Video game animals

Video games are an ever increasing medium of entertainment and storytelling. With the variety of stories told it is no wonder that in some of them animals will feature either as part of the scenery or even part of the storyline. Today I want to discuss an issue with you. Are animals represented accurately in video games, should we even care and should animal violence be present in them.

Hunting games aside, I believe that animals are present in a variety of popular games. Pretty much all the games revolving around fantasy will have some sort of predatory animal as an adversary at some point and a lot of open world games will feature birds or even mammals for ambiance. Which leads to the first point. Animals as adversaries. Personally I don't mind it. Although it may pain some people to shoot or stab virtual wolves or bears it is fine by me. I have virtually shot wolves, fought bears and stalked deer. What I can see as a potential problem however is that predators often tend to be demonized and lead to misinformation. People complain that stories or shows give some animals a bad name and quite frankly I think that some video games have gone to extreme lengths in regards to predators. Beware though! Should we accuse the games? Shouldn't we educate our children on the fact these animals are just virtual and that the actual animals are nothing like this. In addition to that, isn't it likely that a bear or tiger attack could occur in the wild. Is it really that wrong for video games to include video game attacks by animals? I am not saying that most games are accurate but who wants to include wolves in their game when the actual animal is very elusive. What would be the point? In my opinion the demonization of predators shouldn't happen but as with many other things in video games, it is all fake and in the end it is either up to us or the educational system to teach to our children that these animals aren't real.

Which leads me to my second point. Should violence against video game animals be considered abusive? PETA and other groups believe that games such as Battlefield 3(which included one scene that you have to kill a rat or be discovered), the upcoming Assassin's creed 4(which involves pirates and whaling) or Red Dead Redemption(where you can shoot the entire American Frontier) encourage animal violence. My opinion is that it doesn't. Shooting a virtual whale, while although controversial, will not harm animals nor will it cause the consumers to be pro whaling. Video game violence in some cases may be obvious, in others not. Pokemon will not encourage children to battle animals with each other and neither will killing and skining animals in Red Dead Redemption. In the end of the day it comes down to proper education. Virtual animals are exactly that, virtual. Unless there is a video game that doesn't out right torture animals, it doesn't warrant any sort of trouble.In my opinion it is a waste of time and money to campaign and advocate against this sort of cause, where there are a variety of other causes that are well worth campaigning.

Kudos however to some games who have done some research in regards to nature and set up a proper ecosystem of sorts. In Red Dead Redemption, hunting is just part of the open world environment but it is a way to make money and animals are everywhere. However animals are distributed by habitats, they hunt, seek water and will take livestock. The ecosystem pretty much feels alive. Want to hunt bears? Try mountainous areas where they den. Saw a deer carcass? A predator is probably around. These sort of video games, although featuring hunting, create an appreciation for nature and the animals themselves.

In my opinion it comes down to education. Video game animals are fake, education will stick forever. If proper education occurs there is no reason to fear anything from video games. As I said there are other causes to advocate for which deserve your attention more. In my opinion let video games be. Advocating against them will do nothing more but label you as stupid or a fanatic both of which do not benefit the purpose of conservation advocates but rather hurts it. People should focus on the real matters at hand and ignore video games.