Earlier IncGamers reported PETA had complained about Activision’s use of packs of dogs in the latest Call of Duty offering.
PETA claimed the use of dogs promoted cruelty to animals and stated they’d not seen anything so “barbaric” in 17 years, since Castle Wolfenstein.
Perturbed, IncGamers decided to contact PETA and put to them some basic questions to try to understand why only World at War had been targeted.
IncGamers also asked if, in real life, you were attacked by a dog, would it be advisable to ignore instinct and let the dog maul you.
Kindly, PETA in the US told us that they still weren’t happy with the depiction of dogs in the game, but failed to comment on what to do when attacked by a dog in a war zone.
“Despite Activision’s claims that its games are authentic, unlocking a ‘reward’ that allows you to unleash a pack of attack dogs on enemies does not accurately reflect the history of World War II. It’s a depiction of violence towards animals for the sake of being ‘cool’.”
The dogs in this reward, it must be pointed out, are there to kill the human opponents. An oversight on PETAs part we’re sure.
“While we always choose our battles, PETA is opposed to all violence against animals in video games unless a depiction of cruelty is used to illustrate that cruelty to animals is wrong, such as in PETA US’ spoof game Cooking Mama: Mama Kills Animals. On the other hand, we appreciate games that have an animal-friendly theme, such as Fable 2 (Ed – can’t you kick chickens in Fable 2…?), which PETA US named Game of the Year.
“Does PETA think Call of Duty players are going to pick up guns and start shooting dogs? No. But would you really want to hire a dogsitter who had just finished a five-hour dog-killing rampage on Xbox Live?”
We’ve put a call in to Activision to get a response.
