Change.org Petition: Killing Indigenous Australians is not a game (anymore)!

So there's a petition going around with almost 90,000 supporters to ban a survival-sandbox, mobile game on the basis that it promotes the "racism and negative stereotype of Indigenous Australians". The petition states that the game is 'profiting from historical genocide and introduces these genocides as entertainment, completely disregarding the continual suffering of our people' - An egotistical view that I am going to tear to shreds throughout this post. With a dash of rant, naturally.

Welcome to 'Survival Island 3: Australia Story 3D', a smart-phone-only game spawned from the bowels of some developer after a profuse, white-knuckled sweat-session while playing titles such as DayZ, Minecraft and Rust. Yes, Survival Island 3 is probably a game where you must survive an unknown wilderness, abundant with fatal nopes, yet scarce of edible wildlife. Luckily, like every other sandbox survival game, you can collect resources to help you construct things like farms to hinder your rapid starvation. Don't forget item crafting; you'll need a spear to fight off the angry natives-- Wait, what- the natives are aggressive? Just because they're black! That's not politically correct! THIS GAME IS RACIST!

So apparently, facilitating the shooting of a dark-skinned-race-representing NPC automatically makes a game racist toward that race; a spit in the face of game's developers if I've ever seen one. When there's probably literally hundreds of games depicting Allied soldiers killing Germans throughout the WW2 setting, you have a problem with a game based in Australia? What about the, more applicably, cowboys killing Native Americans in the wild west? Where were all the bandwagons when GUN let you slit the throat of and scalp a Native American Indian?

I should point out to the petition creator that nowhere does the game say you should kill Aboriginals because they are coloured. In fact, I'm told you can even trade with some of the tribes. For you, if anything, it's probably an acceptable representation of the "abhorrent" and "mindless" events surrounding white settlement the white invasion of Australia. From the confused statements of some of your petition's supporters, I don't know why you're not all petitioning for it to be turned into a mainstream-console release.

From the logic of many of the signatures on the petition, profiting from the retelling of our species' morbid history is unacceptable, especially when made from a form of entertainment. Again, because everything historically accurate which potentially offends someone should be censored- Yes, it's probably going to promote awareness of humanity's gritty past, awareness of your ancestors' hardships. But no, today's memo in the office reads "no more books, movies or games that could offend people". No more war documentaries, no more survival stories. Don't you dare publish that book on Ms. Frank. Oh, you can only watch the history channel if you promise not to be entertained- because entertainment is the devil. I guess we should just boycott the movie Titanic while we're at it.

Maybe it's just my high hopes that an average person is capable of standing apart from the crowd and making a judgement on something, objectively. Maybe they can read a statement on a forum and actually have some doubts about its credibility? No- because apparently, everything written on the internet is researched wholly, and is now an unequivocally proven fact (many "facts" are simply 'the leading theory on x' - but internet preachings are far from leading theories, do I need to explain why?).

Have we as a species really failed to evolve beyond the emotional restraints of conformity, to the point that we'll flock toward whatever daily prophet is appointed by our social media? That's rhetorical, don't shout the answer at your screens; I know damn well what's happening here; it's the collective of white knights banding together in support of "the greater good". They are acting on the exact same premise that leads to events like that same slaughter of a race of people, for no other reason than convenience, that we've seen in the past. Mark my words, it only takes the right voice to have the masses saluting every beck and call, regardless of the command. Burn the witch, cull the cows. Forget medieval; one day someone will look back on this as part of our darkest ages.

And what's this about the continued suffering of your people? I have several Aboriginal friends, none of which are 'suffering' because of the things that happened to someone else, potentially five generations ago. Don't get me wrong, if you wore problems personally, I'd completely understand why you'd be upset- It's just, according to some, it's my ancestors' fault that my mate got served a soggy-bunned big mac, today- because that is the extent of his suffering, according to him.

I'm sorry, there's just no real debate logic behind this petition, and I struggle to have even a little respect for the petitions creator, when clearly they just had nothing better to do. Or, perhaps it just speaks volumes about her insecurities. -shrug-

https://www.change.org/p/amazon-killing-indigenous-australians-is-not-a-game