The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is expanding its campaign to virtual animals. PETA has released Pokemon: Black and Blue, a parody video game that inverts the tagline “gotta catch ’em all” to “gotta free ’em all!” The player controls abused Pokemon and attack their trainers with moves like group hug and protest, which lower defense and attack respectively, while trainers use attacks like discipline, chock collar and tail docking. Winning battles unlocks treasure chests which include a video of real-life animal abuse (below), game wallpaper (regular and wide) and trading cards (pdf).
“Nintendo and the Pokémon Company take the inappropriate use of our products and intellectual property seriously,” the video game company responded in statement. It’s unlikely Nintendo will take any legal action though. PETA has released multiple parodies of Nintendo games including Mario Kills Tanooki last year. However, the Pokemon Company’s response might not be so tame.
