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ALL THE VIDEO GAMES THAT PETA HATES

6/4/2017

29 Comments

 
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A while ago I read an interview with some bloke who'd written a book about where humanity is headed. The interviewer asked what he believed future generations will find most shocking about the people of 2017. His answer? How we treat the animals, likening it specifically to how we now view slavery. Albeit the type of slavery where the slaves are delicious to eat.

​It has sort of stayed with me ever since. I'm not a vegetarian - though I did try to be for about a year when I was 15, because I thought it'd make me different and cool and I nearly died because all I ever ate for dinner was Pot Noodles and chips. Also: my other half is a vegetarian, and my daughter is vegan, and from them I've learned a number of things.

1) It's actually easier to give up meat than I realised.
2) I don't want to give up meat because, well... bacon/steak/hamburgers, but I wish I did, because... y'know... animals are nice. Well, some animals. My cats act like they hate me unless I'm feeding them.
3) Some vegans are full-on extremist mentals.


Indeed, if you think gaming has its dramas... it's nothing compared to some of the in-fighting that occurs online in the vegan community.

The cheerleaders of vegan extremism appear to be PETA - People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. I wrote earlier this week how they'd taken offence to the cow teat-yanking in Nintendo's 1-2-Switch, but it isn't the first time the organisation has generated publicity by taking aim at the games what we play.

Indeed, PETA has even created some surprisingly decent online versions of popular video games, to highlight what they believe is the games industry's pro-animal cruelty agenda. You can try them here.

And now? And now: behold... behold those times that gaming wandered into PETA's sights, like a sweet, innocent, bewildered dik-dik (a type of delicious edible animal).
WARHAMMER
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A tabletop game played by nerds using lead miniatures might seem like an unusual target for an organisation dedicated to animal rights. Regardless, that didn't stop PETA contacting Games Workshop earlier this year to ask them to stop promoting the wearing of animal skins in its ageing Warhammer game (for nerds).

​A statement issued by the organisation read: "The grimdark, battle-hardened warriors are known for their martial prowess – but wearing the skins of dead animals doesn’t take any skill.

"PETA has written to Games Workshop CEO Kevin Rountree asking that the leading British miniature war-gaming brand ban fur garments from all Warhammer characters. While we appreciate that they are fictional, draping them in what looks like a replica of a dead animal sends the message that wearing fur is acceptable – when, in fact, it has no more place in 2017 than it would in the year 40,000."


Fur real, nerds!
ASSASSIN'S CREED 4: BLACK FLAG
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PETA got in a right old huff over Black Flag, arguably the finest instalment in the Assassin's Creed series, for its depiction of whaling. The organisation was incensed with how it glossed over the suffering of these sea-based "blubber johnnies".

​Polygon spoke to Matt Bruce of PETA, who told him: "There are so many creative minds at Ubisoft that are involved with the Assassin's Creed series that we find it really disappointing that they feel the need to glorify whaling,"

Brucey-boy continued: "PETA encourages video game companies to create games that celebrate animals, not games that promote hurting and killing them.

"This would be a different story if the game portrayed the cruelty and horror experienced when a whale is literally fleeing for her life and then shot with a harpoon - or even several harpoons - and forced to struggle for hours or be hacked apart while still alive aboard a ship.

"In Assassin's Creed 4, you get ahead by killing. Joe Shmoe who plays this game in his mother's basement in the safety and comfort of his home will feel a sense of accomplishment by killing this whale."


​Joe Shmoe was unavailable for comment. Presumably because his mother had locked him in her basement, the ker-aaaaayzy bee-yatch!
​
CALL OF DUTY: WORLD AT WAR
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Dogs are known as "man's best friend", which anyone who has been dry-rubbed by a randy family pet will attest. However, there's a right way and a wrong way to treat a video game dog, according to PETA, and the wrong way is this way: shooting them right in the face.

When students at a Massachusetts high school voiced their disgust with Activision over the dog-shooting in Call of Duty: World at War, PETA threw their entire weight behind the campaign. 

Said the organiser of the protest, after witnessing her brother shoot a dog in-game: "My brother is a sweetheart. He won’t be killing dogs after playing. But some people might.”

Kindly, PETA offered Activision Blizzard a free place at the organisation's Developing Empathy for Animals seminar, and sent a several copies of Nintendo's "dog-friendly" Nintendogs game to the Activision offices. The lesson here? It is okay to shoot people in the face. Talk about PETA and the wolf (dogs)!!!!!

Genuine question: how would PETA feel if you ate your dog after it died of natural causes?
POKEMON BLACK & WHITE 2
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Unfortunately, while it may have enjoyed Nintendogs, PETA hasn't loved everything Nintendo has done, and claims the family-friendly games company is one of the worst instigators of video game animal violence.

