The Virtual Pet Craze: From Tamagotchi to Webkinz

The idea of a pretend pet is nothing new. Children have been using stuffed toys in lieu of actual animals for decades. However, with the introduction of the virtual pet, this idea changed drastically. There is some disagreement in the community as to whether or not these changes are for better or worse. The problem of causing distractions in schools is seen in several facets of the industry, for example. Still, many argue that some of the newer virtual pets can be used to educate children, either through educational mini-games or through teaching effective time and money management.

The first virtual pets, called Tamagatchi, were developed in 1996 by the Japanese company, Bandai. Several other types "egg pets" were released, but many kids still referred to all the brands as "Tamagatchi", even if they were not actually created by Bandai. These egg pets consisted of a single animal in an isolated environment. They had to be bed, bathed, cleaned up after, and put to bed all in real time. This was a novel idea, and it was meant to simulate the idea of taking care of a real pet. Yet this idea quickly turned problematic, as children would bring the pets to school. This proved to be very distracting for the teachers, and many schools were quick to ban the electronic eggs. Some kids tried to enlist their parents as babysitters for the pets, but the parents were often too busy or did not know how to care for the pet. This led to a need for new varieties of eggs, many of which could either be paused or were simply able to survive for a longer time without care.

Eventually the idea of being able to link them together came about. Players could hook their pet up to other pets and battle, trade, or even breed them. Some could be hooked up to multiple pets at once. That is, if you knew other people who owned the pet. Still, the electronic egg pets were on their way out at this time. The concept of virtual pets would move onto console and PC games such as Dogz and Petz. In November of 1999, a website called Neopets would would bring virtual pets online.

When applied to the internet, the idea of virtual pets would be in for a few changes. Despite Neopets having stuck to a more traditional "pet" idea, many other sites, such as Horse Isle, Pony Island, and Poultry Farm, took up the idea of players creating a farm or a ranch. The pets were now treated more as livestock, and players could sometimes have dozens of pets on one account. The players could now charge an in game currency for breeding with or selling their stock. This often led to competition to have the best or highest-leveled animals. These type of sites often market themselves as being able to simulate the experience of owning a farm or ranch. Some also claim to be able to teach younger players about genetics and effective money management. The more "pet" oriented sites, such as Neopets and Webkinz, often have players generate currency by playing mini-games. Often there are some mini-games in which players use math, spelling, or typing skills in an effort to market the site as educational. The "ranch" type sites generally offer less in the way of mini-games, and players must make money by breeding, selling, and competing quality stock.

Webkinz, currently the most popular virtual pet, is causing some concern for parents. Because of their real-world stuffed toy form, these "pets" are targeted at children younger than ever. Many as young as preschool, whereas previous sites were aimed at late elementary school and junior high. The content of the game makes it obvious that Ganz does indeed intend for children as young as five to be playing online. One example is the 5-6 age group in the trivia area. This has become concern for parents and school faculty. Like their predecessors, the Tomogatchi, Webkinz have become banned from several schools for being too distracting. Parents and teachers also worry about young children spending hours on end at the computer, playing with their Webkinz there. Many agree that very young children need real world stimuli that cannot be obtained from staring at a computer monitor. Ganz has responded to this concern by including several educational games, and one of the most sure-fire ways to make money in the game is by answering the trivia questions. Still, there is a need for young children to be off the computer entirely for most of the day.

The stifling of imagination is also cause for concern. Where children would once be building pet homes of shoe boxes and pillowcases, they are now simply turning to the computer and buying their pet whatever virtual home they desire. The Webkinz game has little room for creativity; players use the games to get KinzCash, then buy pre-made items and outfits. The lack of user-created content is probably a safety issue on Webkinz, however, as it would probably prove difficult to monitor such things for inappropriate content. Parents also worry that a game so focused on making money and shopping could lead to children becoming more materialistic in real life as well.

