Tamagotchi

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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 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, which her children desperately wanted. The 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 Evolution Process - [image taken from http://www.freewebs.com/tamagotchiexcitement/wheretogettamas.htm]

The name “Tamagotchi” is a wordplay on the Japanese “tamago,” which means egg (Gilson 368). Appropriately, the game began with a tiny egg, from which hatched a virtual animal. The object of the game was to care for the animal by performing various duties, including feeding it, playing with it, disciplining it, allowing it to sleep, and maintaining its hygiene. If the caregiver did a good job, the little animal would thrive and evolve into more sophisticated, attractive forms of itself. If the animal was neglected, however, it became ugly and unruly. Eventually, the animal would “die,” though nurtured animals did “live” longer than neglected ones. After death, the player could reset the toy and begin again with a brand new Tamagotchi egg.

The Rise of the Tamagotchi

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.

First Generation Tamagotchis - [image taken from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4631847/]

The Tamagotchi and Teenagers/Adults

Controversy

The Decline of the Tamagotchi

Bibliography