Indeed, the Pokemon series so enraged PETA that it created its own version of the game series, Pokemon Black & Blue, which saw Pikachu being battered with a bloody baseball bat, while trying to placate his opponent with hugs and ethical protests.

​"Much like animals in the real world, Pokémon are treated as unfeeling objects and used for such things as human entertainment and as subjects in experiments," screeched PETA.

"The way that Pokémon are stuffed into pokéballs is similar to how circuses chain elephants inside railroad cars and let them out only to perform confusing and often painful tricks that were taught using sharp steel-tipped bullhooks and electric shock prods. If PETA existed in Unova, our motto would be: Pokémon are not ours to use or abuse. They exist for their own reasons. We believe that this is the message that should be sent to children."

What sort of confusing tricks? Pushing a couple of swifts out of their trunks. Cruel or not, who wouldn't pay good money to see that?
COOKING MAMA
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Another Nintendo spoof offered by PETA took aim at the company's seemingly innocuous Cooking Mama franchise. Seeking to highlight the treatment of animals prior to them ending up packaged in our supermarkets, Cooking Mama Kills Animals required players to kill and gut various innocent creatures, before cooking them in an un-appetising dish.

​Unfortunately, this time it was PETA which found itself on the receiving end of a backlash.

​Doctor Glen Mason, a counselling psychologist from Belfast, complained that the game could warp young minds: “When the child takes on the role of a particular character, he is usually exposed to ‘killing’ for a ‘reward’. The child is playing a game and there is that active element to it and it’s a reinforcement of a video game that sparks an act of violence.

“Tough family relationship and the level of violence a child gets from a video game can increase the overall exposure to violence. The virtual reality on the screen can impact young people’s behaviour and there is a possibility that games like Mama Kills Animals may not be helpful in terms of relationships with their parents."


PETA's Joel Bartlett threatened: "This game is the best thing ever. So play it now, or else."
SUPER MARIO
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Nintendo once again got PETA's back up with its Mario series. Not, as you might suspect, for the way in which Mario stomps on the backs of turtles, but for the racoon-like Tanooki skin he wears in order to fly.

PETA produced Mario Kills Tanooki to highlight the fashion-conscious Italian's actions, and protest against the fur trade.

According to the organisation, the game was "meant to be tongue-in-cheek, a fun way to call attention to a serious issue that raccoon dogs are skinned alive for their fur," showing Mario dressed in a bloodied and dripping racoon skin.

"Mario is sending the message that it's OK to wear fur," blubbed a PETA spokesperson, before rubbing himself all over with a couple of fronds stapled to a broccoli stem.
FROM THE ARCHIVE:
TEN GAMING CONTROVERSIES YOU NEVER SAW COMING
​
A TRIBUTE TO THE ART OF BOB WAKELIN
​
IS NINTENDO'S SMARTPHONE DREAM OVER ALREADY? - BY MR BIFFO ​
29 Comments
Col. Asdasd
6/4/2017 10:15:28 am

Personally I would never have worn fur if it hadn't been for the indelible impression Super Mario Bros. 3 made on me as a child.

Now it's all I wear. I also make a point of immediately discarding the furs I wear whenever I bump into someone, as per Mario's example, and not wearing anything until I've had a fresh animal skinned to regarb myself.

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pgplayz link
16/6/2018 05:09:56 am

Don't trust PETA they're too paranoid.

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Da5e
6/4/2017 10:34:07 am

'ageing Warhammer game (for nerds).'

:(

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Mr Biffo
6/4/2017 10:50:23 am

Do you know nothing about me? OF COURSE I played Warhammer...!!! I'm the biggest nerd there is.

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Da5e
7/4/2017 10:09:05 am

I know!

I write for GW these days, and it's sort of partially your fault...

Biscuits the totally square nerd
6/4/2017 11:49:15 am

Nerds are cool these days! Television reels from the onslaught of Game of Thrones-alikes and Big Bang Theory-apers, and well-meaning girlfriends are clogging up Reddit with never-ending Portal birthday cakes

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Jim
6/4/2017 11:11:36 am

Blubber johnnies lol

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Frank Chickens
6/4/2017 11:41:37 am

The depressing thing is that people still take these bunch of hypocrites seriously.

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combat_honey
6/4/2017 12:14:28 pm

PETA are unremittingly awful. Sometimes I wonder if they're not a 'false flags' operation designed to drive people away from caring about animal rights issues.

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Nick
6/4/2017 12:23:56 pm

Cooking Mama is drawing that bird wrong. There is no need to be making that much mess.

