The idea for the Desert Bus mini-game came after Janet Reno, the then Attorney General of the United States, made comments about how gamers shouldn't be playing violent video games and instead games that were more peaceful and more like reality. Eddie Gorodetsky, television writer and an associate of Penn & Teller, had suggested to do a game where the player drives from Phoenix to Arizona, on a bus at 50 miles per hour, in an eight hour shift, as a response to Janet Reno's comments.