Difference between revisions of "Tamagotchi"

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(The Tamagotchi and Teenagers/Adults)
(The Rise of the Tamagotchi)
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== The Rise of the Tamagotchi ==
 
== The Rise of the Tamagotchi ==
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As a robot toy originating from Japan, the Tamagotchi has its roots in several other mechanical characters, Mighty Atom and Doraemon. The first robot playmate, Mighty Atom, originated from a comic book in the 1950s. The background story for Mighty Atom explains he was built as a companion for a father who lost his son. In the U.S. though, Mighty Atom became known as Astroboy. The second noteworthy robot character, Doraemon, came about in the 1970s. This one was a robot cat with an oversized head sent from the future to guide a young boy. One can easily see a connection between Japanese character robots and their ability to connect with humans (Gilson, 367). These robots, modeled after familiar forms, were popular in that they attached themselves to real ideas within human psychology. By promoting realism, they became something intimate to the user. This nurturing image of the emotionally bonded robot repeats itself only a few times, before finally meeting with the worldwide success of the Tamagotchi.
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Initially marketed toward young school children, Tamagotchi took off with high school age Japanese girls. Bandai, its manufacturer, recovered from a serious business slump and immediately began exporting the toy all over the world. Within 5 months, Tamagotchi had been introduced in the U.S. and foreign sales exploded. Current Japanese characters had taken years to build a following. Sailor Moon, a superhero schoolgirl cartoon, had taken 3 years to break into the market, whereas Power Rangers took a whopping 8 (Allison, 163). At its peak, Tamagotchi had sold over 20 million in Japan alone and another 20 million in foreign markets, namely the U.S.
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This success was only to last for a short time though. Having broken onto the scene in 1996, its heyday had ended by spring of 1998. Its legacy of “techno-intimacy” continued with the rising popularity of Hasbro’s Furby, a small, fluffy interactive robot, and the Sony AIBO a responsive and highly endearing robot dog. The Furby, debuted in September 1998 and the AIBO (Artificial Intelligence Robot), debuted in May 1999, are described as “communication partner robots.” This description of a connection or bond formed with the robot, as opposed to mere objectivity, signified a desire for “soft” electronic goods instead of “hard” electronic devices (Allison, 189). In addition to “pets” in a variety of handheld forms, Tamagotchi also paved the way for cell phone games, computer software and interactive children’s television. Because Tamagotchi had popularized the non-traditional interactive toy, when coupled with technological advancements, it had the potential to become more than a mere plaything, but an integral part of the user’s lifestyle.
  
 
== Marketing and Advertising ==
 
== Marketing and Advertising ==

Revision as of 19:15, 17 October 2010

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First Generation Tamagotchis. [Image taken from http://webs.adam.es/rllorens/news.htm]

The Tamagotchi was a small, egg-shaped, hand-held LCD video game that was created in Japan in 1996. It became wildly popular in Japan, the United States, and other locations across the world, but only for a very brief period of time. According to one scholar, “manufacturers and distributors claim rarely to have seen such a meteoric rise of a product followed by such a phenomenal crash … practically overnight” (Bloch and Lemish 286). At its most popular, fifteen Tamagotchis were sold every minute in the U.S. and Canada. Manufactured by the Bandai Corporation of Japan, it was marketed as “the original virtual reality pet” (Lee 305). The toy was the brainchild of a Japanese mother, whose home was too small to accommodate a real pet – something that her children desperately wanted. Her idea was that the interactive “virtual pet” would fulfill the same desire that the children harbored for a real pet. The toy was composed of an LCD display screen, a hard and usually brightly-colored plastic case, several buttons, and a keychain. The images displayed on the screen were basic dot images that, despite their simplicity, managed to be incredibly engaging and entertaining. Multiple generations of the toy were manufactured, and it was also mimicked by several different companies.

The name “Tamagotchi” is a wordplay on the Japanese “tamago,” which means egg (Gilson 368). Appropriately, the game begins with a tiny egg, from which hatches a virtual animal. The object of the game is to care for the animal by performing various functions, including feeding it, playing with it, disciplining it, allowing it to sleep, and maintaining its hygiene. If the caregiver does a good job, the little animal thrives and evolves into more sophisticated, attractive forms of itself. If the animal is neglected, however, it becomes ugly and unruly. Eventually, the animal “dies,” though nurtured animals do “live” longer than neglected ones. After death, the player can reset the toy and begin again with a brand new Tamagotchi egg.

The Rise of the Tamagotchi

As a robot toy originating from Japan, the Tamagotchi has its roots in several other mechanical characters, Mighty Atom and Doraemon. The first robot playmate, Mighty Atom, originated from a comic book in the 1950s. The background story for Mighty Atom explains he was built as a companion for a father who lost his son. In the U.S. though, Mighty Atom became known as Astroboy. The second noteworthy robot character, Doraemon, came about in the 1970s. This one was a robot cat with an oversized head sent from the future to guide a young boy. One can easily see a connection between Japanese character robots and their ability to connect with humans (Gilson, 367). These robots, modeled after familiar forms, were popular in that they attached themselves to real ideas within human psychology. By promoting realism, they became something intimate to the user. This nurturing image of the emotionally bonded robot repeats itself only a few times, before finally meeting with the worldwide success of the Tamagotchi.

