Cat Killer Gaming App on Kickstarter Must be Shut Down

[KamaAina]

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/283/639/504/cat-killer-gaming-app-on-kickstarter-must-be-shut-down/

A gaming app developer, Fred Mastropasqua, is seeking funding via kickstarter for an app that will encourage the player (as a cat avatar) to:

"...escape a house and dodge deadly obstacles. Sure you can do that and beat the game but the real fun of the game is laughing at all the different ways the cat dies a horrible death.”

And when he says that the cat dies a horrible death, he’s not exaggerating. He has plotted 17 different death scenarios, all graphically and bloodily depicted. Since further description can be a trigger, I'll simply say that he must be stopped....

Violent games are never going away, but when the objects of such violence are those with no voice to protest, we must express loudly that it is not okay to depict animal torture, dismemberment and murder as recreation.

edit: I'll bet Bill Frist is behind this.

[AngryAmish]

1. There are thousands of games where humans die constantly

Yet no uproar.

Are you suggesting that games cause cruelty to animals?

[KamaAina]

2. No, they are.

[AngryAmish]

5. Their position is the dumbest thing I heard this week.

Palin level stupidity.

[whathehell]

11. Please..I'm don't like any of these "games" but human adults can

take care of themselves far better than small, defenseless animals.

[AngryAmish]

15. Is that an argument?

Every day billions of creatures, great and small are actually killed and eaten. By other beasties and humans.

But if it is simulated...HOLD THE MOTHERFUCKING PRESSES!!!!',!!*

What a stupid position.

[whathehell]

18. -----

Oh yeah, 'cause "simulation" means nothing, right?

It doesn't resonate, or celebrate, or stimulate or advocate, right?

What a stupid, literal-minded position.

[Shrike47]

31. Although I kill many, many Orcs every day, I have never killed a real one or anyone else.

The app is tasteless and should be discouraged. I am reluctant to ban speech in whatever form.

[whathehell]

36. I understand, & I'm glad you think that the app is tasteless and to be discouraged.

I also understand your reluctance to ban speech in whatever form.

[kcr]

38. I'n not talking about the app. I haven't seen it so I don't know.

I'm just talking about the argument that we should care about animals more because humans can care for themselves.

[kcr]

24. I see this argument more and more, and it bothers me

So, humans can take better care of themselves? Well, why aren't they then? It's not a zero sum game. Violence against humans, even adult humans, is just as terrible.

[whathehell]

37. What argument?..That torture and murder of the weak & defenseless is particularly despicable?

You're entitled to your opinion.

[deaniac21]

58. Cat defenseless...

my cat isn't...

[nomorenomore08]

19. I don't think it's the violence/gore itself so much as the way it's seemingly played for laughs.

And having 17 different gruesome death scenarios for a cell phone game does seem a bit obsessive.

[AngryAmish]

21. Beheading is bad, let's ban Great Expectations....

You are on the side of the book burners. Is that a good side?

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

40. A video game app is the same as Great Expectations?

A) It's not a book, and B) no one is burning it.

You've gone into flights of absurdity beyond the abilities of most mortals in this thread.

[AngryAmish]

46. This thread is about a petition to shut down a work of art

Same thing as book burning.

[nomorenomore08]

55. I was explaining why they feel that way. Not agreeing with them, necessarily.

I don't want anything banned, period. Hell, I've read 'American Psycho' and willingly sat through "Cannibal Holocaust."

[MADem]

29. Didn't Comedy Central have a game that people could download that was all about

someone getting killed? This sounds like a rip off of that game....

FWIW, the CC game was played for laughs, too. It was very cartoon-y...

[nomorenomore08]

54. You were in an office and had various means of killing yourself. I think that was the one.

Some would no doubt think it tasteless to play that for laughs, but compared with animal torture it honestly doesn't concern me.

[MADem]

59. Yes, that was it--I never downloaded it, but I remember the advertisements for it! nt

[madokie]

3. When you say cat killer

I'm thinking senator frist from tennessee I think it was where he was from. LOL

[Coventina]

4. Uh, don't let this guy see "Frogger"

I'm totally against animal cruelty, but this guy is delusional if he thinks this is anything new.

