Digital pet
Encyclopedia
A digital pet is a type of artificial human companion
Artificial human companion
Artificial human companions may be any kind of hardware or software creation designed to give companionship to a person. These can include digital pets, such as the popular Tamagotchi, or robots, such as the well-known Sony AIBO...

. They are usually kept for companionship or enjoyment. People may keep a digital pet in lieu of a real pet
Pet
A pet is a household animal kept for companionship and a person's enjoyment, as opposed to wild animals or to livestock, laboratory animals, working animals or sport animals, which are kept for economic or productive reasons. The most popular pets are noted for their loyal or playful...

.

Digital pets are distinct in that they have no concrete physical form other than the hardware they run on. Interaction with virtual pets may or may not be goal oriented. If it is, then the user must keep it alive as long as possible and often help it to grow into higher forms. Keeping the pet alive and growing often requires 'feeding', grooming and playing with the pet. If the interaction is not goal oriented, the user can explore the character of the pet and enjoy the feeling of building a relationship with it. Often these games use realistic visual effects or interaction to make the pet appear alive and give a sense of reality to users.

Digital pets can be "simulations of real animals, as in the Petz
Petz
Petz is a series of games dating back to 1995, in which the player can adopt, raise, care for and breed their own virtual pets...

 series" or "fantasy ones like the Tamagotchi
Tamagotchi
The is a handheld digital pet, created in Japan by Akihiro Yokoi of WiZ and Aki Maita of Bandai. It was first sold by Bandai in 1996 in Japan. As of 2010, over 76 million Tamagotchis have been sold world-wide...

". Unlike biological simulations
Life simulation game
Life simulation games is a sub-genre of simulation video games in which the player lives or controls one or more virtual lifeforms...

, the pet does not usually reproduce. They generally do not die.

Web-based digital pets

Virtual pet site
Virtual pet site
A virtual pet website, virtual pet site or VPS is a website on which users interact with a browser-based virtual pet. A virtual pet site is typically based within a virtual world for users to explore , often consisting of a virtual currency, game items and minigames...

s are usually free to play and accessible to all who sign up. They can be accessed through web browser
Web browser
A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...

s and often include a virtual community, such as Neopia in Neopets
Neopets
Neopets is a virtual pet website that was launched by Adam Powell and Donna Williams on November 15, 1999. Two years after the web site was launched, Adam Powell and Donna Williams sold a majority share to a consortium of investors led by Doug Dohring. On June 20, 2005, Viacom bought Neopets, Inc...

 and Marada in Marapets. In these worlds, you can play games to earn virtual money; which is usually spent on items and food for your pets. One large branch of virtual pet games are sim horse game
Sim horse game
Sim horse games , also called cyberbarn games, horse sims, or virtual horse games, are online browser-based games. Sim horse game generally fall into one of two categories: traditional or automated / semi-automated...

s.

Some sites adopt out pets to put on your webpage and use for roleplaying in chat room
Chat room
The term chat room, or chatroom, is primarily used by mass media to describe any form of synchronous conferencing, occasionally even asynchronous conferencing...

s. They often require the adoptee to have a page ready for their pet. Sometimes they have a setup for breeding one's pets and then adopting them out.

Most sites use quests in order for users to make points and receive items. Some quests can give stat points to your pets for when they are battling. Such sites that use quests for a primary foundation on the site are NeoPets, IcePets and MaraPets. These sites, and their clones, have a single non-dynamic image for each pet and its various colors, leading to a lot of similarity in the pets.

There are also Simulation Sites- A kind of virtual pet- where the webpage attempts to simulate a real-life discipline, such as horse dressage or pedigree dog showing. Often these sites will also have a breeding aspect, including genetics and markings. Other simulation sites focus mostly on the markings. Some have done away with the showing aspect and created a great fantasy or comedic website, based around a nonexistent discipline or creature. An example of this is Woolly Hooves, a simulation game where the player gets his/her very own elemental llama, and goes on to hike, explore and complete less single-objective quests than some sites in a bizarre yet endearing world. A few more websites with a similar genre include Mweor, Khimeros, Wajas, Tygras and many more.

