Animal Abuse in video games

[OKeijiDragon]

Uhm... wasn't it so that you had a hidden reputation meter in Megaman Legends? Where certain choices (and actions, such as animal abuse) will make your armor darker, increasing your attack power or something, but also creating various negative responses from NPCs? I know it was in the second game ('cause I spent a tiny forever kicking a pick to go dark, at least, but I can't remember if it was in the first game too.)

Yes, but in Mega Man Legends 1 (if you watched the video which I recommend seeing it to check out what happens, if you haven't), you'll see that no matter what you do to animals you wouldn't get marked down by anything in the game, especially true in the Japanese version. In fact, it's encouraged as such in a hidden mini-game where you kick balls at dogs to save the people they're chasing.

In Legends 2, however, you can kick the stars out of those piggies and turn pitch black and you'll be seen as such a douchyass twat to all the NPCs that you will get that confrontation from Roll where she gives you an ultimatum...

[Shadow Stalker]

ya but it's eyes are like...bejeweled lol

Oh my dad likes that game.

[Rose312]

Good...for him? lol Back on topic

[Enrico Marini]

The more I think about it, the more I feel Pokémon should be "corrected". Trapping animals in tiny balls to cock fight them, then allowing them to faint, or get burned, bitten, frozen, poisoned, or paralyzed only to get dumped into an electronic box. Then the game makes you collect 150, 250, 350, 450 pokémon and store them in small balls in a virtual box. There's no way that'd be allowed in the real world.

Lol that'd make a great hack. You capture your first pokémon then the RSPCA or american/japanese equivelant turns up and arrests your character for cruelty to animals.

[Shadow Stalker]

The more I think about it, the more I feel Pokémon should be "corrected". Trapping animals in tiny balls to cock fight them, then allowing them to faint, or get burned, bitten, frozen, poisoned, or paralyzed only to get dumped into an electronic box. Then the game makes you collect 150, 250, 350, 450 pokémon and store them in small balls in a virtual box. There's no way that'd be allowed in the real world.

Lol that'd make a great hack. You capture your first pokémon then the RSPCA or american/japanese equivelant turns up and arrests your character for cruelty to animals.

[Rose312]

if a Pokemon is Paralyzed then how goes it Fly...that's seriously hardcore...you Force it to fly miles in hi altitude while it's in insane pain...

[Enetirnel]

The more I think about it, the more I feel Pokémon should be "corrected". Trapping animals in tiny balls to cock fight them, then allowing them to faint, or get burned, bitten, frozen, poisoned, or paralyzed only to get dumped into an electronic box. Then the game makes you collect 150, 250, 350, 450 pokémon and store them in small balls in a virtual box. There's no way that'd be allowed in the real world.

Lol that'd make a great hack. You capture your first pokémon then the RSPCA or american/japanese equivelant turns up and arrests your character for cruelty to animals.

You're absolutely right, animal horders and/or fight arrangers and/or "farm" breeders are terrible. It's quite an interesting take on it overall.

Love the idea of the hack. That'd be perfect.

[Rose312]

Leave it to Pokemon to teach our kids animal abuse...

[WeskerIncarnate]

The more I think about it, the more I feel Pokémon should be "corrected". Trapping animals in tiny balls to cock fight them, then allowing them to faint, or get burned, bitten, frozen, poisoned, or paralyzed only to get dumped into an electronic box. Then the game makes you collect 150, 250, 350, 450 pokémon and store them in small balls in a virtual box. There's no way that'd be allowed in the real world.

Lol that'd make a great hack. You capture your first pokémon then the RSPCA or american/japanese equivelant turns up and arrests your character for cruelty to animals.

Aren't whole little worlds set up within the Pokeball though? I'd say they have pretty good times in there. And of course you had the trainer would abuse the crap out of them...

Yeah, in the real world people like that would be held accountable.

Leave it to Pokemon to teach our kids animal abuse...

I wouldn't go that far. Or are you joking?

[Rose312]

lol I'm just kidding... What about Eddy From Sh2...didn't he slaughter that little doggy...sick punk...

[Bianca]

I'm pretty much with Enrico on this...

However, (seeing as it hasn't been brought up) there is Demento/Haunting Ground.
*Spoilers for Demento/Haunting Ground in this post*

We see Hewie, an albino/white German Shepard being tied in a noose to a tree after being captured, beaten and left to die with the wire noose being so tight, the wire dug into his neck and he was unable to move, barely able to breathe or whine.

You can see Hewie whining for help in this and Fiona's response to it in these cutscenes I've captured.

To obtain a playtitle (and in some cases, a particular ending) - you have to kick, practically tackle, feed Hewie food such as Onions (which are actually toxic to dogs and cats raw and cooked, they can cause hemolytic anemia - which destroys red blood cells in their bloodstream and causes them to become lethargic and will often have trouble breathing).

In Demento, Hewie actually shows those symptoms upon being given a whole, raw onion and begins to whine. He'll limp around whining or yelping in pain, before collapsing. In-game, enemies will also beat him. A lot of players that can't get Hewie back up by apologizing to him, will beat him to the brink that, that he eventually uncurls himself from the fetal/"ball" position, he becomes aggressive to Fiona (will attack her) and also skiddish (avoiding her), growling at her and so-on.

