WEBVTT - TechStuff Classic: TechStuff Cleans Up After Digital Pets 0:00:04.240 --> 0:00:07.240 Welcome to text Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios 0:00:07.320 --> 0:00:14.000 How Stuff Works. Hey there, and welcome to tex Stuff. 0:00:14.040 --> 0:00:16.960 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with 0:00:17.000 --> 0:00:19.639 iHeart Radio and I love all things tech and it 0:00:19.800 --> 0:00:23.600 is time for a classic episode of tech Stuff. That 0:00:23.680 --> 0:00:27.520 means it's Friday. Happy Friday, everybody. The episode we're about 0:00:27.560 --> 0:00:32.320 to listen to originally published on March eleventh, two thousand thirteen, 0:00:32.800 --> 0:00:36.960 and it's titled tech Stuff Cleans Up after Digital Pets. 0:00:37.520 --> 0:00:42.479 So let's sit back and listen to this classic episode. Today, 0:00:42.479 --> 0:00:46.440 we wanted to talk about digital pets. This actually comes 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:50.760 to us courtesy of a listener suggestion. Uh, and digital pets, 0:00:50.840 --> 0:00:54.320 virtual pets, This is an idea that that really kind 0:00:54.360 --> 0:00:57.800 of got. It's it's heyday in the nineties, especially in 0:00:57.800 --> 0:01:00.960 the United States. But what we want to talk a 0:01:01.040 --> 0:01:03.520 little bit about the rise of digital pets and then 0:01:03.560 --> 0:01:05.960 the fall of digital pets, and and sort of some 0:01:06.080 --> 0:01:10.560 other surrounding topics that that tie into what all of 0:01:10.600 --> 0:01:14.800 this digital pet malarchy means. Yeah, exactly, and Uh, Before 0:01:14.840 --> 0:01:17.399 we get into specifics, I want to talk a little 0:01:17.440 --> 0:01:20.680 bit about some general features that you would expect in 0:01:20.720 --> 0:01:23.039 a virtual pet. Now, first of all, it's it's virtual. 0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:26.160 It's non actual living thing, right right, and sometimes called 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:28.640 digital pets rather than virtual pets because you know, they 0:01:28.680 --> 0:01:30.440 don't necessarily have to be. I mean, there are web 0:01:30.480 --> 0:01:34.320 applications that where digital pets live, but some of them 0:01:34.360 --> 0:01:37.200 are physical three dimensional objects. Yeah, yea. And so we 0:01:37.400 --> 0:01:41.319 kind of we've been very very loose with our definition 0:01:41.360 --> 0:01:44.520 in the sense that we feel there are some toys 0:01:44.640 --> 0:01:48.800 and uh products out there that have influenced the process 0:01:48.920 --> 0:01:52.240 of virtual pets, uh and the evolution of virtual pets. 0:01:52.520 --> 0:01:55.240 So some of the stuff we're gonna talk about today 0:01:55.280 --> 0:01:58.400 they aren't really a virtual pet in the strictest definition, 0:01:58.480 --> 0:02:02.000 but it's important as far as the development goes. In general, 0:02:02.040 --> 0:02:06.560 a virtual pet tends to have certain features that uh 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:10.400 that let it seem kind of similar to an actual 0:02:10.520 --> 0:02:14.080 real life pet. For instance, it usually will respond to 0:02:14.120 --> 0:02:17.560 you calling for it. Uh. There's some sort of command 0:02:17.560 --> 0:02:20.520 that you use to call it, whether it's vocal or 0:02:20.600 --> 0:02:23.120 it's a button you press on a on a game 0:02:23.120 --> 0:02:25.800 controller or on a on a little physical device that 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:28.160 brings it to you. You have to care for it. 0:02:28.200 --> 0:02:30.160 You have to feed it and clean up after it. 0:02:30.200 --> 0:02:32.000 If it falls sick, you have to you have to 0:02:32.040 --> 0:02:35.160 take care of it, right. Usually you can train it 0:02:35.320 --> 0:02:38.840 to do various things. It maybe to perform a trick, 0:02:39.200 --> 0:02:42.240 or it might be to eviscerate someone else's virtual pet 0:02:42.360 --> 0:02:46.320 in the case of certain games that will cover Also, 0:02:46.720 --> 0:02:50.920 there's usually some form of way to reward the pet, 0:02:51.120 --> 0:02:57.680 either with