There is very little legislation involving the virtual pets community. The industry is mostly self-regulated. The only real regulations on it are the ones that govern the entire internet, particularly where children are concerned. Since most of these websites are targeted at children, they are often made to seem overly-safe. Some do not allow children younger than thirteen to use the forums, or even create an account at all. In Webkinz, there are no forums, no way to communicate with other players. The only communication is adding them to your buddy list, so that they can come over and see your house. If you do not know the person outside of Webkinz, it is impossible to find out their actual user name. If you look at the high score board, it has the full name of the pet, but only the first three letters of the user name. So a name like "Webkinz_gal" would be shortened to "Web", making it impossible for this person to receive unsolicited messages from other players. There is also a chat room of sorts, but you must choose a pre-typed message from a long list of things to say. Neopets is also very strict on what you can and cannot say. You may not even give information that would allow people to contact you off-site, such as your instant messenger name. This is because Neopets obviously cannot monitor what goes on off-site, but they can monitor players giving out information to contact each other off-site.

The idea of players discussing things off-site has likely been around since the sites themselves. While Ganz has not made an official Webkinz forum, there is at least one highly active one (Webkinz Insider) run by users. Even sites with their own forums still occasionally have off-site forums to accompany them. Pony Island has two major ones. The more controversial site is called Pony Land Catfights, which has one section devoted to Pony Island rants. This site has been fought by the Pony Island administrators, as it is often critical of the other players, moderators, and even the administrators themselves. The fact that this site is watched by the Pony Island staff is upsetting to many of the users who post there, some of which have been punished on Pony Island for their actions on that site. The staff's official stance on this issue is quoted as, "Misbehavior off of PonyIsland doesn't result in punishment on PI, but it can (and should) disqualify you from rewards." This quote has caused concern among the Pony Island community, as many players use the same username as they do on other sites, and thus can be readily identified in other communities. This has led to concern about what would happen if a Livejournal community or DeviantArt club were formed around the site. Could users be punished for what they say there? The other forum is a feedback forum, primarily used by users who sell game currency for real money. This one has the approval of the Pony Island administrators, as their stance of "trade currency at your own risk" does not allow users to post feedback on the Pony Island forums directly.

Another issue within the industry involves the possibility of players making a profit off these sites. A vast majority of these sites do not allow you to sell the items for real money. Not even if you are charging for the time it took you to get the item. Most do not allow trading for other game currencies either. Essentially, if a player were leaving Neopets for Webkinz, they could not trade their Neopoints for KinzCash. Still other sites, such as Wajas, allow for the trading of other game currency (providing the currency the are trading for allows it), but not real money. This policy has a gaping loophole, however, since players could simply sell their Waja points for Pony Island's currency of pony gold, then in turn sell the pony gold for cash. Although in this situation, the potential backlash of players getting conned out of real money has now become something for the Pony Island administrators to deal with, rather than the Waja administrators.

Customer service is also a growing concern in the virtual pets community. There are numerous reports of players being locked out of their Webkinz accounts, or not being able to start one once they have bought the pet. Some parents have tried contacting Ganz about the issue, but have received little response from the company (Laliberte 2007). Pony Island is another site that has been having some issues with customer service. There is no notification when players are banned, just an error message if they try to do something they cannot do under a ban. They are given an email submit inquiries, but often times there is not a full explanation of why they were banned. Some moderators of the site have even openly said that they do not know what happens when a player receives a ban.

Ganz and Pony Island, like many of the virtual pet sites, are pay-to-play. So players are potentially loosing money over these issues. Yet because most user-end license agreements include a clause in which the company does not guarantee its services will remain available, there is little that players can do about these issues. Essentially, these companies are allowed to remove the website without notifying or refunding the players. To add to this issue, many of the virtual pet sites out there are run by people who are often inexperienced in running a business. Many of them have not taken business classes, nor run a business before, and simply started the site as a hobby.

As docile as the idea of virtual pets may seem, there is much to consider when examining both the business and the social aspects of it. The age at which children are expected to start playing games online has been steadily decreasing to the point that many pre-schoolers are now logging in daily. Virtual and electronic pets have consistently caused distractions in schools, and some virtual pet administrators are getting a crash course in business. Still, when managed properly, both on the player end and the administrative end, these sites could prove to be a safe and fun way to introduce children to computers and the internet.