Assassin’s Creed IV comes under fire from PETA for whaling
By Tim Colwill on March 6, 2013 at 11:43 am
Animal rights organisation PETA has criticised Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag for what it calls a “disgraceful” attempt to “glorify” whaling.
In a statement issued to VentureBeat, PETA says: “Whaling –that is, shooting whales with harpoons and leaving them to struggle for an hour or more before they die or are hacked apart while they are still alive — may seem like something out of the history books, but this bloody industry still goes on today in the face of international condemnation, and it’s disgraceful for any game to glorify it.”
“PETA encourages video game companies to create games that celebrate animals—not games that promote hurting and killing them.”
Black Flag will also reportedly be composed of 40% naval missions, according to a quote from creative director Jean Guesdon on a document dug up by PC Gamer. Some of the side quests during these missions will apparently involve the hunting of whales — or not, if PETA is able to have any affect on the game (which seems unlikely).
A similar quote from Guesdon uncovered by AGB indicates that the game’s single-player experience will be a “connected” one, referring to it as “Single Connected Player” mode and saying that “Next Gen Consoles will allow players to have a solo experience that benefit the presence of a huge community”. It’s not clear whether this will demand an always-online connection, but it’s doubtful as Ubisoft have since sworn-off the practice.
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WHITE WHALE HOLY GRAIL!
Can we have a game about harpooning PETA fanatics instead? They have a terrifying combination of stupidity and self-righteousness… thankfully they’re almost completely powerless and harmless.
I hope no one was surprised by this.
I’m almost expecting this thread to go down a similar path to the FC3/tiger saga. <_<
They’ve done some pretty fucked up things in the name of animal rights :/
ooshp,
Indeed.
Getting really tried of some of the BS from these guys. These are digital 1′s and 0′s on my screen for christ’s sake….
It’s not as if PETA are saints either, jeez gotta go back and watch that PETA episode of Penn and Teller’s BullSh!t methinks.
PETA loves animals a little too much, humans not so much.
peta violence against women
More violence against women:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S7SaiI4CHQ
PETA is an irrelevant cesspool of self-righteous wankers. There’s plenty of other relevant animal rights groups that aren’t a pack of smug assholes. .
These are the same douche bags that complained about Super Meat Boy and created their own Tofu alternative.
People are missing the point.
40% NAVAL MISSIONS. The only thing that was even remotely fucking fun about AC3. YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Impaling virtual people = Acceptable
Impaling virtual whales = “DISGRACEFUL!”
Personally I think this is just a flimsy attempt at some publicity by an organisation that few consider relevant these days. I mean are they honestly suggesting we are going to play this, stroke our chins and then be running off to gather our harpoon and oilskins?
Inb4 they team up with Sea Sheppard and the universe collapses because you can’t stuff that much douchebag under one roof.
What’s wrong with Sea Shepherd? Are you a fan of illegal industrial whaling by a foreign country in our territorial waters based on lies about “scientific research”?
Depends on whether whaling in the game is portrayed in its historical context, or just “hey killing whalez iz awesomez!”
love how stuff in games always seems to promote bad stuff in real life…. i might become a Japanese whaler now that ive played this….
why dont they think that we either play this in a game.. totally none real, no harm comes..
OR
hey im gunna hunt a whale real life.. cool beans
caitsith01,
…yeah historical context…
Anyhow because it’s PETA making the comment it’s become a PETA bashing thread instead. That’s fine by me, PETA are a bunch of a-holes with warped priorities so bash away folks.
I love me some good times virtual animal killing…. makes hanging around the actual real life ones that much more pleasent.
Does take away from the fact that AC3 has become a pretty boring series that should have ended a long time ago
what a joke coming from PETA. every animal they save has a 90% chance of being “humanly” put down only a few weeks after rescue. a wild dog living on the streets at least gets to live its life unlike the poor animals being “helped” by PETA.
even Sea Shepherd dont want you killing there pets while they are out saving whales.
There should be a time travel segment where Desmond goes to the peter offices and liberates all the animals and performs hits on all the staff.
Be no point. PETA don’t give a crap about people.
How come portraying something in a video game is automatically “glorifying” it? It’s a looong way off anyone outside ubisoft being able to make any sort of educated opinion as to how it’s handled, for all they know it could be a heart-wretching tale of how awful it is to hunt whales.
“Whaling .. may seem like something out of the history books, but this bloody industry still goes on today in the face of international condemnation”
Um, I remember seeing in the news lastyear that the Last operating whaling boat went home early, and would not be operating this year.
Pretty sure that means whaling is over, unless the news was in error (which it often is)
some species of whales are also now up to pre-whaling levels. At this rate, we’ll be culling them in a few years to save the fish
Methinks the only reason Ubisoft mentioned the Whale Hunting was to get a response from PETA.
Free advertising FTW!
\m/
Guess it’s a good thing they aren’t aware of Dishonored…
Oh, and PETA are insane. You don’t waste time rationalising with insane people – you can’t win.
^ this
also it’s period accurate not glorification having said that peta is bat shit so meh
Totally agree that PETA are crazy fanatics, they give animal/nature lovers a bad name.
However I think the context here is important. If you are playing a game where there are bad guys trying to kill you while you try to save the world, and you are impaling them to succeed, then it’s totally different to going around and impaling parents in front of their children as they take them to school, for no good reason(which is pretty much what whaling is).
At the same time it’s kinda hard to feel sorry for a lot of people when they do stupid things to themselves that will severely shorten their lives – often on purpose and knowing full well what they are doing and what the consequences will be.
But something tells me that AC4 will not feature a whaling minigame – but it’ll be in a cut-scene or something like that, and most likely you will be assassinating the occupants of the whaling ship. Especially given that AC3 you played a native American, which hints to me that Ubisoft aren’t completely insensitive unlike some companies.