Dog-Fighting Game Pulled from Android Market

[BabyRaptor]

Killing people - All right ! Killing Dogs - No way.

Yeah, get back to making games about humans brutally murdering each other like a HEALTHY NORMAL PERSON.

After reading this post and the comments following I feel like I'm in an insane asylum. Where are peoples priorities?

The Pokemon thing I can understand. It's set in an alternate universe where fighting them is the one big thing, they aren't real, they don't die, yada yada yada...

This...Well, look at people these days. How many people consider non-heterosexuals to be subhuman and are fine with denying them rights or even killing them? How many religions are the same, or encourage the same thing of people who don't believe the way they do? Racism is a third example.

In short, animals don't work as a scary Other figure. People who aren't like you do, and that's why very few people are phased at killing them anymore.

 

[DarkTenka]

When Mortal Kombat was banned in Australia .. it made me want it all the more.

Now I really want this dogfighting game .. and I dont even know what genre it is.

Seriously? .. Is it a 2D fighter or what?

 

[GeekFury]

I'm kinda seeing myself agreeing with people that say it's wrong to ban thise game, yes I'm against real life dogs fighting, but if it's a virtual dog, then I don't see the problem. As stated we have thousands of games where you kill people and even games where you kill animals, yet a game with dog fighting is the limit? Why not pull Fallout 3 or New Vegas then? I've lost count of how many of mans best friend I've put a bullet in.

Sorry, I don't agree wiht the content of the game, but nor do I agree with pulling it because of the content.

 

[EscapistUser123456]

No.

Just no.

Yeah free speech is great but that game...

No.

My friend also used to just say "no.". He was also the pisspole of our class and nobody liked him. He also liked anime, which fits perfect with his situation.

You know if he was your friend it means someone liked him

And I'm sorry that by typing No because I find the idea of a game about dog fighting horribly disturbing has caused you to share a tale of your freind who must have had a hell of a time if nobody (other then you that is) liked him.

Oh, sorry, no offence, I didn't mean to offend you, and I meanth my classmate instead of "friend".

 

[TakeFour]

So, killing hookers in GTA is fine, they're just women. But God forbid you hurt a dog! This is absurd...

 

[John Funk]

The most popular mobile game may involve flinging birds at castles, but until Angry Birds becomes a real-life problem I don't think we have to worry about that.

So if I'm reading that right, what you essentially just said is "if it's a real life problem, there shouldn't be a game about it".

Good thing every single violent game Escapist ever defended from Fox and whatever other morons went ahead and railed at the gaming industry never included an activity that's a real life problem.

*massive thumbs up*

No, I said that unless it's a real life problem, I don't think there will be any outrage over that.

Still, you join the outrage in this matter, quite enthusiastically at that, yet I'm pretty sure you condemn/ridicule others when they do it in matters considering the murder of say, soldiers in games, which we're pretty accustomed to by now. The "pretty sure" part is only there cause I'm not sure who wrote the articles in question, but your best case scenario is that you're contradicting other authors (and considering the amount of articles on anti-gaming freakouts over the years around here, my bet is you wrote at least one of them).

This article reeks of hypocrisy.

Because forcing animals to fight to the death is a different kind of cruel then fighting grown adults who have (in-game) made the decision to fight you back. It's the same reason that a game where you murder children would be a bit on the dodgy side.

I find dogfighting a special kind of heinous. I'm certainly not going to say that nobody should be able to make a game out of it if they want, but free speech does not mean freedom from consequences as a result of that speech - and in this case, the consequence is Google choosing to not sell it on its marketplace, which it has every right to.

 

[Jumwa]

Because forcing animals to fight to the death is a different kind of cruel then fighting grown adults who have (in-game) made the decision to fight you back. It's the same reason that a game where you murder children would be a bit on the dodgy side.

I find dogfighting a special kind of heinous. I'm certainly not going to say that nobody should be able to make a game out of it if they want, but free speech does not mean freedom from consequences as a result of that speech - and in this case, the consequence is Google choosing to not sell it on its marketplace, which it has every right to.

I don't think anyone is taking to issue the right of the distributor to stop selling the game. Just the hypocrisy of gamers who defend games like GTA or Prototype, where you can brutalize and murder innocent people who have no ability to defend themselves or fight back, but who attack this as heinous and say removing it is both appropriate and right.

 

[Danglybits]

Just going by the concept without any knowledge of the actual gameplay... boo freaking hoo. Complaining about this is just plain silly. It's not like I don't spend my evenings murdering fake humans in my FPS games. It's not like millions of young kids aren't capturing, training, and fighting fake animals in their Pokemon games. It's not like millions of people don't slaughter billions of fake critters in MMOs...

Sure, in real life it's a terrible terrible act... but so is murder of humans. Morals don't really transfer over to video games so well.

That's my question. No one has explained what the game play was like at all; kind of important.
I guess the difference between this and pokemon (assuming they had different game play) is that pokemon don't fight to the death and that they are fantasy animals.