treats or toys. Sometimes the element that allows 0:02:57.720 --> 0:03:01.079 you to give treats or toys is an extra element 0:03:01.120 --> 0:03:04.040 within the whole virtual pet where that you pay real 0:03:04.160 --> 0:03:08.800 money to get access to virtual treats, right right, Yeah, 0:03:08.840 --> 0:03:10.600 you know a lot lots of these virtual pets are 0:03:11.080 --> 0:03:13.280 one time purchase kind of thing. You either buy the 0:03:13.360 --> 0:03:17.239 hardware or you pay for a subscription for a life subscription, 0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:20.120 and you get that thing for you know, as long 0:03:20.160 --> 0:03:22.959 as you care to play with it, and others are 0:03:22.520 --> 0:03:26.200 ye monthly subscription, or you have to continue buying into 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:30.040 various little accessories and other products in order to continue. Yeah, yeah, 0:03:30.080 --> 0:03:35.080 you're you're really building out the pets life. It's very 0:03:35.160 --> 0:03:37.040 similar to the way a lot of games are are 0:03:37.120 --> 0:03:39.760 running now, where you have an in game purchase to 0:03:39.760 --> 0:03:42.720 to give your character either a different look or sometimes 0:03:42.760 --> 0:03:46.680 an actual advantage and gameplay. Uh, many of those ideas 0:03:46.760 --> 0:03:50.240 really got their start in the virtual pet world. Um. Also, 0:03:50.280 --> 0:03:54.520 they usually have some sort of a feature there that 0:03:54.560 --> 0:03:59.280 allows you to have your pet meet other pets. Right, yeah, yeah, 0:03:59.280 --> 0:04:02.240 that that's a relatively i guess, relatively recent as of 0:04:02.320 --> 0:04:05.320 you know, Save two thousand and five. But yeah, but right, 0:04:05.360 --> 0:04:09.160 the earliest development exactly, the earliest ones didn't necessarily have 0:04:09.280 --> 0:04:13.480 that that feature in them. You couldn't get a a 0:04:13.520 --> 0:04:16.000 some pets to meet other pets until we started to 0:04:16.040 --> 0:04:19.080 build in that that capability, either in the hardware or 0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:21.440 in the software. But it usually meant that you could 0:04:21.480 --> 0:04:24.680 have your pet make friends with another person's virtual pet. 0:04:25.120 --> 0:04:28.720 Sometimes you could have your virtual pets breed, and then 0:04:28.760 --> 0:04:32.839 you would get little tiny versions of your virtual pet 0:04:32.920 --> 0:04:35.560 that would have features of both the mommy and the 0:04:35.640 --> 0:04:39.440 daddy virtual pet. Jon Strickland explaining how the birds and 0:04:39.440 --> 0:04:42.640 the bees virtual birds and the virtual beads bees work. Look, 0:04:42.640 --> 0:04:46.599 when a virtual dog and another virtual dog virtually love 0:04:46.680 --> 0:04:51.359 one another, it's very special. They trade some code and 0:04:51.400 --> 0:04:56.200 then you get virtual puppy. Yeah. Anyway, these are all 0:04:56.600 --> 0:04:59.599 basic features that you would find in virtual pets, so 0:04:59.800 --> 0:05:04.039 that that's sort of the overall kind of definition. But 0:05:04.200 --> 0:05:06.839 to really understand the development, we have to go back 0:05:06.960 --> 0:05:10.400 a ways. And and Lauren, you have an interesting place 0:05:10.480 --> 0:05:12.800 you wanted to start. Yeah, I want to talk about 0:05:13.000 --> 0:05:15.120 pet rocks. I think that that would be a very 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:20.479 early I mean clearly analog not digital versions virtual pet 0:05:20.839 --> 0:05:25.039 Those debuted in nineteen seventy five at pop which is 0:05:25.160 --> 0:05:28.480 approximately sixteen dollars in the current economy, which is actually 0:05:28.520 --> 0:05:30.760 what is say, for example, time go chi cost. So 0:05:31.000 --> 0:05:33.520 I thought that was pretty interesting, but so essentially sixteen 0:05:33.520 --> 0:05:37.640 dollars in our current currency to buy a rock, to 0:05:37.720 --> 0:05:40.600 buy irack. Yeah, and this this was created by Gary Doll, 0:05:40.720 --> 0:05:45.680 who was a California ad executive, and brilliant sold more 0:05:45.720 --> 0:05:49.280 than five million of these critters in less than six months. 