Multimedia Toys

In a general sense, multimedia toy is a name for digitally based interactive media that are marketed as toys for children. All types of “smart” toys—smart meaning that such a toy can react to what a child is doing or saying—can be considered multimedia toys, including such media as Sony's PlayStation and Nintendo's Game Boy. However, virtual pets are the best developed example of such toys.

A virtual pet is a more or less complex software program that can interact with a person (and so is able to control input and to produce output). This software program can be online or installed on a computer, or it may have its own physical form, for example, as an entertainment robot. The first type, pets that exist only on a personal computer or on the Internet, most often appears as little animals—a cool camel, a happy hamster, or a virtual dog that the user can adopt and care for. An example of the second type, a virtual pet with its own physical body, is the tamagotchi. This toy, first released in 1996, is a rather simple plastic egg with a little screen and some buttons. The story included with the product describes the egg as the living place of an alien for whom the owner must care. It needs symbolic food, sometimes medicine, companionship, and other kinds of attention. If the owner takes good care of the tamagotchi, it will communicate happiness and love; if not, it will become a very unpleasant being or even die.

Introduced in 1999, Sony's AIBO is a robot similar to a dog that was created primarily for entertainment. The word aibou means “friend” or “buddy” in Japanese, and AIBO is an acronym for Artificial Intelligence Robot. Combining robotic and media technology, the Sony AIBO could play music and take pictures as well as recognize spoken commands. Although Sony discontinued this product in early 2006, it continues to offer software support, and there are a number of websites for owners of the multimedia toy.

© Julien Guertault. Reprinted with permission.

[Page 561]Empirical studies in Germany showed that several months after the tamagotchi was launched, it could be found in 16% of German households that included boys between 6 and 17 and even in 28% of households with girls of the same age group. But the audience for the toy was not limited to children; as reported by the media, even businessmen interrupted their work to care for their tamagotchis. After 2 years, the tamagotchi wave ended for most people, and today one can find huge cemeteries of tamagotchis on the Internet. But tamagotchis are still sold, and from time to time, the Japanese enterprise, Bandai, offers a new tamagotchi type; the last one was able to marry another tamagotchi and even have children. This type of computer game is also used for serious purposes, such as teaching young people what is involved in caring for a child.

There are a variety of other multimedia toys similar to a pet, especially in Japan: the AIBO (a robot similar to a dog), the Furby, cats and little bears, e-versions of a red snapper, and so on. These toys are no longer produced only for children. More than 100,000 AIBOs have been sold. The AIBO has a wireless connection to the Internet and is able to serve as a diary, play MP3 music, and watch your home, but it is mainly constructed as an entertainment robot. It is able to learn and to develop, and in its autonomous mode, it functions as a complex stimulus-response machine that follows its instincts, especially its “love instinct,” to come into contact with human people. Of course, this $2,000 pet is mostly used by children, and in industrialized countries, most children have already been in contact with one or another virtual pet. But there are further target groups, including technically sophisticated people who can write further software for it and elderly or chronically ill people who are not able to or do not want to own a real animal.

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