Another Opinion - Tamagotchi Killers from Distant Space.

Back in the distant years of 1998-1999, when the air was cleaner, the grass greener, and defaults fresher, I was in the third grade of a small provincial town's middle school. One day during recess, I saw a group of my classmates gathered by the window. One boy had it. The dinosaur Kroker. It was a tiny plastic thing, slightly smaller than a bar of soap. Tamagotchi! These "pet substitutes," as the uncles from the zombie box called them, arrived from far-off Celestial China. And it all began...

Tamagotchis were essentially very simple devices: a monochrome display about 10x10 pixels, a beeper to alert the owner that it was time to clean up after their pet, and, of course, a brightly colored casing. But since it was a product of narrow-eyed communists, the toy broke quickly—no, actually very quickly (I mean REALLY quickly)—and irreparably. Although, in terms of programming, the little creature could die even sooner. Tamagotchi is a living organism simulator, similar to your Sims, but a couple of orders of magnitude simpler. Moms and dads were thrilled! Of course, the creature didn’t need much space, didn't stink, and didn’t ask for food. It ran on two batteries from a wristwatch, but you rarely had to change them. But why? Let’s figure it out.

Tamagotchis included a choice of one to several types of creatures—these little dogs and cats, but most often dinosaurs and similar creatures. So we picked our pet and...

It needs to be fed!

Seems easy enough—press a button and done. But! This little monster wants to eat twice during a lesson, announcing this to the entire class each time, and if it got a particularly powerful speaker, even the corridor would hear it. And when kind teachers finally take away the beloved pet, tears and snot over the accumulated creature.

You need to clean up after it!

The Tamagotchi not only eats a lot, but, sorry… it poops. And yes! If you don’t clean up after it, the pet will soon choke on its own waste. A sad death, isn’t it?

You need to play with it!

Not always. Only the most advanced models had the ability to play with their owners. Sadly, but it's a fact. Now it screams not just when it wants food, but also when it wants to play. Which is generally close to reality.

They will die!

They will! For sure! As I mentioned earlier, you probably won’t have to change the batteries—the pet will die before the batteries run out. Once the 3 lives run out, of course. Clever Chinese made it so that these three deaths happen faster than you can sneeze. They designed it so that you wouldn’t fully grasp the primitiveness of the construction and the quality—aka finger and soldering iron. Moreover, quick breakdown means that a schoolkid will run for a new pet, and then the cycle continues. It’s a business, baby...

I even managed to make money off of Tamagotchis—not everyone knew initially that if you move the internal clock of the device to 23:59 and wait a minute, the pet would grow. In one lesson, you could raise up to 10 animals to their final stage. I charged a ruble for one. That was enough for half an hour of gaming in the computer club in Heroes of Might and Magic 3. However, the holiday ended quickly, and others found out about it. After that, Tamagotchis ceased to interest me, especially since my home cat brought much more fun, and Tamagotchis didn’t provide such attachment. Or did they?


Some particularly gifted individuals jumped out the window for a fallen Tamagotchi; apparently, these idiots thought they were Superman. Thank goodness—it cleaned the gene pool. Google it, friends—you’ll definitely find a couple of cases. After such events, journalists began to pay attention to Tamagotchis, and reports emerged about zombification and exposure to various waves affecting our little flowers of life. Yeah, with such stuffing made of a wire and circuit board. However, parents liked it—no smell, no feeding needed. Let the child play...

Speaking of zombification, Tamagotchis raised and instilled in many people a care for nothing. Indeed, the Tamagotchi phenomenon lives on—there are thousands of different apps for any phone, from the first Java-supporting devices to iPhones, where you similarly have to care for and grow anyone in any quantity. And of course the unforgettable Sims, whose sales vividly illustrate how many people are willing to care without responsibility.

Now we see thousands of projects—from happy farmers to all kinds of [World of Warcraft](/games?search=World of Warcraft) and Lineage. Recently, it's interesting to play (I’ve only checked WoW). But the farmer plays on feelings based on Tamagotchis—care for nothing and bragging rights. If before it was about raising and caring for a Tamagotchi, now it’s about a fully cultivated field and expensive fences on the farm. And the measurement of bytes and pixels is not cool.

Grow muscles, skills in drawing and programming, flowers, or a hamster. Create something real, even if it’s a crooked rose in Paint. Create, don’t measure yourself against meaningless virtual phalluses. And good luck to you!

Your IntelegentBeast.