0:05:49.360 --> 0:05:52.760 It's like a rock with googly eyes. So, so, Lauren 0:05:53.400 --> 0:05:55.920 n you remember those days, right? Oh? Yeah, that was 0:05:55.960 --> 0:05:58.039 seven years before I was born, Okay, so I was 0:05:58.080 --> 0:06:01.719 around nineteen seventy five was also the year a little 0:06:01.760 --> 0:06:07.840 movie called Jaws came out, a fantastic documentary. It's also 0:06:08.080 --> 0:06:12.240 when a certain tech stuff podcaster arrived on the scene. 0:06:12.320 --> 0:06:14.760 That would be me not not not me, So I 0:06:14.800 --> 0:06:19.720 don't really remember I just know I was there anyway. Yeah, 0:06:19.760 --> 0:06:22.160 pet rocks. So so there we go. There's there's a 0:06:22.160 --> 0:06:26.719 a non living pet, and it was mostly a gag 0:06:26.760 --> 0:06:30.200 gift kind of thing, but it lays the groundwork for 0:06:30.240 --> 0:06:33.560 this idea of a pet that's not really alive. Yeah. 0:06:33.640 --> 0:06:35.320 I also wanted to point out actually that in a 0:06:36.080 --> 0:06:39.320 V seven that was when CA nine debut on dr Who, 0:06:39.440 --> 0:06:42.279 which I think is also probably an important reference in 0:06:42.320 --> 0:06:44.440 the entire I mean, especially if you've seen an eyebo, 0:06:44.560 --> 0:06:48.960 I think that they're pretty obviously inspired by the canine 0:06:50.040 --> 0:06:52.960 bucket of bolts. So so yeah, so the idea about 0:06:53.000 --> 0:06:55.440 this kind of of course in science fiction, stuff like 0:06:55.480 --> 0:06:58.159 this has been talked about for you know, since the 0:06:58.240 --> 0:07:04.159 days of Asthmov's uh robot and I seen the body 0:07:04.160 --> 0:07:08.000 electric stuff like that. Yeah, and do Android stream of 0:07:08.240 --> 0:07:14.040 electric sheet. So yeah, these are again the building blocks 0:07:14.080 --> 0:07:18.480 that will lead to virtual pets. A company called Worlds 0:07:18.480 --> 0:07:24.600 of Wonder introduced a toy that was, depending upon how 0:07:24.680 --> 0:07:28.040 you played with it, very entertaining or terrifying. That would 0:07:28.080 --> 0:07:32.320 be Teddy Ruxman. I firmly found them terrifying as a child, 0:07:32.360 --> 0:07:35.800 sexually Teddy Teddy Rouxman it was an interesting idea. It 0:07:35.840 --> 0:07:40.040 was a toy that would read, quote unquote read stories 0:07:40.080 --> 0:07:43.360 to children. The stories would be on a cassette tape. 0:07:44.600 --> 0:07:46.760 Some of you may not know what a cassette tape is. 0:07:47.400 --> 0:07:49.720 I remember them, but a cassette tape, all right, So 0:07:49.720 --> 0:07:53.040 it's it's magnetic tape. And usually, like on a regular 0:07:53.080 --> 0:07:56.960 audio cassette tape, you have two tracks on either side 0:07:56.960 --> 0:07:59.760 of this this tape, and it's usually used for stereo, 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:02.200 one tracks for the left speaker and once for the right. 0:08:03.040 --> 0:08:07.680 Now with Teddy Ruxpan instead, one track was audio and 0:08:07.720 --> 0:08:11.600 the other track was a series of directions for the 0:08:13.000 --> 0:08:16.080 Teddy Bear. Well, it's really just the mouth. The limbs 0:08:16.080 --> 0:08:19.120 didn't really move, but the mouth would move in time 0:08:19.400 --> 0:08:23.119 with whatever was playing, So that way it would follow 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:27.240 the directions and seemingly talk to you and read out 0:08:27.800 --> 0:08:31.120 the story. This meant that if you wanted to do 0:08:31.240 --> 0:08:35.000 something a little wacky, like I don't know, put your 0:08:35.000 --> 0:08:38.360 Black Sabbath cassette tape in Teddy ruxpen, he would not 0:08:38.440 --> 0:08:41.640 suddenly start rocking out because the mouth there was no 0:08:41.720 --> 0:08:44.040 directions for the mouth to follow. Okay, so so the 0:08:44.080 --> 0:08:46.120 mouth wouldn't move. He would still play. Oh no, you 0:08:46.120 --> 0:08:49.600 could play you play Black Sabbath through a teddy Ruxpan. 