The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (better known as PETA) absolutely does not condone any sort of violence towards animals. Apparently, they won't even make an exception for animals featured in video games.
Recently, Ubisoft showed off the announcement trailer for Assassin's Creed IV: Blackflag, which would feature assassin's living a pirate's life. The game features hunting whales, which is something that PETA finds disgusting.
"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," said a PETA spokesperson, "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."
Venturebeat contacted Ubisoft for a statement, and they responded hilariously in kind: "History is our playground in Assassin’s Creed. Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag is a work of fiction that depicts the real events during the Golden Era of Pirates. We do not condone illegal whaling, just as we don’t condone a pirate lifestyle of poor hygiene, plundering, hijacking ships, and over-the-legal-limit drunken debauchery."
Video games have been blamed in the not-so-recent past for spurring violence in youth. Should American's next fear be for increased whaling in youth?
