After a minor controversy, Minecraft will change up the way players tame parrots, VICE Motherboard reports. And while it sounds like the least controversial mechanic in gaming history, the patch was spurned by a Reddit post with 37,000 upvotes that accused the game of potentially endangering real-life parrots.
In Minecraft, players feed chocolate chip cookies to parrots to train them or coax them into mating. On Reddit, a very concerned Minecraft citizen explained that, actually, feeding chocolate to parrots can kill them. “Literally millions of kids will play this game,” Redditor 1jl explained, “and chocolate and pet parrots are common enough that this will cause a problem.”
In an email, Minecraft lead creative director Jens Bergensten told VICE Motherboard, “If Minecraft has any effect on children’s behaviour, we want it to be a positive one, so we’ll change the item used to breed parrots before the 1.12 update is released.” That patch doesn’t have a set release date, but should be coming soon. Bergensten added that the idea to feed parrots cookies was originally a reference to the Nirvana song “Polly”. “We didn’t consider what the chocolate ingredient would mean to real life parrots,” he added.
(via VICE Motherboard)
Comments
14 responses to “Minecraft Patching Out Controversial Parrot Feeding Mechanic”
Jesus Christ….
What?
I mean, if it was GTA, then okay. Outrage understood. But we’re talking about Minecraft.. a game aimed at and played by countless kids across the globe. Kids are extremely impressionable – teaching them misinformation like this isn’t ideal if its easily avoidable. It’s also one of those things which seems real enough – so it’s easier to accept as fact.
Theobromine poisoning straight-up kills a lot of animals. It’s an extremely common occurrence for emergency VETs. I guarantee, a kid with no previous experience with birds would assume it’s fine to feed it choc cookies IRL after playing Minecraft.
Obviously, none of this applies for the 30 year olds still playing MC (well.. hopefully).
Maybe this could be an opportunity for parents to teach these impressionable youngsters that what applies in video games doesn’t necessarily apply in real life.
But I guess it’s easier to patch in a different food item for the pixelated parrots instead of counting on parents to do their job.
Yep, and considering the food you feed to other animals to breed them is at least plausible for what they actually eat….parrots and choc chip cookies seems like it wasn’t thought out.
Wait a second, there are far worse issues in this game!
These kids will think that they can cut down trees by punching them with their bare hands!!!
This will lead to countless cases of child injury!
Won’t someone think of the children!
I was thinking it was pretty dumb, but it didn’t occur to me about pet parrots, or other birds for that matter. Good thinking to change it.
In the song Polly wants a cracker, not a cookie.. also he ain’t singing about that kind of bird.
On the one hand – seriously?
On the other hand – the typical MC player is a school kid, maybe they have a point.
yeah I don’t think they wanted to be up there with the whole post-Finding Nemo genocide of clownfish caused by kids not knowing anything about saltwater filtration and aquarium corals
I can’t help thinking this is where sensible parenting comes in.
I tried feeding two cows wheat once. I walked away with a broken jaw, bruised ribs and two angry heifers.
I think my problem was one of them was not a bull… Or that I though Minecraft was a factual game…
I’m still mining out my backyard for diamond and redstone…
FFS.
Ok, a controversy would be if you had Mojang call the Redditor and upvoters idiots and engage in a heated argument for days/weeks, while children were killing parrots by feeding them chocolate biscuits.
This is a sensible person seeing a potential drawback, and having their well worded suggestion heeded and acted upon.
For all the “sensible parenting” brigade – sensible parenting often involves observing what your child is doing, talking it through with them if it was a bad idea, and teaching them to think critically to avoid similar mistakes in the future. One early lesson is “don’t blindly copy things that you see on TV / in games”. Something as innocuous as feeding them cookies is not necessarily going to be caught by this filter, as I’m sure *adults* have done this in the past.
Once a child gets to minecraft playing age, it’s generally safe to leave them alone for minutes at a time. Possibly even with chocolate chip cookies in front of them. By the time you return from the other room, they may have already shared said cookies with the pet bird, and then it’s too late to carry out “sensible parenting”.
So kudos to Mojang to responding to a reasonable point with a reasonable responses. Doesn’t hurt anybody to remove it, and actually prevents a potentially deadly (to birds) idea from occurring to children!