0:08:49.760 --> 0:08:52.360 There's nothing stopping you. You essentially have a teddy Ruxpan 0:08:52.440 --> 0:08:57.800 shaped boom box. But but it wouldn't like start screaming out. Okay, 0:08:57.840 --> 0:08:59.920 well that's I guess that's I mean, I'm you know, 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:04.040 Ward knows I tried um. But yeah, yeah, that was 0:09:04.520 --> 0:09:07.400 again teddy Ruxman not a virtual pet, necessarily, not in 0:09:07.440 --> 0:09:09.640 the same sense that we're talking about, but again lays 0:09:09.720 --> 0:09:14.640 the groundwork this idea of a a a synthetic creature 0:09:15.120 --> 0:09:18.599 providing some form of companionship, and it appears to be autonomous, 0:09:18.679 --> 0:09:21.760 right right, and again very loose illusion. In this case. 0:09:21.800 --> 0:09:25.040 You you pick up pretty quickly that it's following a 0:09:25.160 --> 0:09:29.240 very specific uh script which was based upon whatever was 0:09:29.280 --> 0:09:32.400 on that cassette. Um Worlds of Wonder, by the way, 0:09:32.720 --> 0:09:36.400 ended up going bankrupt. I think in nine the the 0:09:36.520 --> 0:09:40.240 ownership of teddy Ruxman has passed through several hands, including Hasbro. 0:09:40.760 --> 0:09:43.000 So it was one of those toys that kept on 0:09:43.080 --> 0:09:45.920 going even after the company that launched it went away. 0:09:46.840 --> 0:09:51.240 Now the next year, in six we get our first 0:09:51.360 --> 0:09:55.960 actual virtual pet, and this was for a computer platform 0:09:56.000 --> 0:09:59.959 called the Macintosh. So yeah, two years after the mac 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:03.840 Nintosh launches, Remember they had that amazing nineteen eight four 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:06.840 commercial that was in the Super Bowl. That really amazing, 0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:09.040 one of the best commercials ever made. In my opinion. 0:10:09.559 --> 0:10:12.640 I never owned a Macintosh, but I love the commercial anyway. 0:10:12.679 --> 0:10:17.800 The the Macintosh program Puppy Love debuts in nineteen eighties. 0:10:17.840 --> 0:10:21.360 Six is Tom Snyder Productions release, and Puppy Love was 0:10:21.480 --> 0:10:24.920 essentially a little a little animated puppy dog that you 0:10:24.960 --> 0:10:29.400 could play with on your Macintosh. Very limited uh features 0:10:29.600 --> 0:10:32.960 on that, but again was one of the first examples 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:37.000 of a virtual pet. Now we go ahead of year 0:10:37.040 --> 0:10:40.960 to nineteen eight seven and the Nintendo Entertainment System gets 0:10:41.000 --> 0:10:44.280 a release of a Japanese role playing game, and I'm 0:10:44.320 --> 0:10:48.280 going to butcher the pronunciation. I apologize to Lauren, who 0:10:48.360 --> 0:10:52.320 actually knows how to pronounce Japanese words. But Macgami Tense 0:10:53.360 --> 0:10:58.600 was the RPG, and it included a game play element 0:10:58.640 --> 0:11:02.280 where you could capture demons and then you could train 0:11:02.360 --> 0:11:05.600 those demons to fight for you so that you could 0:11:05.679 --> 0:11:08.200 use the ones that you've captured to help protect you 0:11:08.280 --> 0:11:11.719 in other battles. This is a gameplay element that we 0:11:11.760 --> 0:11:14.120 would end up seeing used in other types of virtual 0:11:14.160 --> 0:11:16.840 pets in the future, and lots of other games as well. 0:11:16.840 --> 0:11:19.400 I wouldn't necessarily count something like Pokemon is a virtual 0:11:19.400 --> 0:11:23.560 pet application, but but it definitely has that game element. Yeah. 0:11:23.600 --> 0:11:28.080 I include Pokemon mostly because, again it has some elements 0:11:28.160 --> 0:11:31.880 of a virtual pet. Although if you're mostly looking to 0:11:31.920 --> 0:11:36.600 try and maximize your your your group of of Pokemon 0:11:36.760 --> 0:11:39.400 so that you can have the best chance of winning 0:11:39.559 --> 0:11:44.360 any particular battle, that's not a great message for a 0:11:44.400 --> 0:11:47.920 person who wants to own a real pet. Yeah, like 0:11:48.280 --> 0:11:51.559 vic message that's no, that's that, it's not that is 0:11:51.600 --> 0:11:54.480 not what the SPC I think would would want to write. 