[aikoaiko]

35. For the win.

[Coventina]

47. Yipeee! I've never won the internets before!!

Thank you! Thank you!!

[Inkfreak]

39. .....

[Terra Alta]

6. I hope he doesn't get the funding he needs

and that the game never comes to fruition. Nothing funny at all about animal torture.

[whathehell]

14. Animal abuse is appalling and often a precurser to human abuse.

The sadistic prick thought that up should get NOTHING.

[NuclearDem]

7. Disgusting.

[VScott]

8. Why "must" it be shudown?

Ohhh, I get it... more blind outrage that you and others disapprove of, therefore it must banned.

Fuck that!

[KamaAina]

9. That. Is. The. Title. Of. The. Page.

[VScott]

10. My aplogies then.

[LiberalElite]

12. Thank you for posting this nt

[Beringia]

13. signed

[Blue Owl]

16. Dahmer 1.0

[Nye Bevan]

17. Is this significantly worse than games such as "Call of Duty"? (nt)

[nomorenomore08]

20. And how many people take up military-grade weaponry and try to "conquer" their neighbors?

Versus how many people - young people especially - torture and kill cats in a given year?

[Donald Ian Rankin]

23. Far more of the former than the latter.

There are far more soldiers than there are animal torturers.

I suspect there are also far more murderers than there are people who torture cats, although I don't have data to support that.

[nomorenomore08]

56. I didn't mean actual soldiers, I meant people with (violent) delusions of grandeur

who might hypothetically take it out on those around them. I don't believe that video games will directly motivate such an absurd action, hence why I found the "Call of Duty" comparison a bit ridiculous. Though I'm not saying the phone app will directly encourage animal abuse either, mind you.

[wingzeroday]

60. "conquer" their neighbors

All the members of isis?

[nomorenomore08]

63. I was being tongue-in-cheek. Like as if "Call of Duty" would actually inspire real-life "conquests."

Granted, I don't think the app discussed in the OP would necessarily motivate acts of animal cruelty either - and like I've said, I'm absolutely opposed to government censorship - but a cat being maimed and killed for laughs strikes me as unnecessarily and bizarrely cruel.

[whathehell]

64. Thank You. n/t

[Donald Ian Rankin]

22. No, censorship must be opposed.

It is entirely OK to depict *fictional* animal torture, dismemberment and murder as recreation, just like it's OK to depict those things happening to humans.

If you don't like this game, feel free not to play it.

[kcr]

25. I have no intention of signing, but

If you don't like the petition, feel free to ignore it. It goes both ways.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

28. That line only works on things that don't affect other people.

"If you don't like gay marriage, don't have one" is a reasonable line of argument, because gay marriage doesn't affect anyone but the people involved.

"If you don't like pollution, don't pollute" is not a reasonable line of argument, because polluting affects other people.

It is sometimes reasonable to try to control those aspects of other people's behaviour that affect people other than themselves, and sometimes not - each case must be evaluated on its own merits. It is virtually never reasonable to try to control aspects of the behaviour of a compos mentis adult that don't affect people other than themselves.

Playing this game will not affect anyone other than the player.

Petitioning to have it banned will affect people other than the petitioner.

[kcr]

30. It would be great if we could all float in a bubble where no one else's actions ever affect us

But people are going to be offended by things you're not. They're allowed to have the opinion that it can cause copycats. If Kickstarter is okay with that and has community standards and avenues of recourse where people can report violations , what can you do about it? Maybe you can petition Kickstarter to not allow petitions reporting community violations.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

32. What I can do is explain to people why I think they shouldn't.

I am absolutely not proposing banning petitions like this.

I am, however, advocating not signing them.


OK, let me be pretentiously preachy for a moment, because it's fun: I believe in three things:

1) The right to be wrong.
2) The duty not to be.
3) The sacrament of argument.

Ideally, I want to live in a world where everyone has a multitude of rights that they never exercise, but perfectly well could if they misguidedly chose to do so (the right to vote Tory leaps to mind).