The "murder is wrong but we play that too" argument forgets that there isn't a culture of murder the way there is with dogfighting. Everyone knows that murder is wrong but a lot of people still don't think that dogfighting is wrong. What affect this game would have on that I don't know. Especially since no one talks about the game play and I don't think that I've heard anyone say that they played the thing. I kind of wish I'd gotten it just so I'd know what the hell they're talking about.

 

[Vrach]

The most popular mobile game may involve flinging birds at castles, but until Angry Birds becomes a real-life problem I don't think we have to worry about that.

So if I'm reading that right, what you essentially just said is "if it's a real life problem, there shouldn't be a game about it".

Good thing every single violent game Escapist ever defended from Fox and whatever other morons went ahead and railed at the gaming industry never included an activity that's a real life problem.

*massive thumbs up*

No, I said that unless it's a real life problem, I don't think there will be any outrage over that.

Still, you join the outrage in this matter, quite enthusiastically at that, yet I'm pretty sure you condemn/ridicule others when they do it in matters considering the murder of say, soldiers in games, which we're pretty accustomed to by now. The "pretty sure" part is only there cause I'm not sure who wrote the articles in question, but your best case scenario is that you're contradicting other authors (and considering the amount of articles on anti-gaming freakouts over the years around here, my bet is you wrote at least one of them).

This article reeks of hypocrisy.

Because forcing animals to fight to the death is a different kind of cruel then fighting grown adults who have (in-game) made the decision to fight you back. It's the same reason that a game where you murder children would be a bit on the dodgy side.

I find dogfighting a special kind of heinous. I'm certainly not going to say that nobody should be able to make a game out of it if they want, but free speech does not mean freedom from consequences as a result of that speech - and in this case, the consequence is Google choosing to not sell it on its marketplace, which it has every right to.

I'm not taking issue with the action, of course Google has every right to throw that game out of their own marketplace rule wise, I'm taking issue with your (and by proxy, Escapist's) statement and support over it. You take free speech as an argument when it you like what it protects, but when a decision flies right in the face of free speech, you all out support it and say "hey, good thing this thing ain't protected by it amirite!". That still fits the definition of hypocrisy, you're merely trying to hide it behind rules.

Also:
"Because forcing animals to fight to the death is a different kind of cruel then fighting grown adults who have (in-game) made the decision to fight you back."

Really? Cause I'm pretty sure most people here, you and the Escapist's staff included, would defend games like Prototype, GTA and countless other games where you fight other things than consenting adults. You have games where you kill old people, defenseless civilians, hell Civilization and similar games let you drop nuclear missiles like fucking candy, killing millions of people, mostly civilians. So how exactly are all those games just fine if this one isn't?

 

[Treblaine]

Freedom of speech is a wonderful thing. However there must always be a line drawn somewhere for all freedoms.

If you draw the line at this game you will find this line cuts through some of your most beloved games.

Next thing you know all dog-like pokemon have to be removed from the game. If I remember correctly animal rights groups have complained about pokemon. Though nothing came of it.

Why? because people LIKE Pokemon, they are willing to give it a chance.

No one knows this game, they won't even consider it. But us gamers expect the wider public and legislature to give our violent games a chance to spite how unfamiliar they are with them.

We dig a grave for games like Dog Wars, you'll find that grave filled with your own game collection.

I find dogfighting a special kind of heinous. I'm certainly not going to say that nobody should be able to make a game out of it if they want, but free speech does not mean freedom from consequences as a result of that speech - and in this case, the consequence is Google choosing to not sell it on its marketplace, which it has every right to.

A game where players raise dogs to fight other dogs in illegal dog-fighting rings has been given the boot from Android Market after people (appropriately) complained.

Naturally, there are always going to be some amoral jerks who look at the practice of forcing dogs to brutally murder each other and say, "Hey, that would make a cool game." Such was the case with Dog Wars...

There may still be a little hope left in humanity yet: Said game has been pulled from the Android Marketplace

Consider this for a second:

[HEADING=2]What if Wal-mart had refused to stock Bioshock simply because you could murder children in the game?[/HEADING]

Would you be happy and say this was "appropriate", "moral" and "good for humanity"? Jack Thompson would.

Because the game would be canned, and all games with violent or illegal themes games like it, long goes Mortal Kombat, Call of Duty, Red Dead Redemption. Because if one or two major retailers in a key market refuse to stock a game it doesn't matter if you can go somewhere else, the game is dead, it will never sell enough to break even.

THAT is where the conservatives are going to go next, soon they will give up on pestering the legislature and they will go to the corporations. That's what these Jack Thompson types will do, it's their last avenue and may be able to deliver a terrible blow to liberty of this art form.

They WILL put pressure, boycotts, petitions and campaigns on them to not sell certain games, game that you LOVE and you won't have a leg to stand on after what you concluded with Dog Wars. You'd be a blatant hypocrite. These conservative game grabbers are as horrified by John Marsden as you are horrified by dog-fighting and they actually have the moral high ground here.

But that is not an excuse for corporate censorship.

John Funk, you have to realise how approving of the ostracising of video games like Dog Wars - as crude and untasteful as they are - you undermine your own industry.

 

[Throwitawaynow]

I think a game about kid fighting would be recieved better than a game about dog fighting. Raise your child to beat the best.