanics. What good would it be having a camera with bad quality in the game? And even in real life that would not be that weird. It was given by Miss Philips, who works with art. She probably still owned that camera from somewhere, it didn't have much value to her, so she just gave it away to a student. And it's better to give a black and white camera that has good quality than giving a shitty one with colours. This second one would completely kill the purpose of her class, which is to take good pictures.

And with the pictures of the slim notebooks and computers that have been already posted, I'll rest my case. I never understood why was there ever any doubt about Bully's time setting.

[Rambo7]

^ For me, it's mainly because of the old cars
But you have explained it already, which is an interesting fact

[Unknownsoldier]

I already said that thing about the poster, and how it could just be an old photo.

[DahCobra33]

Just a thing I found a while ago..Hope it says something

[Hoppyj0608]

Wouldn't it actually be cool if Bully was set in the 80's or 90's? It would just bring even a more classic-y feel to the game.

[Bellic19]

*bump*
Despite bully most likely being in 2006, it was supposed to be TIMELESS. It had things from different generations to make people of all ages relate to it. That way people who went to high school in the 70's or someone who is in high school right now(such as yours truly) to be able to relate to it.