Opinion

The Tamagotchi Craze: How Far Will It Go?

By GWEN ROBINSON

Foreign correspondents who have reported on Japan's recent craze for "Tamagotchi," the phenomenally successful virtual pet, will watch the forthcoming debut of Tamagotchi in overseas markets with great interest. Will Americans and Europeans embrace the little pseudo-bird with the same whimsical intensity evident among Tamagotchi lovers in Japan?

After months of seeing Japanese schoolgirls and boys, well-dressed young office workers and even tough-looking youths feverishly tending their computer pets in the subway, walking along the street and in restaurants, I can only say: I doubt it

Of course, we cynics may well be proven wrong. There were people who said the hula hoop and the yo-yo would never take off. Indeed, computer games as a whole have immense universal appeal. But somehow, the concept of Ta- magotchi, a computer-generated pet that sickens and dies within days if not tended correctly and constantly, seems to cater to some special characteristics of Japanese society.

Consider the low rate of pet ownership in Japan, the lowest among advanced industrialized countries. This is due both to cultural and practical factors: domestic pets have never been particularly popular in a society where dwellings were, traditionally, delicate structures and gardens were careful arrangements of beautifully tended plants and pathways

In modern times, the cramped nature of urban living has reinforced widespread prohibitions against keeping pets. It was interesting to watch the success some years ago of other types of virtual pets in Japan: battery-operated birds that sat on perches and sang and mechanical fish that swum jerkily around little aquariums. More recently, "rent-a-pet" businesses have flourished.

What does all this mean? Perhaps it indicates a yearning in Japanese society for some kind of dependency relationship, but with a fantasy dependent that is, after all, artificial. If Tamagotchi is well cared for, it's cute enough to make you smile. If it falls ill, or even dies, the owner experiences all the emotions of sadness and remorse, but in a safe and limited way. It's only a computer-generated image anyway.

It seems unlikely that these fantasy pets will have the same powerful appeal in Western countries, where many children grow up with real pets and would prefer to play computer games that are more challenging than Tamagotchi's demand for daily, repetitive routines. But then, who knows? Maybe Tamagotchi will take the world by storm. By then, other computer game companies will have launched the next generation of pseudo-pets in Japan.

Shukan ST: May 2, 1997

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