0:11:54.800 --> 0:11:56.920 But then again, virtual pets let us do these sort 0:11:56.920 --> 0:11:59.040 of things. I mean, these are all cartoony, like the 0:11:59.160 --> 0:12:03.880 Pokemon or the cartoony creatures that don't necessarily have a 0:12:05.080 --> 0:12:08.680 a counterpart in real life. Some of them are obviously 0:12:08.679 --> 0:12:11.320 modeled after real animals, but others, if it's modeled after 0:12:11.320 --> 0:12:13.880 a real animal, I have not seen it. Yeah, I 0:12:13.880 --> 0:12:15.880 don't think I want to see some of the real 0:12:15.920 --> 0:12:19.600 animals that those things are modeled on. Right. Well, then 0:12:19.880 --> 0:12:24.240 in two we had the game Dragon Quest five Hand 0:12:24.360 --> 0:12:27.600 of the Heavenly Bride, and that also allowed players to 0:12:27.640 --> 0:12:30.280 capture monsters and use them to fight in their battles. 0:12:30.280 --> 0:12:33.320 So again that same sort of gameplay element, it's starting 0:12:33.360 --> 0:12:37.560 to starting to become pretty popular. It was an interesting idea, um, 0:12:37.600 --> 0:12:40.080 but it's still not really a virtual pet in the 0:12:40.120 --> 0:12:42.520 sense that we think of, where it's just really the 0:12:42.800 --> 0:12:47.880 whole purpose is to take care of an artificial creature. Uh. 0:12:48.120 --> 0:12:53.320 But in a company called p F Magic hits the 0:12:53.360 --> 0:12:57.720 scene and releases a program called Dogs that's d O 0:12:57.920 --> 0:13:02.319 g Z. They would year later release Cats see a 0:13:02.440 --> 0:13:06.400 t Z and then eventually release Pets p E t 0:13:06.640 --> 0:13:10.360 Z and uh. And this was really where the virtual 0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:14.760 pet idea started to blossom, where we started to see 0:13:14.800 --> 0:13:16.880 some of those elements we talked about the top of 0:13:16.880 --> 0:13:19.880 the show, the things that really make a virtual pet, 0:13:19.960 --> 0:13:22.800 what it is, what kind of platform with Windows Originally 0:13:23.080 --> 0:13:25.800 it was originally a Windows based thing. So if you 0:13:26.360 --> 0:13:31.240 for those of you who remember Windows back in there, 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:33.079 there were people who would have like this little dog 0:13:33.120 --> 0:13:36.440 would wander onto your screen and start to play with 0:13:36.480 --> 0:13:39.000 your cursor and things like that. It was very cute 0:13:39.559 --> 0:13:42.400 and um, but this was an actual full program where 0:13:42.440 --> 0:13:46.400 you would be able to adopt a puppy or later 0:13:46.480 --> 0:13:50.880 on a kitten, and after a few days of real time, 0:13:51.000 --> 0:13:52.880 so you know, you check on your little puppy eer 0:13:52.960 --> 0:13:55.439 kitten each day. After a few days, maybe three or 0:13:55.480 --> 0:13:58.840 four days, the puppy your kitten would grow into a 0:13:58.960 --> 0:14:03.800 fully four adult version of whatever animal it was, and 0:14:03.880 --> 0:14:06.680 you would continue taking care of it, so you would 0:14:06.720 --> 0:14:09.240 play with it, you could train it, and you could 0:14:09.360 --> 0:14:14.240 even breed your animal with other animals. Starting with I 0:14:14.280 --> 0:14:18.120 think it was Pets three, because you know, they released 0:14:18.280 --> 0:14:21.680 updates as they as they built out the game locally 0:14:21.720 --> 0:14:25.120 on your own computer asum or was this over email email? 0:14:25.200 --> 0:14:28.560 You could email a copy of your pet to someone 0:14:28.640 --> 0:14:30.840 else and you would still keep yours. This is like 0:14:30.880 --> 0:14:34.280 you suddenly cloned your pet. But you could email a 0:14:34.280 --> 0:14:35.920 copy of your pet to someone else and then they 0:14:35.960 --> 0:14:39.520 could say, oh, this dog, he's very cute, FIEFI is 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:42.760 gonna love him, and see if Fife and the other 0:14:42.840 --> 0:14:45.640 dog would, you know, have a little puppy love going on, 0:14:46.680 --> 0:14:51.280 and then you end up with a litter of virtual puppies. Yeah, 0:14:51.520 --> 0:14:54.680 like like you do. That's like like it happens. Um Yeah, 0:14:54.800 --> 0:15:00.600 So originally these were all designed on hand drawn uh 0:15:00.680 --> 0:15:04.720 kind of designs like like that's the line drawing style. Uh. 0:15:04.840 --> 0:15:09.640 So they weren't photo realistic or anything like that, but cartoony. 