News
PETA Gets Involved in Call of Duty: World at War "Controversy"
Activision is Forced to Respond
by Sean
Toward the end of last week, we reported on The Academy of Notre Dame, a high school in Massachusetts whose Animal Rights Club issued a press release condemning Activision's Call of Duty: World at War. Their claim was that the one of the game's "objects" was to kill dogs, and that this was tantamount to teaching kids that cruelty to animals was okay. It's also worth noting that this same release made no mention of a problem with killing humans, but let's set that aside for now. And as sure as the wind blows, if there's a cruelty to animals story, the media whores over at PETA can't be far behind.
PETA, a group best known for great intentions and horrendous execution, has issued its own statement about CoD:W@W's canine hatred. From GamePolitics:
"Not since we were pitted against Nazi attack dogs when we first escaped from Castle Wolfenstein 17 years ago have we seen such barbaric treatment of dogs in gameplay as we did in Call of Duty, World of War.
To help the folks at Activision Blizzard learn about the ethical treatment of animals, we're offering to let them take PETA's "Developing Empathy for Animals" free of charge and are sending a package of Nintendogs games to their office."
Now, generally speaking, this is the kind of announcement I would tend to ignore. As I said before, in my opinion, PETA seems more interested with getting their name in print than in actually accomplishing their goal of an end to animal cruelty. In fact, I would have loved to been able to ignore this response.
Except that Activision, always conscious of their public image, felt the need to validate PETA's rant by issuing a response of their own. Again, from GamePolitics:
In order to create believable, real-world scenes and heighten the game playing experience, “Call of Duty: World at War” depicts the ruthless and gritty combat of World War II.
Dogs are included in the game for authenticity since they were used extensively by German, Japanese, U.S. and Soviet troops during the war. Activision in no way endorses or condones cruelty to animals, and we don’t believe the game will encourage cruelty in any way.
Well said Activision (although I still don't think you needed to say anything at all). The game is set at a period in world history when, like it or not, dogs were used as weapons. To think that playing a game with this can be the sole cause of someone actually hurting an animal is simply moronic. I guess PETA has accomplished at least one of their goals. They got us talking about PETA again.
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Animal Rights Club Protests Call of Duty
Comments
Great article! Your right though Activsion didn't have to make a response. I'm glad they did though and it was a great response!
"PETA, a group best known for great intentions and horrendous execution"
Thank you (sincerely) for not condemning the animal rights movement in this article, simply PETA.
That being said, this whole thing is ridiculous. I hope Activision gave their publicist a raise for that response.
PETA needs to be ignored - period.
P.E.T.A. = Cannon Fodder
Someday the will be little loltims running around making their father worry. And I will teach them to always be nice to animals. Unless, of course, that animal has been trained to (or is naturally inclined to) kill them. If that be the case, I should hope that I've instilled in them the know-how, ability, and common sense to shoot that vicious dog in the fucking head! It's not cruelty if its to save your life.
ALSO IT'S A FUCKING VIDEO GAME!!!! Doesn't PETA have better fights to fight?!? Or are they just sticking to the fights that will get them a story on Fox News, these days?
ugh!
i agree with lisa. attention is like oxygen to them. we need to cut off the flow!