There is other animal cruelty in this game, if you pay attention in a particular area of the game - an enemy can sometimes shoot a rabbit, and if the player is quick - Fiona can actually kick the rabbits.

Due to the gameplay mechanics, it's quite a common thing to accidentally kick Hewie if he walks in front of Fiona during a fight - however some enemies specifically go after him.

It does make me rather sad to see such things in video games, especially on this level and this animal cruelty is included in the backstory of particular characters and is shown in cutscenes (as a fair amount of people have issues against the slaughtering of pigs, the opening shows a pig carcass being chopped up, and others hanging on meat hooks in a damp, dingy cellar that has chains hanging all around, the cellar itself has a fair amount of bloodsplatter too).

Of course, there is a little bit of good - Fiona is actually against animal cruelty and comments on it in-game and responds to it in the game as a huge contrast to the enemies of the game itself. Even though I'd rather animal cruelty wasn't in games, I'd prefer to see characters responding, such as we see with Fiona freeing Hewie instead of "Shoot this, get a reward! =D", which doesn't exactly provide a good general outlook on animal cruelty which can be influenced by many things (not saying that "video games are bad influences", just they can be rather good influences on people and having animals being saved for a good reason can be memorable in contrast to as I've mentioned before - the reward factor for either causing harm OR simply killing an animal for the sake of a reward, whether it's an item or a trophy required to platinum a game or not).

That's just my opinion, seeing as I volunteer at animal shelters, search and rescue abandoned animals and rehabilitate abused animals for pets constantly - I do feel disgusted when I see rewards given for animal abuse, even though it may not be mutilating them, rewards are still given for cruelly abusing or killing of an animal without a sheer thought of the animals' perspective (which, you can actually see in Demento literally and visually).

I'd rather see animal abuse in games, be handled with how it's been done (in some parts) of Demento - with Fiona Belli being completely against it.

Technically, though, the interaction with Hewie in Haunting Ground was a positive message. Because abusing the hell out of him led to the one "bad" ending. You needed to treat Hewie with love and respect in order to advance through the game. It's quite difficult to play if you abused him and, like you mentioned, he'd actually fight back and growl if you kicked him too often. So, you were rewarded for treating him right and punished for treating him poorly.

Spoiler:

show spoiler

And I don't think the punishment gets any worse than having Hewie abandon you in the woods, only to later have Ricardo end up "into your womb" so that Fiona is forced to carry the new Azoth. :p

Not that I'm arguing against anything you said, because I'm in total agreement about the horrors of animal abuse. It's unacceptable and completely sickening. However, I generally see Haunting Ground's gameplay as possessing a positive portrayal of how you should treat an animal.

[Enetirnel]

Technically, though, the interaction with Hewie in Haunting Ground was a positive message. Because abusing the hell out of him led to the one "bad" ending. You needed to treat Hewie with love and respect in order to advance through the game. It's quite difficult to play if you abused him and, like you mentioned, he'd actually fight back and growl if you kicked him too often. So, you were rewarded for treating him right and punished for treating him poorly.

Spoiler:

show spoiler

And I don't think the punishment gets any worse than having Hewie abandon you in the woods, only to later have Ricardo end up "into your womb" so that Fiona is forced to carry the new Azoth. :p

Not that I'm arguing against anything you said, because I'm in total agreement about the horrors of animal abuse. It's unacceptable and completely sickening. However, I generally see Haunting Ground's gameplay as possessing a positive portrayal of how you should treat an animal.

XD Sorry, I was rambling and wasn't making much sense at the time I posted it (note to self, don't try to post stuff whilst barely awake around 2 a.m. ).

I was trying to say that there is a clear contrast with the positive actions of Fiona's interaction with Hewie, to that of the enemies - even though I do find it sickening to what the player must do in order to obtain a Play Title and that ending.

So I do indeed, absolutely agree with you. It's a better light and showing Hewie's response to the player's actions visually and audibly when treating Hewie with care and respect, or cruelly abusing him and the icing on the cake is the character commentary includes Hewie's perspective and shows bonding due to Fiona's positive interactivity.

I honestly wish that more games would give out this portrayal instead of "Kill this, get a reward!", as Demento had it's clear consequences on abusing Hewie (and the rabbits later on, draws a particular enemy to your location if you manage to hit them which in turn could result in the overall consequences of abusing Hewie).

I mean really in some games, kicking dogs? Throwing cats in bags? (Cats in bags being thrown is somewhat common here, same as dogs being abused in such a manner) is clearly not going to help get any positive messages through - instead it only strengthens the idea that "An animal isn't aware, so I can do whatever I want to do to it without any repercussions whatsoever." which absolutely disgusts me after the amount of animals I've rescued and have spent years rehabilitating for unadoptable cases, even thought as I said in my previous post - people will argue that "games have no influence on people, regardless of age"...

A positive influence is a hell of a lot more memorable than spending hours abusing or even slaughtering animals in order to get a play title/item/trophy.

Overall, even though Demento can be a prime example of animal cruelty (from enemies, platinum players or simply sadistic players) it's a balanced one at that by showing both ends of it - care, respect for Hewie or cruelty towards him and the repercussions from it. Personally, I'd say this is the best example I've seen of this within a video game.