#gigapets

[glimmerkey]

1999 Tiger Electronics Catalogue

[ukikimon]

Oh, you KNOW I had to get this to test it out.

[digi-tama-in-your-pocket]

I wonder if the virtual pet fad of the late 90's would have lasted just a little bit longer if Bandai, I dunno... maybe tried a little harder to keep it interesting?

I did some thinking about it and it just feels like Bandai was determined to shoot itself in the foot when it comes to virtual pets ( Something that seems to still be true today )

Despite Tamagotchi gen 1 and 2 being fairly gender neutral, from the Angel onward Tamagotchi's marketing leaned HARD on the notion that it was a "Girls Toy"

Tamagotchi Ocean feels like it was on store shelves for exactly one week and had absolutely zero marketing. You'd be forgiven for thinking you just imagined it.

They completely gave up on Tamagotchi after the Ocean until 2004's Tamagotchi Connection relaunch

They refused to greenlight the Tamagotchi cartoon

Digimon were actually really hard to find on store shelves and even harder to find anything that wasn't a version 1, you'd be forgiven for thinking we never got more than version 1 in the west

Why the fuck was the "Digivice" in the anime not based on the original v-pet?? They wanted it to sell a completely different toy?? Why?? Market what you have already!! Not only that but the anime changed the rules about digimon from how we know them in the virtual pets ( it was a dope anime but this was a double edge sword )

They made Digimon World play like a virtual pet, but couldn't think of a way to integrate actual v-pets into the game like how pokemon stadium did with the N64 transfer pak. Hell even Sonic figured that out with the Chao and the Sega VMU ( too bad the Dreamcast crashed and burned )

Kids moved on from v-pets when the robo dog and furby became the hot new toy, Bandai didn't even try to compete

When all of these factors lead to the decline of virtual pets popularity, bandai just kind of threw up their hands and quit, didn't touch Tamagotchi until Tamagotchi Connection, but continued to market it as a "Girls Toy", maintaining the stigma ( don't shoot the messanger btw, I hated the stigma but I also had a dad who "threatened" to get me girls toys for christmas to emasculate me which caused me to distance myself from Tamagotchi ), the only Digimon things we got was anime, and anime tie-in toys.

Like if you look at the history of how Bandai handled virtual pets despite them being essentially pokemon before pokemon, it's pretty easy to see why they dropped the ball so fucking hard these days. They're getting better but there's still room for improvement, ESPECIALLY when it comes to Digimon. Tamagotchi is mainly where they're improving but Digimon has no support in english speaking territories unless it's anime nostalgia, while Tamagotchi is at least trying to do better.

[launturnforest]

[debleb]

how many tamagotchis/vpets are you running right now?

1

2

3

4

5

6

7+

none

i don't own one/i'm bald/some other infinitely nuanced answer

Voting ended onJun 7, 2024

[majorbitchi]

Happy New Year 🎉

I have been in a digipet slump for awhile but I am excited to get a new GigaPets 😄

Who doesn't love cryptids?? 😱 I just started it yesterday so Bigfoot is still little lol. I like the gameplay more than the fairy one 🧚‍♂️ which was way too complicated to be fun. Starcat/Compukitty is fun too! I gotta get the froggy and the unicorn ones now 🐸🦄💜

[diet-poison]

Oh?????

[geekkboy]

i love my lil guy hes so cute