Michael Vick is urging Google to drop a dog-fighting game from the Android Market. He says he’s “come to learn the hard way that dogfighting is a dead-end street,” referencing his 20-month stint in federal prison for a dogfighting conviction.
“Now, I am on the right side of this issue, and I think it’s important to send the smart message to kids, and not glorify this form of animal cruelty, even in an Android app.”
The game is called “Dog Wars” with the description: Feed, water, train and FIGHT your virtual dog against other player’s… action games, chatroom, many characters and dogs to choose from, virtual store, etc.
“Android should drop ‘Dog Wars’ from its online market and join the national movement to save dogs from this violent practice,” said Vick. Besides just being tasteless, the danger with this app is that it teaches you how to dogfight and could lead to people actually dogfight outside of a virtual world.
“Because ‘Dog Wars’ actually instructs players on how to condition a dog using methods that are standard in organized dogfighting, this game may be a virtual training ground for would-be dogfighters. Its timing and message are all wrong.”
The MSPCA-Angell issued a statement to PC Mag detailing exactly how bad this app is, saying “in the past, dogfighting instruction remained underground; however this ‘game’ brings this knowledge to the mainstream public through a tool attractive to young game players.” Of course, the developers of the app are defending themselves, pointing out that the game is rated “high maturity” and saying that “just because something is illegal in real life in certain countries, does not mean it is illegal to make a song, movie or video game about it.”
What do you think? Should this game be pulled or do these developers have a right to distribute it?
via PCMag.com