0:15:09.680 --> 0:15:11.560 But it meant that if you wanted to, you could 0:15:11.560 --> 0:15:15.280 actually really tweak the look of your pet, because it 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:19.360 wasn't outside the realm of most people's abilities to go 0:15:19.600 --> 0:15:23.680 and draw in a new shape for their pets body 0:15:23.840 --> 0:15:28.480 or a different coloration. But eventually, as that as time 0:15:28.480 --> 0:15:30.520 went on, and we'll get back into the timeline in 0:15:30.560 --> 0:15:33.960 a minute, but by two thousand and six, uh, the 0:15:33.960 --> 0:15:38.480 the company had abandoned the line drawing approach and went 0:15:38.520 --> 0:15:42.840 for a more quote unquote realistic look where you could 0:15:42.920 --> 0:15:46.760 end up changing textures, but you couldn't remodel your pet. 0:15:46.840 --> 0:15:49.240 It was going to always be the same basic shape, 0:15:50.040 --> 0:15:51.840 but you could tweak it a little bit, just not 0:15:51.880 --> 0:15:54.880 as much as you could in earlier versions of the program. 0:15:55.400 --> 0:15:57.360 But this is where we see the idea of the 0:15:57.400 --> 0:15:59.960 virtual pet really take off, and it ended up being 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:04.480 fairly popular, a few million copies sold, so not not 0:16:04.600 --> 0:16:08.000 like a crazy success, but it showed that there was 0:16:08.040 --> 0:16:12.280 a market there that people were interested in getting a 0:16:13.320 --> 0:16:18.080 virtual companion kind of a weird idea at the time. 0:16:18.440 --> 0:16:21.880 Some would say a weird idea today that it's not 0:16:21.960 --> 0:16:26.840 necessarily something that has has gained widespread acceptance. I don't know, 0:16:26.880 --> 0:16:29.040 but there's yeah, there's there's, As we will talk about later, 0:16:29.080 --> 0:16:31.000 there are certainly enough different models of this kind of 0:16:31.040 --> 0:16:33.520 thing out there that there's you know, and and they've 0:16:33.520 --> 0:16:36.000 they've done medical research about stuff. You know, people who 0:16:36.560 --> 0:16:39.080 are perhaps lonely and don't have so much access to 0:16:39.840 --> 0:16:42.600 as much human interaction as they as they need. There 0:16:42.640 --> 0:16:47.360 are lots of robots meant for keeping people companion. Yeah. 0:16:47.400 --> 0:16:49.320 In fact, we'll talk a little bit about them. I 0:16:49.360 --> 0:16:52.200 have some information about one of those robots, but we'll 0:16:52.240 --> 0:16:54.360 we'll save that for towards the end of the discussion 0:16:54.440 --> 0:16:56.960 because that that really it ends up building on a 0:16:57.000 --> 0:16:59.520 lot of these concepts we're talking about early on, and 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:03.400 we're about to tackle the biggest name I think as 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:05.359 far as virtual pets go. It's the name I always 0:17:05.359 --> 0:17:08.240 think of whenever I think of virtual or digital pets. 0:17:08.280 --> 0:17:10.920 But before we get into that, let's take a quick 0:17:11.000 --> 0:17:22.280 moment to thank our sponsor. Okay, now, Lauren, when I 0:17:22.320 --> 0:17:26.680 say digital pet, is there a particular brand name that 0:17:26.760 --> 0:17:32.080 leaps to mind. Tom there you go, Tomagchi launched by 0:17:32.160 --> 0:17:37.600 Bandai in Japan. That is correct, and from what I understand, 0:17:37.640 --> 0:17:40.119 tomagochi is the correct spelling. I always heard it as 0:17:40.160 --> 0:17:42.040 tom gachi when I was a kid, but I think 0:17:42.080 --> 0:17:43.959 that that's probably just because we had no idea what 0:17:43.960 --> 0:17:47.120 we were talking about. It's an Americanized pronunciation. Sure, sure, 0:17:47.480 --> 0:17:52.760 the word does come from from a much McAll partmanteau. Okay, 0:17:52.920 --> 0:17:56.000 of the words tomago, which means egg in Japanese and 0:17:56.200 --> 0:17:59.919 the English were I'm familiar with it from sushi. From sushi, yes, well, 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:03.199 and in sushi it's usually meant to um, meant as 0:18:03.200 --> 0:18:07.639 a shortened form of tamaga yucky, which is that sweet 0:18:07.680 --> 0:18:11.840 egg omelet. But look at the brain on Lauren. Wow, 0:18:11.920 --> 0:18:13.840 she did not know I was going to say sushi either. 