Software-based digital pets

There are many computer and video games that focuses on the care, raising, breeding or exhibition of simulated animals. Such games are described as a sub-class of life simulation game
Life simulation game
Life simulation games is a sub-genre of simulation video games in which the player lives or controls one or more virtual lifeforms...

. Since the computing power is more powerful than with webpage or gadget based digital pets, these are usually able to achieve a higher level of visual effects and interactivity.

Pet-raising simulations often lack a victory condition or challenge, and can be classified as software toys
Non-game
Non-games define a class of software that lies on the border between video games, toys and applications. The original term non-game game was coined by Nintendo president Satoru Iwata. The main difference between non-games and traditional video games is the apparent lack of goals, objectives and...

.

The pet is capable of learning to do a variety of tasks. "This quality of rich intelligence distinguishes artificial pets from other kinds of A-life, in which individuals have simple rules but the population as a whole develops emergent properties
Emergence
In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence is the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions. Emergence is central to the theories of integrative levels and of complex systems....

". For artificial pets, their behaviors are typically "preprogrammed and are not truly emergent".

History

The concept of raising artificial creatures in a video game originated in the late 1980s. The Megami Tensei
Megami Tensei
, commonly abbreviated as , is a Japanese console role-playing game metaseries which was originally based on the novel series Digital Devil Story by Aya Nishitani and has gone to become one of the major franchises of the genre in its native country...

series of role-playing video game
Role-playing video game
Role-playing video games are a video game genre with origins in pen-and-paper role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons, using much of the same terminology, settings and game mechanics. The player in RPGs controls one character, or several adventuring party members, fulfilling one or many quests...

s, first released by Atlus
Atlus
is a Japanese computer and video game developer, publisher, and distributor based in Tokyo, Japan, best known for developing the console role-playing game franchise Megami Tensei. The first Megami Tensei was a Nintendo Entertainment System video game published by Namco based on a trilogy of...

 for the Nintendo Famicom
Nintendo Entertainment System
The Nintendo Entertainment System is an 8-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America during 1985, in Europe during 1986 and Australia in 1987...

 console in 1987, allowed players to capture demons as pets and use them in battle. In 1992, Chunsoft
Chunsoft
is a Japanese video game developer specializing in console RPGs and visual novels. It was founded by Koichi Nakamura, a video game designer from Enix...

's role-playing game Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride featured an influential monster-collecting mechanic, where monsters can be defeated, captured, added to the party, follow the player character
Player character
A player character or playable character is a character in a video game or role playing game who is controlled or controllable by a player, and is typically a protagonist of the story told in the course of the game. A player character is a persona of the player who controls it. Player characters...

 around as a pet, and gain their own experience levels
Experience point
An experience point is a unit of measurement used in many role-playing games and role-playing video games to quantify a player character's progression through the game...

. The game influenced later franchises such as Pokémon, Digimon
Digimon
, short for , is a Japanese media franchise encompassing digital toys, anime, manga and video games. The franchise's eponymous creatures are monsters of various forms living in a "Digital World", a parallel universe that originated from Earth's various communication networks.-Conception and...

and Dokapon
Dokapon
Dokapon: Monster Hunter, known in Japan as and known in Europe as is a role-playing video game developed and published by Asmik Ace Entertainment for the Game Boy Advance in Japan on August 3, 2001...

.

PF Magic
PF Magic
PF Magic was a video game developer founded in 1991 and located in San Francisco, California. Though it developed other types of video games, it was best known for its virtual pet games, such as Dogz and Catz. The company was able to make extra revenue by selling plush toys under the Petz trademark...

 released the first widely popular virtual pets in 1995 with Dogz, followed by Catz in the spring of 1996, eventually becoming a franchise known as Petz
Petz
Petz is a series of games dating back to 1995, in which the player can adopt, raise, care for and breed their own virtual pets...

. Digital pets were further popularized by Nintendo
Nintendo
is a multinational corporation located in Kyoto, Japan. Founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it produced handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel....

's Pokémon
Pokémon
is a media franchise published and owned by the video game company Nintendo and created by Satoshi Tajiri in 1996. Originally released as a pair of interlinkable Game Boy role-playing video games developed by Game Freak, Pokémon has since become the second most successful and lucrative video...

series, debuting in 1995.

