Should vegetarian gamers go on virtual killing sprees? | Keza MacDonald

Some players find the carnage of Monster Hunter: World distasteful. To me, it is an outlet for the carnivore within

I have an admission to make: I'm a vegetarian who enjoys big-game hunting. For the past several weeks I have been playing Monster Hunter: World, a PlayStation 4 video game in which you head out into the wilds and hunt down enormous dinosaur-like creatures, wearing armour fashioned from the bones, fur and scales of previous conquests. Monster Hunter: World is nothing like real-world hunting. For one thing, the monsters in question are hugely powerful and often eat me for dinner several times before I finally manage a victory, and for another I do most of my hunting with a lightning-infused axe that transforms into a sword.

More saliently, it's not real. My entertainment does not come at the cost of any real-world suffering. There is no possibility of extinction or ecological catastrophe.