Dog-Fighting Game Pulled from Android Market

[Atheist.]

Well if it was fun, this is kind of a letdown. That said, most of the games on there suck, so it's probably not much of a loss.

Why it was pulled is ridiculous, but I suppose if they don't want these sorts of games on their market, we can always just download them off the internet.

 

[Treblaine]

No it does not. It protects you from government censorship. Meaning if you wanted to swear a lot the government couldn't do anything about it (except for radio and TV, thanks to a really bad court decision). But if someone wanted to kick you off their (private) property for swearing they could do so.

Which is a perfect analogy for what's happening here. Google is removing the game from their phones. If the makers wanted to publish their game on their own website Google or the government couldn't do anything about it.

Well that's all well and good but this isn't just one person's property this is a store providing a service for MILLIONS of phones.

The 1st Amendment was written to hold the POWERFUL to account, and that I think would today include companies who control large portions of the distribution. Even though in application it is almost always against the government.

I know there is no de-jure justification, but the spirit is there. I don't know if people on android phones can go to an alternate store to get this game but it seems to be from the way that phones are locked down that one company can censor millions.

I fully appreciate Google having discretion with the content of their store (if not their hypocrisy) but only if they allow an alternative store. In real life you can go to an "alternative" store if one has a certain image to cultivate.

The 1st Amendment was written to hold the GOVERNMENT to account. And those companies don't owe anyone distribution. Nothing in the 1st Amendment says that you gave to be able to get your word out. If they intended it to be the way you said they did, why didn't they include newspapers or something?

It's nonsense to say that anyway, those companies aren't owned by the public so they don't owe the public a service. The spirit isn't there at all, since even the government doesn't have to give people a way to put out their message. They can't go and restrict people, but they don't have to pass out a message for someone.

Regardless of the limitations of the 1st amendment, it's still censorship.

I know what google has done is not without precedent. It's just a growing trend I don't like where a single store serving so many millions of people applies a flat dismissal of a product for ALL people, it's too much power in one entity's hands without enough accountability.

I know Google doesn't owe anyone anything.

But what if Microsoft had a problem with you installing Steam on your windows operating system? Windows OS was made in a time when systems were expected to be open, now the default is closed.

 

[FogHornG36]

Remake this, paint the dogs blue and red, call then dogumon, no one thinks twice.

 

[coakroach]

My friends and I all roll hunters in WoW, then we tame the smallest and most innocent looking wolves we can find and make them fight each other and place bets, with losing pets not getting fed and being lead into the wilderness where bandits beat them to death.

Come at me bro.

 

[Treblaine]

Naturally, there are always going to be some amoral jerks who look at the practice of forcing dogs to brutally murder each other and say, "Hey, that would make a cool game." Such was the case with Dog Wars, a mobile game on Android where players raised their dogs to fight other dogs. Apparently, it was pretty much just a poor Mafia Wars clone, so the developers can't even say it was an original idea.

The only amoral issue here is putting pets on a pedestal considering the number of other violent games out there, as many people on this thread have pointed out.

According to All Things Digital [http://mobilized.allthingsd.com/20110426/android-dogfighting-game-disappears-from-android-market-following-complaints/], the creators of Dog Wars said that the same free speech that enabled others to criticize the game also protected the game's existence. Of course, while free speech is a legal right in the USA meaning that the government couldn't do anything about the app, Google is a private entity that has the right to control its own services however it damn pleases, so crying "free speech" here is about as legitimate a defense as tissue paper is legitimate body armor.

It raises the question that if a private entity has such a pervasive influence on society then shouldn't the same checks and balances apply to them too.

There definitely needs to be an amendment on monopolistic control.

America has always been wary of monopolies but companies love the control they offer technology has allowed them to have that domination by other means.

Apple is the worst at this. One app store for ALL their devices and that is the ONLY place you can get your applications, that cannot be fair, but it is the precedent that has been set by games consoles and licensing. Blame Nintendo back in 1985.

It wouldn't be a problem but there is no alternative store. Steam is not a problem as absolutely nothing stops me going to GoG or Direct2Drive instead.

It's the limitation, the idea that a company can FORCE you to only use material that has gone through their licensing, or jailbreak and lose out on the services promised.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

Wait, so it's fine to shoot non-existent people, but not fine to have non-existent animals fight to the death? Really guys? It's a goddamn game, no one is getting hurt.

