PETA launches a “fun StarCraft campaign” to protect the rights of Zerg
Yuliya Geikhman March 15, 2013 - 7:46 amThe animal rights activist group PETA is at it again with a new campaign called “Zerglings have feelings too.”
A few days ago, Blizzard celebrated the release of StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm with events at various locations. The Irvine, California event had some unexpected guests: members of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, aka PETA. Temporarily renaming themselves the Terrans for the Ethical Treatment of Zerglings, the animal rights activist group was at the event to hand out flyers declaring that “Zerglings have feelings too.”
PETA is not known for subtlety, and recently more and more of their campaigns and marketing have been targeted at games. PETA has previously taken a stab at parodying Mario with his Tanooki skin, Pokemon through Pokemon: Black and Blue, and a growing number of other games. The absurd campaigns have had many questioning whether PETA is serious, or seriously trolling. The message they’re trying to spread may indeed be serious, but the marketing stunts themselves are meant to be taken as “tongue-in-cheek.” In fact, PETA’s director of marketing innovations Joel Bartlett refers to the Zerg event as “our fun StarCraft campaign.”
The goal of the campaign, Bartlett told BeefJack in a statement, is to remind “countless people that gamers and nongamers alike should have compassion for all beings—even those who are very different from us.” Bartlett adds that “While Zerglings are not real, there are many equally ‘strange’ and exotic animals we share this planet with who deserve our empathy.” No matter what you think of PETA, the message is clear and positive enough. Although Bartlett does also go on to some more extreme ideals: “We want people to know they can go vegan, choose household and cosmetic products that aren’t tested on animals, only go to circuses that don’t use animals, and never wear fur.”
But why the sudden interest in videogames and creatures like Pokemon and Zerg, which aren’t even real? Bartlett maintains that games are a great way to get people engaged and to spread their message. “PETA’s games have been played by tens of millions of people and people learn about animal rights through our games,” says Bartlett. “Our Pokémon: Black and Blue parody game led to more than 470,000 people watching PETA’s hard-hitting video Free Me, which is a haunting tour of many ways animals are abused by humans.” The gaming outreach is a marketing strategy designed to get people involved, and at the end of the day it’s hard to deny that it is, as Bartlett says, “very successful.”
Comments (1)
Oh god, what game won’t PETA try to opportunistically capitalise on? I swear their PR department must be snorting kilos of meth and randomly selecting nuggets of popular culture to clumsily parody.
This one doesn’t even vaguely make sense – the zerg are ruthless killing machines and have a group consciousness, so the concept of individual rights can’t reasonably apply to them.