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.