 

[Lunafox]

Its nice to know that people are unable to tell the differance between reality and fantisy and we have all these nice big coperations to make sure we don't get them mixed up.

Thank you big censorship peoples, now I'm off to fly out my window like normal people do cause thats what they do in my games and on the nice TV whom tells me everything i need to know.

^_^

Seriously though, Yeah, Real life, this is unexcuseable practice, hence persons who like it should keep it to make believe worlds like those found on your computer

 

[Wicky_42]

I don't get it - as many have pointed out, what makes it any different to be fighting dogs than any other creature, even humans? Bullshit standards. IRL, sure, not a good scene, but it's a game - the leading game on the market has this mode where you murder hundreds of people. It's called 'Call of Duty'. Oh, the humanity ¬_¬ Won't someone think of the poor virtual humans. Geeze...

 

[Sikratua]

So, people will come to complain about me when I have Poochyena beat Growlithe? It's a videogame. We're okay with beating, maiming and killing human beings in games, but dogs are sacred?

 

[KirbyKrackle]

According to All Things Digital [http://mobilized.allthingsd.com/20110426/android-dogfighting-game-disappears-from-android-market-following-complaints/], the creators of Dog Wars said that the same free speech that enabled others to criticize the game also protected the game's existence. Of course, while free speech is a legal right in the USA meaning that the government couldn't do anything about the app, Google is a private entity that has the right to control its own services however it damn pleases, so crying "free speech" here is about as legitimate a defense as tissue paper is legitimate body armor.

It raises the question that if a private entity has such a pervasive influence on society then shouldn't the same checks and balances apply to them too.

While certainly there shouldn't be monopolies, I fail to see the connection between that and a company's right to control what it sells. This is still not a free speech issue. Also, I don't know why amending the US Constitution (which I assume is what's under discussion in most of the related comments) would be particularly useful, since there are already a variety of anti-monopoly laws already in existence, and since the Constitution is, in my understanding (feel free to correct the wayward Canadian, Americans), instructions for the government, not private enterprises.

 

[Urgh76]

Probably already been said, but

Looks like that game........

*glasses*

Got convicted.

YEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH [http://people.rit.edu/~bss6378/instantCSI/]

 

[scythian0528]

I can imagine a PeTa protest of this game.

Fight for the rights of virtual animals. The depiction of animal cruelty is never justified. Imaginary dogs can suffer too!

 

[GamingGoddessV]

You can kill people in video games and real life without much complaint but when you want to kill some dogs, people go crazy. SMDH

 

[krazykidd]

sounds like pokemon to me , anyways , whats the difference of dog VS dog fighting , and Human vs Human fighting ( Mortal kombat , Street fighter, CALL OF DUTY ? [sure shooting people is a okay message right? ] ). Once again , mankind proves that Animals > Human on the 'how much people care' scale.

I'll say it again , sounds like pokemon to me.

 

[Psycho Cat Industries]

For get humans and their evil ways!Just leave those innocent dogs alone!(I lol at my sarcastic statement and then laugh at the wholesome idiocy that the creators of such a game must have possessed in the matter of reaction,and I thought the school shooter was interesting)

 

[Psycho Cat Industries]

My friends and I all roll hunters in WoW, then we tame the smallest and most innocent looking wolves we can find and make them fight each other and place bets, with losing pets not getting fed and being lead into the wilderness where bandits beat them to death.

Come at me bro.

Is that why PETA hates WoW?

 

[2xDouble]

What's wrong? It's about time we had a new aerial combat game...

Wait... it's actual dogs fighting? No, I'm not ok with that.

 

[Elf Defiler Korgan]

Killing people - All right ! Killing Dogs - No way.

Ha! Good one.

And Funk, your bias just gets worse and worse. Can't you just report news without proudly shouting your opinion and how moral you are? Go break up a dog-fighting ring if you think you are so morally righteous.

 

[Xan Krieger]

I'm completely against this game.

Incidentally I fully supported the school shooter half life 2 mod and even told the Escapist about it.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/108065-Inside-the-Sick-Mind-of-a-School-Shooter-Mod.3

 

[Neosage]

How is this worse than the mass of ultra-violent games that already exist? Fair enough if you want to get in PETA's good books, but it's just a GAME (you know that argument we have every time a game get's blamed in a murder? Yeah, you just totally ignored that because the devs went for dogs) I don't approve of Dog Fighting, I don't approve of murdering people either; I still love Hitman.

I'm surprised that I have to state this to a writer for a magazine which knows the argument all to well.