0:18:14.280 --> 0:18:16.840 All right, Okay, so tamago what's the other one? And 0:18:16.880 --> 0:18:20.280 the English word watch, which when you kind of translate 0:18:20.320 --> 0:18:26.080 into the Japanese foreign loan word alphabet katakana, it sounds 0:18:26.119 --> 0:18:29.560 a lot more like oachi. Alright, So it's egg watch, 0:18:30.200 --> 0:18:32.520 which I would immediately assume would be an egg timer, 0:18:33.200 --> 0:18:35.320 not a digital pet, not at all. But it is 0:18:35.359 --> 0:18:37.280 a digital pet. But but they but they were egg 0:18:37.320 --> 0:18:40.640 shaped and they did the origin of these little creatures 0:18:40.640 --> 0:18:43.200 would be would look like a little egg, right, So, 0:18:43.200 --> 0:18:45.160 so so you would go out and you would buy 0:18:45.400 --> 0:18:48.880 this essentially look like a key chain that had an 0:18:48.880 --> 0:18:53.960 egg shaped plastic case there with a little screen on it. Yeah, 0:18:54.000 --> 0:18:59.400 and that would allow you to hatch your virtual your 0:18:59.400 --> 0:19:01.359 digital pet it. So you have a little egg on 0:19:01.359 --> 0:19:04.000 there that you would have to uh, you know, press 0:19:04.040 --> 0:19:07.240 a button which essentially started a timer that would let 0:19:07.280 --> 0:19:12.560 the the Toma gauchi. No, hey, there's a player. It's 0:19:12.560 --> 0:19:16.760 time to start creating a pet for this person to 0:19:16.800 --> 0:19:20.040 interact with. And then um, you would end up using 0:19:20.080 --> 0:19:21.920 I think it was like three buttons. Yeah, it's a 0:19:21.920 --> 0:19:24.200 little three button interaction. So you would use those three 0:19:24.200 --> 0:19:27.879 buttons to do various commands depending upon what your pet 0:19:27.960 --> 0:19:30.359 needed and whether or not you were a good person, 0:19:31.520 --> 0:19:33.320 because it would be things like, you know, feed your 0:19:33.320 --> 0:19:35.360 pet or clean up after your pack, because they would 0:19:35.440 --> 0:19:39.679 leave little digital poos, get very upset if you if 0:19:39.680 --> 0:19:41.800 you didn't. And I say all this hypothetically because I 0:19:41.840 --> 0:19:45.359 never actually owned when did you ever? Actually I did 0:19:45.560 --> 0:19:50.560 not own. I didn't own one. Did you mistreat someone 0:19:50.600 --> 0:19:57.800 else's Tomaguchi. I'm taking the fifth mostly because I can't 0:19:57.880 --> 0:20:00.760 remember excellent. Now, I'm not the kind of guy who 0:20:00.800 --> 0:20:06.320 whatever I can't, I can't mistreat creatures in a video game, right, 0:20:06.359 --> 0:20:10.640 like if there's a video game, all right, tangential. I 0:20:10.640 --> 0:20:13.000 I apologize for the tangent. But this is an example 0:20:13.040 --> 0:20:18.000 of how I think the game Red Dead Redemption. You're 0:20:18.080 --> 0:20:21.959 you're playing a cowboy in the waning era of the 0:20:22.000 --> 0:20:25.439 cowboy era, right this is the days the train is 0:20:25.480 --> 0:20:28.480 taking over, the cars are starting to happen, so the 0:20:28.680 --> 0:20:32.399 day of the Cowboys. At an end um, there's an 0:20:32.400 --> 0:20:36.520 achievement you could get for killing all the buffalo in 0:20:36.560 --> 0:20:38.879 the game. There was a certain number of buffalo, and 0:20:38.920 --> 0:20:41.520 after you killed a certain number, you would get this achievement. 