As any Portlandia fan knows, ethical meat-eaters don't just want their food to be humanely raised and humanely slaughtered. They also want it to have had a happy life. And it turns out that what makes pigs have a happy life is video games. Seriously — pigs like to snuffle at flashing lights, which is basically Galaga. Accordingly, ethical farming researchers at Wageningen University are working with designers from the Utrecht School of the Arts to develop a human/pig interactive gaming app. The game, called Pig Chase, is designed to relieve some of the tedium of being a pig on a farm — bored pigs aren't just a bummer for Portlandia food snobs, they're also more cranky and aggressive.
To play Pig Chase, humans would use their touchscreen device to move a target around (the temptation to trace out "SOME PIG" would probably be enormous). The pigs touch the flashing lights with their snoots, because that's something pigs like to do. And when the two species work together, they can get the light ball into a target, and they win! The pigs win a fireworks display on their screen, which in the demonstration they appear not to give a crap about, and the humans get bragging rights I guess.
