Activision Slammed By PETA

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is at it again, this time criticising the cruel treatment of dogs in Call of Duty: World at War.

PETA has now joined a group of students at the Academy of Notre Dame in condemning one of the world’s best selling titles.

Speaking to GamePolitics, PETA said it hadn’t seen anything as “barbaric” since escaping “Castle Wolfenstein 17 years ago.”

PETA has offered to teach the Activision gang “about the ethical treatment of animals, [we’re] offering to let them take PETA’s ‘Developing Empathy for Animals’ free of charge and are sending a package of Nintendogs games to their offices.”

Activision has responded saying the dogs were used to “create believable, real-world scenes and heighten the game playing experience, Call of Duty: World at War depicts the ruthless and gritty combat of World War II.”

“Dogs are included in the game for authenticity since they were used extensively by German, Japanese, U.S. and Soviet troops during the war. Activision in no way endorses or condones cruelty to animals, and we don’t believe the game will encourage cruelty in any way.”

It’s no surprise that PETA has picked this up, we just expected it to pick it up, oh, in 2007 when CoD: Modern Warfare was released. 

PETA is no stranger to condemning videogames, its most recent attack targeting Cooking Mama received much criticism from the industry.

We’ll be watching this one closely.