Friday, August 12, 2005

Call to voice your displeasure over unfunny animal abuse game

While I often hate to give any additional visibility to things that are better off ignored, I was appalled by an unfunny online game that involves the abuse of dead pets. The site (deadpetsgame.com) supports a book that "explores and explains the universe of the Dead Pet. From dead pets in public life... to a selection of the cruellest (sic) deaths meted out to pets in the movies... from a comparison of attitudes and doctrines of pet afterlife across religions to Ancient Roman recipes for dormice and songbirds."

I won't fault the publisher of the book (Canongate) for the book itself--I love that we live in a world and country where people are free to purchase or read virtually anything. But that doesn't mean that a "game" in such poor taste needs to be used to market a book. Animal abuse isn't funny, and offering a free game where any kid (or adult) can beat a dead animal with a baseball bat is, in my opinion, completely unacceptable.

I try to keep my sense of humor about things, but I let the publisher know I did not approve and requested they take down the Web site. If you agree (or if you disagree and feel the publisher's site is appropriate), you can e-mail the publisher at customerservices@canongate.co.uk.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I visited this site and it is horrible. Thanks for sharing this. I'm going to write the company and complain.

Angela

Anonymous said...

Anyone who thinks this is funny should get hit with a bat.