People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals may have been widely panned by gamers for their recent Cooking Mama parody Mama Kills Animals, but in fact the group is quite pleased by the attention and plans on creating “many, many more games” in the future.
Mama Kills Animals wasn’t meant as an attack on either the Cooking Mama series or publisher Majesco, the group claimed, but rather against the meat industry. “Many people are unaware of the real-life violence that animals endure on factory farms and in slaughterhouses,” a PETA spokesperson told GamesIndustry. “As the largest animal rights organization in the world, PETA acts to raise awareness of this issue. Given the popularity of games today – and especially the increased popularity of cooking games – we’ve decided to use this medium to spread our message. We use games to highlight the cruelty to animals because they appeal to people who are interested but may be turned off by more direct appeals.”
The group said it initially began using videogames as a way to attract young males, but soon realized that the gaming audience was far more diverse than it initially thought. “Given the huge success that we’ve had with Super Chick Sisters and Mama Kills Animals, we will definitely be creating many, many more games,” the rep said. “We plan on continuing to use videogames as a way of engaging the public, both by continuing to create our own games and by engaging with gaming companies, as we did when we approached Sega with the request that it not use apes in its adverts. Gaming, both casual and hardcore, is on the rise, and we recognize that as a medium, gaming is as important as music, movies, and television.”
The spokesman added that the timing of Mama Kills Animals, which came out one day before the release of Cooking Mama: World Kitchen, helped generate a “huge amount of buzz” that was ultimately good for both the game and Majesco. Pointing to the publisher’s lighthearted and decidedly non-litigational response, the rep said, “I think that Majesco understands that the buzz that we created is good for the company. We’re still hoping that Majesco will make Cooking Mama: Vegetarian Kitchen one day.”
“Our game isn’t an attack on the videogame industry. It’s an attack on the meat industry,” the spokesperson continued. “We love games (that’s why we’ve created so many), and we love the Cooking Mama series.”