Initially marketed toward young school children, Tamagotchi took off with high school age Japanese girls. Bandai, its manufacturer, recovered from a serious business slump and immediately began exporting the toy all over the world. Within 5 months, Tamagotchi had been introduced in the U.S. and foreign sales exploded. Current Japanese characters had taken years to build a following. Sailor Moon, a superhero schoolgirl cartoon, had taken 3 years to break into the market, whereas Power Rangers took a whopping 8 (Allison, 163). At its peak, Tamagotchi had sold over 20 million in Japan alone and another 20 million in foreign markets, namely the U.S.

This success was only to last for a short time though. Having broken onto the scene in 1996, its heyday had ended by spring of 1998. Its legacy of “techno-intimacy” continued with the rising popularity of Hasbro’s Furby, a small, fluffy interactive robot, and the Sony AIBO a responsive and highly endearing robot dog. The Furby, debuted in September 1998 and the AIBO (Artificial Intelligence Robot), debuted in May 1999, are described as “communication partner robots.” This description of a connection or bond formed with the robot, as opposed to mere objectivity, signified a desire for “soft” electronic goods instead of “hard” electronic devices (Allison, 189). In addition to “pets” in a variety of handheld forms, Tamagotchi also paved the way for cell phone games, computer software and interactive children’s television. Because Tamagotchi had popularized the non-traditional interactive toy, when coupled with technological advancements, it had the potential to become more than a mere plaything, but an integral part of the user’s lifestyle.

Marketing and Advertising

Social and Psychological Implications

The Tamagotchi and Children

Children were undoubtedly the demographic among whom Tamagotchis were most popular – though there is documentation that the toys were also prevalent among teenagers and adults. That Tamagotchis possessed both positive and negative consequences for children is evident. On the one hand, they encouraged responsibility and nurturing behavior. In contrast with the often violent computer games and television shows that most children, and particularly boys, enjoyed, Tamagotchis were a vast improvement. They were also unique because they were equally popular with both boys and girls. Bloch and Lemish concisely explain this phenomenon when the write, “in some respects, the Tamagotchi can be seen as the blurring of the gendered nature of the toy itself: it is neither a fuzzy animal nor a vehicle or a mechanical toy, neither a soft plastic doll nor a violent computer game. In short, it does not lend itself to any particular gendered stereotype” (296). Furthermore, because of its small size, children could carry Tamagotchis around and easily compare their pets to those of their friends. In this way, the game became a competition; whoever’s pet was the healthiest and lived the longest “won.” Thus, in order to succeed, the child must prove the most caring rather than the most violent.

The Tamagotchi was not flawless, however. Because the creatures could always be re-born, the toy created unrealistic perceptions of death. One critic writes that children “can become confused about the reality of the relationship. Children will no longer treasure companionship with their pets because even if the pet ‘dies’, it can be brought back to life by changing the battery. The lack of such moral responsibility will cultivate a negative psychology which eventually will do harm to society” (Lee 305). Tamagotchis also became distracting. Because children have less self-discipline than adults, they often had trouble separating time spent caring for their Tamagotchis from time for school work and time for friends. As a result, children began to neglect their studies and their real, non-digital relationships.

Tamagotchis also appealed to teenagers and adults. [Image taken from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4631847/]

The Tamagotchi and Teenagers/Adults

One scholar writes that “[the] Tamagotchi proved that a simple system with dot-based graphics could communicate a fairly strong sense of reality not only to kids but also to teenagers and adults” (Kusahara 299). Indeed, like the children, both the young adults and adults that played with Tamagotchis felt a real sense of responsibility for their digital pets. Two major factors that contributed to the affection between caregivers and their pets included the entertainment provided by the pets and the interactive nature of the toys. Tamagotchis were also appealing to the extent that they promoted a culture of disposability (Bloch and Lemish 290). At the time that Tamagotchis became popular, society was increasingly concerned with “the disposable,” or with convenience. Tamagotchis neatly fit into this category. They fulfilled certain human desires – such as the desire to nurture – without requiring the resources needed to fulfill those desires in the non-digital world. Unlike with real pets, if people became bored or uninterested in their Tamagotchi pets, they could simply throw them away. The toys also provided consistency and the illusion of control. No matter what might be happening in a caregiver’s non-digital life, he or she could at least control the fate of his or her Tamagotchi. In a sense, the caregiver was able to “play God” because he or she was fully responsible for the creature’s entire lifecycle. Finally, the Tamagotchi provided a sort of “instant gratification” because, where real pets and children take years to mature and thrive, the Tamagotchi pets did so in a matter of days.

One thing worth noting is that many users were intensely attached to their digital pets. In fact, one of the primary downfalls of the Tamagotchi was that the pets died so easily, which led to frustration and depression among their caregivers. These sentiments became so strong that online “cemeteries” were actually established where people could go to mourn the deaths of their virtual pets. Ultimately, “the Tamagotchi is a metaphor of our times, representing the blurring of boundaries between real reciprocal relationships and surrogate, one-way imaginary ones. It highlights the dominant role of technology in our lives; no longer simply a tool for use in science and industry, but now a substitute for human relationships” (Bloch and Lemish 295).

Controversy

The Decline of the Tamagotchi

Bibliography