Digital pets were a massive fad
FAD
In biochemistry, flavin adenine dinucleotide is a redox cofactor involved in several important reactions in metabolism. FAD can exist in two different redox states, which it converts between by accepting or donating electrons. The molecule consists of a riboflavin moiety bound to the phosphate...

 in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, and to a lesser extent in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 during the late 1990s. There have been significant improvements of digital pets since Tamagotchi
Tamagotchi
The is a handheld digital pet, created in Japan by Akihiro Yokoi of WiZ and Aki Maita of Bandai. It was first sold by Bandai in 1996 in Japan. As of 2010, over 76 million Tamagotchis have been sold world-wide...

's success when it was released in 1996, from dot-images (such as Tamagotchi) to rendered and animated 3D games (such as Nintendogs
Nintendogs
is a real-time pet simulation video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo DS handheld video game console. It was first released in Japan, and was later released in North America, Australia, Europe, and other regions. It was originally released in three different versions:...

). Today, there are also "Digital Pets" which have physical robotic bodies, known as Ludobot
Ludobot
A ludobot is a type of artificial human companion: an entertainment robot, from Latin ludo and bot .Examples are battlebots, Sony Aibo, GoGo My So Real Walking Pup and so on....

s or Entertainment robot
Entertainment robot
An entertainment robot is, as the name indicates, a robot that is not made for utilitarian use, as in production or domestic services, but for the sole subjective pleasure of the human it serves, usually the owner or his housemates, guests or clients...

s.

The idea of an animal companion composed of technology rather than flesh has also inspired a lot of fiction
Fiction
Fiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...

, such as the anime
Anime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....

 based on the virtual pet series "Digimon
Digimon
, short for , is a Japanese media franchise encompassing digital toys, anime, manga and video games. The franchise's eponymous creatures are monsters of various forms living in a "Digital World", a parallel universe that originated from Earth's various communication networks.-Conception and...

" (itself a contraction of "Digital Monster").

The popularity of virtual pets in the United States, and the constant need for attention the pets required, led to them being banned from schools across the country, a move that hastened the virtual pet's decline from popularity.

A Mad Magazine cover parody on regular issue #362, October 1997 shows a gun being pointed at a virtual pet and the line "If you don't buy this issue, we'll kill the virtual pet!" Illustrated by Mark Fredrickson, the cover was a double parody, also referencing the January 1973 issue of National Lampoon which depicted a gun being held to a real dog's head and the line "If you don't buy this magazine, we'll kill this dog."

Common features of digital pets

There are many common features between different digital pets, some of them are used to give a sense of reality to the user (such as pet's responds to "touch"), and some for enhancing playability (such as training).

Communicating with digital pets

With advanced video-gaming technology, most modern digital pets do not show a message box
Dialog box
In a graphical user interface of computers, a dialog box is a type of window used to enable reciprocal communication or "dialog" between a computer and its user. It may communicate information to the user, prompt the user for a response, or both...

 or icon
Icon
An icon is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, from Eastern Christianity and in certain Eastern Catholic churches...

 to display the pet's internal variable, health state or emotion like earlier generations (such as Tamagotchi). Instead, users can only understand the pet by interpreting their actions, body language
Body language
Body language is a form of non-verbal communication, which consists of body posture, gestures, facial expressions, and eye movements. Humans send and interpret such signals almost entirely subconsciously....

, facial expressions, etc. This helps keep a pet's behavior seem natural, rather than calculated, and fosters a feeling of a relationship between user and digital pet.

Sense of reality

To give a sense of reality to users, most digital pets have certain level of autonomy
Autonomy
Autonomy is a concept found in moral, political and bioethical philosophy. Within these contexts, it is the capacity of a rational individual to make an informed, un-coerced decision...

 and unpredictability. The user can interact with the pet and this process of personalizing can make the pet more distinctive. Personalizing increases the feeling of responsibility for the pet to the user. For example, if a Tamagotchi is unattended for long enough, it will "die".

