According to the activist group, Battlefield 3 players participating in said scene could be inspired to commit similar acts in real life. These claims have been levied against video games in the past, implying that the immersive quality of games could lead to desensitization to violence, turning people towards more violent tendencies.
Of course such claims have yet to be proven, but PETA still believes that there is a link between animal cruelty and video games, as explained in their German press release:
We find it somewhat hard to believe that the rat scene would cause a sudden spike in the amount of animal cruelty cases, especially considering PETA’s information only comes from Germany; hardly a representation of gamers as a whole. Of course, one also has to take certain demographic factors into consideration before pointing the finger at video games, and simply claiming “monkey see, monkey do” without substantial facts just makes PETA look somewhat questionable, even if their intentions are noble.
Of course we could be wrong, Battlefield 3 also has a scene in which players are forced into [SPOILER ALERT] an altercation with police officers, and ever since its release police officers just seem to spontaneously explode in my neighborhood.
Battlefield 3 is available now for the PS3, Xbox 360 and PC.
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Source: BF3 Blog
