Feb 21, 2018 07:03 PM
https://www.theguardian.com/games/2018/f...nter-world
EXCERPT: I have an admission to make: I’m a vegetarian who enjoys big-game hunting. For the past several weeks I have been playing Monster Hunter: World, a PlayStation 4 video game in which you head out into the wilds and hunt down enormous dinosaur-like creatures, wearing armour fashioned from the bones, fur and scales of previous conquests. Monster Hunter: World is nothing like real-world hunting. For one thing, the monsters in question are hugely powerful and often eat me for dinner several times before I finally manage a victory, and for another I do most of my hunting with a lightning-infused axe that transforms into a sword.
More saliently, it’s not real. My entertainment does not come at the cost of any real-world suffering. There is no possibility of extinction or ecological catastrophe.
Some players have expressed discomfort at Monster Hunter’s savagery. I was surprised when two friends seperately told me they found the whole thing too distasteful to play – both of them meat-eaters. I am not a judgmental vegetarian (I’ve even been known to eat meat on occasion), but the dissonance made me raise an eyebrow. How is it possible to eat industrially farmed meat – the product of a real animal’s suffering – but find hunting dragons in a video game too much to take....
MORE: https://www.theguardian.com/games/2018/f...nter-world
EXCERPT: I have an admission to make: I’m a vegetarian who enjoys big-game hunting. For the past several weeks I have been playing Monster Hunter: World, a PlayStation 4 video game in which you head out into the wilds and hunt down enormous dinosaur-like creatures, wearing armour fashioned from the bones, fur and scales of previous conquests. Monster Hunter: World is nothing like real-world hunting. For one thing, the monsters in question are hugely powerful and often eat me for dinner several times before I finally manage a victory, and for another I do most of my hunting with a lightning-infused axe that transforms into a sword.
More saliently, it’s not real. My entertainment does not come at the cost of any real-world suffering. There is no possibility of extinction or ecological catastrophe.
Some players have expressed discomfort at Monster Hunter’s savagery. I was surprised when two friends seperately told me they found the whole thing too distasteful to play – both of them meat-eaters. I am not a judgmental vegetarian (I’ve even been known to eat meat on occasion), but the dissonance made me raise an eyebrow. How is it possible to eat industrially farmed meat – the product of a real animal’s suffering – but find hunting dragons in a video game too much to take....
MORE: https://www.theguardian.com/games/2018/f...nter-world
