While they’ve never lifted a finger to stop the slaughter of trillions of virtual humans in games like Battlefield and Call of Duty, PETA have attacked certain games for apparently promoting cruelty to animals.
Did you ever stop to think about the awful conditions that virtual turkey you prepare in Cooking Mama was raised under? How about the innocent Tanookis that Mario slaughters for their fur in the upcoming Super Mario 3D Land? If not, then you’re an awful human being.
Whenever PETA run out of actual animal cruelty cases to deal with, they start defending virtual animals. It’ll no doubt happen again, so I’ve compiled a list of PETA’s probable next video game targets, so you can start boycotting them in advance.
Pokemon
It’s a video game classic, but Pokemon is essentially cockfighting for children. It’s based solely around capturing wild animals, keeping them in tiny balls that bounce around on your belt, and only ever giving them exercise when you call them out to engage in fisticuffs against someone else’s mistreated pets, until one of them passes out from its injuries.
And those are the lucky ones. Spare a thought for the ones people pluck from the wild merely to complete their Pokedex, before leaving them to rot in virtual storage forever.
 
Viva Pinata
Pinatas are a blatant promotion for animal violence, teaching kids that if they beat their pets with sticks, maybe candy will fall out. But why don’t PETA ever campaign against them? The answer is obvious – piñatas enjoy being smashed open, and relish the joy their sweet sweet innards bring to children.
Unfortunately Viva Pinata denies these creatures the basic right to be cracked open and eaten. Instead players force them to wander around big open plains, living in harmony with other piñatas. It sounds nice, but it’s not the lifestyle they want. It’s so dull, it’s torturous. Help PETA get them back to their rightful place: broken open on the floor, with children scrambling to devour their inner organs.
Â
Lemmings
Animals have been used to help humans with manual labour tasks for thousands of years, and it’s just wrong. Forcing animals to perform strenuous activities against their will should be stopped.
Lemmings are the perfect example of animal exploitation: these resourceful little creatures are forced to climb, build, dig and even blow themselves up to traverse environments against their will.
But PETA says no more! Let them wander aimlessly around, with no pressure to work. It’s much more humane to leave them trapped in a small area for eternity, rather than dig for thirty seconds to reach the paradise on the other side.
 
Worms
For many years,Worms resided in their 2D environment. Their games worked well, people were happy, the worms were happy. But then, the 3D revolution comes along, and suddenly every franchise tries to incorporate this new dimension, this new way of playing.
The 3D Worms games arguably didn’t work as well as their 2D counterparts, but the characters were much happier. Their environment expanded into an entirely new dimension they’d never even comprehended before! We can’t even imagine what that would be like. Their minds expanded with them, as suddenly problems could be tackled from other, unheard-of angles.
But then, years later, Team 17 decided to revive the old 2D style of Worms gameplay. To fans, this was a welcome return to the series’ roots. To the worms themselves, it was devastating. After being enlightened by access to a previously unknown dimension, and all the mind expansion that brings, they were suddenly forced back into the confines of two dimensions. This cannot have positive effects on a creature’s mental stability.
 Monster Hunter
PETA’s issue with the Monster Hunter franchise may not be immediately obvious, but if you dig deep enough, you’ll find that the game actually rewards players for hunting down animals! These creatures may be a danger to the human villages in the games, but that’s no excuse for killing them. Did any of these glorified exterminators try reasoning with the beasts before resorting to violence? Unlikely.
Claiming “Self defence” to justify taking a life is only acceptable in one situation – when an animal kills a human to defend itself.
 Sonic The Hedgehog
Sonic was once a proud creature, standing with an Italian plumber as equals. But at the hands of his masters, he’s been knocked to the ground over the years and forced to perform humiliating acts for money. All this majestic being wants to do is run, really fast, but Sonic Team have refused to let him do what he so yearns for.
Sonic now works under terrible conditions, churning out games that force him to slow down and engage in unnatural platforming, sword fighting, bizarre love interests and woeful hand-to-hand combat as a weird werewolf thing. They even had to break his legs to give Mario a fighting chance in the Olympic Games crossovers.
Sonic Team have physically and mentally abused their animal mascot, and PETA fully encourage fans to bust him out of captivity before they work him to death.
 
Nintendogs
At first glance, Nintendo’s popular virtual pet game appears to teach kids responsibility in raising pets: how to feed them, walk them, play with them. But to raise a Nintendog is to mistreat it.
You might play with it for ten minutes a day, then ignore it while you lug it around in your bag or your pocket. Ignore Paris Hilton – a bag is not an acceptable way to transport an animal.
Your pet lives in that 3cm wide game card, but you “generously” give it the “freedom” to roam about your entire DS system. At least, before the novelty wears off.
Once you get sick of the game/pet (you monster), you’ll revoke its exercise yard privileges and confine it to that tiny game card, to gather dust in a drawer. You won’t feed it or play with it for months, but it won’t starve to death. The Nintendog is a unique creature, in that no matter how hungry it gets, it cannot die. So it’ll sit and starve, painfully, indefinitely, without the relief of death.
Eventually, you’ll remember it’s there, and since you don’t really play the game anymore, you’ll take it to the pound – by which I mean, trade it into EB Games for four dollars. There, it has two possibilities: someone else might buy it, but they won’t want to play with your old dog. They want to start a new one of their own, so yours is quickly deleted.
Or, if it stays on the store shelf for too long, well, we all know what happens to the Nintendogs no one buys – they take them out the back and put them down.
