PETA has been waiting patiently for the release of “Animal Crossing: New Horizons,” a social simulation video game that places your character in a town full of friendly anthropomorphic animals, hoping that it might finally give them something new to complain about. Unfortunately, PETA has found nothing wrong with the game. “We greatly rely on animal cruelty to keep this business afloat, and the utter lack of it in Animal Crossing is disturbing and reprehensible,” said PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “At PETA, most of our time is spent complaining, and our greatest fear is that animals might start getting treated better so we have nothing new to complain about.”
Complaining is a multi-million dollar industry in the animal-rights world, and PETA was hoping to cash in on the new Animal Crossing depicting mistreatment of fictional animals in any form. In a recent study published by Forbes, this situation may have cost the animal welfare organization $25K on advertising dollars for potential disgruntled tweets. “We were hoping the game would depict some form of mistreatment of the animals- from misgendering, to cursing near them, or even just bad haircuts,” said Ingrid. “The animals seem pretty thrilled about the situations the developers have put them in, and here at PETA, we can’t stand by that.”
PETA has a long and troubled history of speaking out against the mistreatment of animals in video games. In 2011, PETA criticized “Skyrim: Elder Scrolls V” for their insensitive glorification of dragon poaching. “In Skyrim, dragons should not be ostracized for wreaking havoc on fictional towns such as Windhelm, killing thousands of characters and burning children to death with their flames.”
Although Animal Crossing seems pretty animal-friendly to PETA, they still have a few suggestions for the developers. The one issue PETA has with the game is the fishing feature- which allows characters to go fishing for food. “You’re allowed to go fishing, which we think is demented and archaic. You can catch bugs in the game, why not eat them? Everyone knows they don’t have feelings!”
In her closing statement, Newkirk threatened violence towards her adversaries. “Animal Crossing is too nice to the fictional animals, and anyone who disagrees with us will be euthanized.”
- The Terminal Times
The Terminal Times 