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Joe Schmoe
6/4/2017 12:24:54 pm

I had so much fun with Assassin's Creed Black Flag's whaling minigame that I moved to Japan and got a job on a whaling ship.

I wish everyone stop calling me a gaijin, though. I keep asking them to call me Ishmael, but it never sticks...

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Trevor Cod
6/4/2017 12:32:48 pm

My Nintendog is presumably an emaciated heap of bones by now. Maybe if he'd learnt to catch a frisbee properly i would have paid more attention to him.
But it does prove the positive influence of games though as I've never felt the need to get and neglect a real dog.

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Chris Wyatt
6/4/2017 10:09:57 pm

My Jub Jub (on Neopets) has been dying for about 15 years, and it's still not dead! I'm going to hell.

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Bryan
6/4/2017 12:41:24 pm

I wonder if PETA petition to carnivourous animals and call them out for eating herbivores

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RichardM
6/4/2017 12:53:06 pm

Yeah... Bacon and burgers all the way. I wonder what they make of Starfox and the like? Anthropomorphic animals shooting up other animals. I suppose that's probably OK. Or maybe it's wrong because the animals are depicted with human ideals and behaviours? Oh, man.

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Spiney O'Sullivan
6/4/2017 12:57:51 pm

I honestly doubt they care, since nobody in the general public really thinks much about Starfox, so it won't grab much attention. It's likely no coincidence that almost all of the games listed above are from very mainstream popular series (the exceptions being Warhammer and possibly Cooking Mama).

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indignant nerd
6/4/2017 01:05:54 pm

EXCUSE ME but my tiny space barbie soldiers are made of plastic and haven't been lead in a LONG TIME

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RichardM
6/4/2017 01:44:39 pm

There seems to be confusion here between Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Warhammer 40k. My Space Marines don't wear fur!

I can only assume Warhammer FB was shitcanned entirely because of the PETA issue, nothing to do with falling sales / Games Workshop being unable to trademark most of the stuff in the Warhammer setting.

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Nick
6/4/2017 02:01:04 pm

Space Wolves did, didn't they? I remember my ham-fisted attempts at painting them, long ago when they were still made of lead.

King of Duckhenrys
6/4/2017 01:13:38 pm

Aren't PETA the original outrage merchants? I wonder how much money the higher ups make from this.

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Clive Peppard
6/4/2017 01:30:56 pm

Im going to start an organisation called PEETA (People Enjoy Eating The Animals) and then berate games makers for not including enough delicious meaty proteiny goodness.

For example Im currently Playing Wild Lands and i havent enjoyed one single deep fried Guinea Pig yet I know they're a South American delicacy.

What thats all about Ubisoft??

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I Ated Them All
6/4/2017 05:40:46 pm

Where do I sign up? I <3 tasty animals!

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S Hawke
6/4/2017 10:42:41 pm

I'm sick of all the yoofs hanging outside the local Games Workshop, in their fur coats even though it's sunny out.

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Centurion Eon
8/4/2017 01:00:24 am

Hi Mr. Biffo,

Your's a very interesting post about PETA's tinkering with videogame concepts/existing properties: it'd sort of mind loss, in the name of... what was the crusade? Mmhh, maybe for the milking of celebrities and poor saps that wouldn't want to navigate, ehhh, the seas with Greenpeace? "Better than Scientology, because it's furry, alright?"

I am with animal protection, but this kind of brainwashing is just shit.

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Araon
15/5/2018 08:04:23 am

Isn't PETA destroying most of the animals that end up in their "care"? Rather hypocritical of them to condone dog killings.

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pgplayz link
16/6/2018 05:07:46 am

PETA is so obessive over stupid video games

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gamedev
5/6/2019 05:43:29 am

What about Angry Birds. Such cruelty to remove the birds' wings and catapult them in the air. And pigs should be eaten not exploded with TNT. What about king kong. mickey mouse. donald duck. poor old jerry. bugs bunny. Shut them ALL DOWN. No videos no cartoons no animations. Just videos on dogs playing catch. Surely that will teach children a thing or two. Or perhaps some developers should start suing PETA for harassment.

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Johann Dioneda
29/9/2020 12:18:46 am

In March of 2020, Peta had yet got their take on the beloved life sim game; Animal Crossing New Horizons. They despise the museum (which is unlocked by donating a couple of fish and insects). They also hate fishing and bug catching. They put signs in front of the museum saying “empty the tanks” and made the “Meat is Murder” shirts in the custom design feature. At least they never made their own brutal version of Animal Crossing.

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Frog
20/2/2021 07:31:08 pm

Animals matter, stop saying lies and insults to peta .

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