0:20:42.440 --> 0:20:44.960 That was the last achievement I got because I could 0:20:44.960 --> 0:20:51.640 not bring myself buffalo. But we'll get into the discussion 0:20:51.640 --> 0:20:55.800 about that about actually, uh developing an emotional attachment to 0:20:56.200 --> 0:20:58.520 a digital creation, which is kind of crazy when you 0:20:58.560 --> 0:21:01.200 think about it, like just from a like crazy from 0:21:01.200 --> 0:21:04.119 the sense of that's so like I would never have 0:21:04.200 --> 0:21:06.879 imagined it until it happened. Sure, I don't know, I 0:21:06.880 --> 0:21:09.000 mean you know as a kid. I mean I had 0:21:09.200 --> 0:21:11.440 I had a whole stable full of my Little Ponies, Okay, 0:21:11.440 --> 0:21:13.119 I was. I was that guy when I was like 0:21:13.240 --> 0:21:17.000 six and um, and they all had very individual personalities, 0:21:17.040 --> 0:21:20.800 and I was extraordinarily attached to these toys. So you know, 0:21:20.920 --> 0:21:22.720 I mean, I mean, just building on that if if, 0:21:22.760 --> 0:21:26.560 if and those things. Those things didn't move except my imaginations, right, 0:21:27.080 --> 0:21:29.399 I can see how something that does move to a 0:21:29.400 --> 0:21:32.119 certain extent, does I mean that? That being said in fable, 0:21:32.119 --> 0:21:34.960 I'm the guy who kicks all the chickens, so well, okay, 0:21:34.720 --> 0:21:37.480 I've been there, annoying, I've kicked the chicken or two. 0:21:37.680 --> 0:21:40.720 You know. Also, also, it's very possible, Lauren, that some 0:21:40.800 --> 0:21:43.359 of our listeners out there could be Brownies, and maybe 0:21:43.359 --> 0:21:46.600 they also have their own collections that could rival your 0:21:46.640 --> 0:21:50.600 own childhood one. They probably could. By the way, I'm 0:21:50.640 --> 0:21:53.200 not speaking down to anyone who likes My Little Pony 0:21:53.240 --> 0:21:56.520 that was created. The latest version My Little Pony Friendship 0:21:56.560 --> 0:21:58.080 is Magic, was created by the same people who create 0:21:58.119 --> 0:22:00.800 power Puff Girls, which I love, which is yeah, so 0:22:01.160 --> 0:22:04.160 no judgment here, yeah yeah, getting back to yeah, yeah, 0:22:04.280 --> 0:22:06.080 so you could you could feed them, you could clean 0:22:06.160 --> 0:22:07.960 up after them. If you didn't clean up after them, 0:22:08.080 --> 0:22:10.439 they could actually get sick, and then you would have 0:22:10.480 --> 0:22:13.960 to really take care of them. And also Tomagotchi, unlike 0:22:14.040 --> 0:22:17.200 a lot of other other digital pets, the digital pet 0:22:17.240 --> 0:22:20.520 and tomagotchis could die. Yeah, you didn't take care of them, 0:22:20.640 --> 0:22:22.680 or I think in the American version it was they 0:22:22.720 --> 0:22:25.040 sort of turned into the little digital angels and kind 0:22:25.080 --> 0:22:27.359 of flew back to their home planet because they were aliens. 0:22:27.400 --> 0:22:30.000 Or yeah, they went into a little digital ufo and 0:22:30.040 --> 0:22:32.480 flew away. But but the point was that if you 0:22:32.480 --> 0:22:35.960 didn't take care of them, they would leave. And and 0:22:36.000 --> 0:22:39.560 in fact that became something of a problem because it 0:22:39.600 --> 0:22:41.639 took you had to take care of him about twice 0:22:41.640 --> 0:22:43.800 a day, sure, and in the early stages way more 0:22:43.840 --> 0:22:46.159 often than that, about once every six hours or so. 0:22:46.280 --> 0:22:48.560 I think, so, yeah, you've got this thing, and it 0:22:48.560 --> 0:22:50.480 could make noise, it would beat at you when it 0:22:50.560 --> 0:22:54.919 was really not doing so well or not happy. Happy 0:22:54.960 --> 0:22:57.239 being a weird term, because we're talking about following a 0:22:57.280 --> 0:23:00.520 certain protocol, which meant that kids would to have to 0:23:00.560 --> 0:23:03.119 whip these things out and take care of them throughout 0:23:03.160 --> 0:23:05.920 the day. And then if they were in school, which 0:23:05.920 --> 0:23:08.760 became a problem in the United States certainly. Yeah, And 0:23:08.800 --> 0:23:11.600 so in the US you had stories of schools that 0:23:11.600 --> 0:23:14.880 would ban these things outright and say, don't bring them 0:23:14.880 --> 0:23:18.040 to school because they are a distraction. You're not learning, 0:23:18.200 --> 0:23:21.000