Incidentally, "they're allowed to have that opinion" is a line that sets of alarm bells for me - it's absolutely true, but at first glance it looks as though it implies "that is a factually and/or ethically justified opinion for them to have", and that absolutely isn't a corollary.

[kcr]

34. "they're allowed to have that opinion"

Last edited Sat Jan 31, 2015, 10:13 AM - Edit history (1)

At first glance it may look that way if you ignore the context of our entire discussion. You started off by making this about censorship. That seems to be your explanation for why people shouldn't sign these petitions. The implication there is that their opinion is censorship. Well, if they are petitioning the government to outlaw such games, yes. I would fully be on board with you to discourage people from signing that. But they aren't. They're petitioning a website that has rules and guidelines for the community and stating that a certain item violates those guidelines. There are perfectly valid reasons for establishing community guidelines. Merely doing so does not mean censorship. Everything everywhere all the time doesn't have to be a free for all. Often that is a hamper for people freely expressing themselves.

[nomorenomore08]

62. "If you don't like this game, feel free not to play it." I agree with that, actually.

I'm opposed to government-mandated censorship of any creative work. But as a former cat owner myself - both of ours passed away in 2013 - I guess the subject matter here hits a little too close to home.

[CBGLuthier]

26. Guess they never heard of Frogger

Or Deerhunter or shooting galleries from 60 years ago where we all shot cute little ducks (NOT REAL ONES) with bee bees.

[jberryhill]

48. I hate to break this to you...

But in Frogger, the player was the frog.

I guess the cars were driven by video game players from another dimension, who thought the point was to run over the frog.

[melman]

52. And in this game

the player is the cat.

[jberryhill]

53. Well geez, you expect me to read the WHOLE OP?

I don't have time for War And Peace here, you know.

[LostOne4Ever]

27. They need to realize it is just pixels, not real cats (nt)

[Shrike47]

33. Although it sounds unappealing (we are cat people), I can distinguish between real and virtual.

In my fantasies I do a number of anti-social things I would never do in real life.

[jberryhill]

44. Please elaborate

[Shoulders of Giants]

41. I respectfully disagree.

This sounds like a terrible game. But I think trying to stop something just brings attention to it and makes it more popular. I fully support the first amendment, even for "cat killing" games. Also if you get it kicked off KickStarter, it will just show up somewhere else, this time with more attention. I think the better response is to ignore it.

[lonestarnot]

42. Frist going into biz with the car roof dog strapper.

[Lancero]

43. Looking over the death scenes...

I get the feeling that this person drew heavily from The Book of Bunny Suicides.

[jberryhill]

45. .

[Katashi_itto]

49. Thirty seconds that this thread stole that I will never get back.

[Quackers]

50. They would be terrified of Goat Simulator

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/goat-simulator/id868692227?mt=8

[LadyHawkAZ]

51. Oh. I thought this was about Exploding Kittens

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/elanlee/exploding-kittens

[TransitJohn]

57. It's amazing how many people want to quell speech that they find objectionable. eom

n/t

[davidthegnome]

61. Hmm.

You know, personally, I'm working on a petition to make people stop killing bunnies in Skyrim. I mean, sure, they kill all kinds of things in Skyrim - but why bunnies? Bunch of assholes...

As someone who occasionally plays grand theft auto 5 and other naughty video games, I've got to say that I don't see the point in banning this particular gaming app. It's a video game, not meant to be taken seriously, to be a how to guide, or an instructional exercise. There's a whole hell of a lot of us who waste plenty of time playing video games... but have never, not even once, let some crazy shit in a game encourage us to torture or kill anything or anyone.

Like any other kind of art, I may find it objectionable, I may find it ridiculous, I may even find it cruel - but it is art. No one is *actually* killing anything here.

"we must express loudly that it is not okay to depict animal torture, dismemberment and murder as recreation"

It's okay to "depict" all kinds of things that it's certainly not okay to DO. Not sure why it's hard to separate the two. Anyway... going to go play a violent video game now. Have to work tomorrow - need my fix.