Interactivity

To increase user's personal attachment to the pet, the pet interacts with the user. Interactivity can be classified into two categories: Short-term and long-term.

Short-term interactivity includes direct interaction or action to reaction from the pet. Example: "touch" a pet with mouse cursor and the pet will give a direct response to the "touching".

Long-term interactivity includes action that affect pet's growth, behavior or life span. Example like training the pet may have good effect on pet's health. Long-term interactivity is quite important for a sense of reality as the user would think that he has some lasting influence on the pet.

Two kinds of interactivity are often combined. Such as playing with a pet (short-term interactivity) may make the pet more optimistic.

Example of common features

  1. Responds to calling
  2. Responds to touching
  3. Training the pet
  4. Supplies or toys for the pet
  5. Dressing up the pet
  6. Competition or trial amongst pets
  7. Meeting other pets
  8. Complaining when it needs care

Digital pets and children

While users can do whatever they want with their digital pets nowadays, it may encourage young users to form bad habit
Habituation
Habituation can be defined as a process or as a procedure. As a process it is defined as a decrease in an elicited behavior resulting from the repeated presentation of an eliciting stimulus...

s. It is arguable that a relationship
Interpersonal relationship
An interpersonal relationship is an association between two or more people that may range from fleeting to enduring. This association may be based on limerence, love, solidarity, regular business interactions, or some other type of social commitment. Interpersonal relationships are formed in the...

 with a digital pet cannot compare with a real relationship with an animal, because a real relationship teaches children that their desires can't always come first.

Digital pets over real pets

Some people suggest that digital pets are preferable for a number of reasons. Having a digital pet in place of a real pet ensures real pets don't have to suffer, and it is arguably training
Training
The term training refers to the acquisition of knowledge, skills, and competencies as a result of the teaching of vocational or practical skills and knowledge that relate to specific useful competencies. It forms the core of apprenticeships and provides the backbone of content at institutes of...

 before adopting a real pet. PETA
Peta
Peta can refer to:* peta-, an SI prefix denoting a factor of 1015* Peta, Greece, a town in Greece* Peta, the Pāli word for a Preta, or hungry ghost in Buddhism* Peta Wilson, an Australian actress and model* Peta Todd, English glamour model...

 has suggested that robotic animals can help people recognize that they are not up to the commitment
Promise
A promise is a commitment by someone to do or not do something.In the law of contract, an exchange of promises is usually held to be legally enforceable, according to the Latin maxim pacta sunt servanda.- Types :...

 of caring for a real animal. Another cogent argument is that the digital pet can successfully substitute a real one for children who cannot care for a real pet, such as those who suffer from allergies.

Impact of virtual reality on digital pet

Some people suggest that the simulated experience of digital pet lacks the constraints of the real world that allows us to apply substantive ethics
Ethics
Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...

. The virtual environment failed to simulate real social consequences.

Another problem with digital pets is the "virtual slavery". A robotic pet could be made in the shape of a human, a problem raised by the fiction Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick first published in 1968. The main plot follows Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter of androids, while the secondary plot follows John Isidore, a man of sub-normal intelligence who befriends some of the...

 by Philip K. Dick
Philip K. Dick
Philip Kindred Dick was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist whose published work is almost entirely in the science fiction genre. Dick explored sociological, political and metaphysical themes in novels dominated by monopolistic corporations, authoritarian governments and altered...

.

Relationship with digital pet

There is research concerning the relationship between digital pets and their owners, and their impact on the emotion
Emotion
Emotion is a complex psychophysiological experience of an individual's state of mind as interacting with biochemical and environmental influences. In humans, emotion fundamentally involves "physiological arousal, expressive behaviors, and conscious experience." Emotion is associated with mood,...

s of people. For example, Furby
Furby
A Furby was a popular electronic robotic toy resembling a hamster/owl-like creature which went through a period of being a "must-have" toy following its launch in the holiday season of 1998, with continual sales until 2000...

 affects the way people think about their identity, and many children think that Furby is alive in a "Furby kind of way" in Sherry Turkle
Sherry Turkle
Sherry Turkle is Abby Rockefeller Mauze Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a sociologist...

's research.
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