Talk:Virtual pet

Categorization
Is it better if we give the term "Digital pet", Entertainment robot and Ludobot a new categorization? In fact the word "Virtual" is opposed to "Actual", while the word "Digital" don't carry such meaning. But the current definition of Digital pet is limited to Virtual pet with no physical existence.

Therefore, I think Digital pet should be something in-between "Entertainment robot" and "Virtual Pet". We can consider "Virtual pet" and "Entertainment robot" as a sub-category of Digital pet.

Is it better if we merge the content of Entertainment robot and Ludobot together. Move the current content of Digital pet to Virtual pet, and have a new "Digital Pet" entity which describe the common issue for all of them?

Thanks for reading this and please comment. Ben Cheng 14:06, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Shouldn't Digital Pet redirect to Virtual Pet (which is the more common term)? &#1090;&#601; z&#1108; &#1090;&#1110; 17:27, Mar 21, 2005 (UTC)
 * You are right, it should. Fatalis 17:23, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Furby?
I removed Aibo and Furby, because it doesn't seem to be the right kind of pet. I interpreted the description as strictly digital simulations of pets, without the physical toy aspect. It could be blurred in the future, of course. --AySz88 ^ -  ^  05:38, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree completely, but it looks like someone reverted your changes. I'll try to make it right with a link to Entertainment robot. The demiurge 02:23, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

But on certain sites you have to feed the pet to make sure thart it doesn't die and stuf, so its kinda like a build up to a childs firdst real off the screen pet, so i disagree.

Categorization of Digital Pet
''Similar are the varied Monster-raising video games, including the aformentioned Digimon, Pokémon, Monster Rancher, Nintendogs, and Jade Cocoon. One could also suppose that Yu-Gi-Oh is the third generation from this. ''

I'm not sure what this sentence really means, but Pokémon itself is nowhere close to a Digital pet, and the same goes to Yu-Gi-Oh and Monster Rancher. Maybe there is a small subset of these games that are Digital pets, but aren't most of these franchises mainly RPGs?--AlphaTwo 20:17, 14 February 2006 (UTC)


 * The whole History section seems a bit off to me. Is that where the 'weasel words' warning is coming in? If so, how could one make it more clear to the general public? 15:49, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Pokemon could be considered to be "Digital Pet" not because the game itself is, but from a combined effect of watching anime and playing the game. In anime, all pokemon are pets and partners and most kids (and enough adults, too) who watch that also play the game will be strongly influenced enough to act similarly. Those kids would be happy to find Pikachu in game, not because he is "powerful", but because they want Pikachu with them. Also, there was a Tamagotchi-like handheld with Pikachu in Japan that had a moderate success. It's same with Digimon and Monster Rancher series. On Yu-Gi-Oh, it's harder to call it "Digital Pet" because the development of "pets" is much more limited.Revth 03:17, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Creature from Black & White
Could the creature from games like Black & White 2 be considered a Digital pet? Jaco plane  02:40, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Most definately IMO. the creatures are trained through classical conditioning which is how real pets are trained. I think that these creatures are more pet-like than most vritual pets! --Larsinio 20:31, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Non-NPOV?
"Virtual pet websites, such as Neopets, Marapets and Zetapets, are usually free to play and accessible to all who sign up. They can be accessed through web browsers and often include a virtual community, such as the planet Neopia in Neopets and the world of Marada in Marapets. In these worlds, you can play games to earn virtual money; which is usually spent on items and food for your pets. Marapets has several in game currencies, and money is earned from battling, restocking and playing games." - That last statment seems to be less a description on virtual pet websites and more a plug for Marapets. Shouldn't it get removed?(Clearly the whole section needs a rewrite, but that one line seemed especially bad) 69.19.14.21 03:56, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Doesn't seem too bad to me. It just sounds like a description of the game - if the same is written for other entries, it would make things less like advertising though. Owlqueen 22:11, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Additional pets for consideration
Bobble the Little Blue Owl is one I have been playing around with for a while and is a fun simulation that gets progressively harder to maintain as the pet grows up from bouncy ball to little owl. He is at http://www.bobblethelittleblueowl.com/. Owlqueen 22:09, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Virtual and Digital: Not the same thing
Why is it called a 'Digital pet'? When you look up virtual pet sites like 'Neopets' they have a link to 'virtual pet' that goes to this article. Virtual pets are pets that you can play with/take care of online, while as digital pets are pets that are on special gaming systems, such as Tamagotchi. There is a difference. Of course, if this was changed there would need to be a whole new article about Virtual pets.

Suggested expansion
There is very little information on this page in regards to digital pets like Tamagotchi, which are mentioned but not included as a type of digital pet. The page includes website and software based pets, but not portable devices. While these were certainly not the first type of digital pets to exist, they are what started a fad in the late '90s that made them much more popular. --192.107.155.5 (talk) 20:39, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

0985273759
Suratda Suratda boonchern (talk) 12:11, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

Badly outdated
This article seems to be stuck in 2004. E.g., statements like "Digital pets have no concrete physical form other than the hardware they run on" are predicated on the idea that these only exist in software to run on your computer or a dedicated mini-tablet like a Tamagochi. Today, the vast majority of these toys in are firmware-run robotics/animatronics that interact with kids (or adults, for that matter), and move, "talk" (play back recordings or use speech or other vocalization synthesis), light up in patterns to express "emotions", etc., etc. There are several categories of these things, ranging from mini e-pets that ride on a kid's finger, to wrist-wrapping ones, to larger walking/rolling toy bots, which range from cutesy plush toys to more aggressive hard toys (dinosaurs, dragons, etc.), and naturalistic to fantastical. There's a huge market for these things, and it's not even new; the first interactive robodog (Aibo) pre-dates Wikipedia by about 5 years. We have no article at Interactive toy which is a semi-common term for them, but too ambiguous/vague (are there any toys that aren't interactive in some sense?); and robopet, which is sometimes also used as catch-all, redirects to WowWee (presumably for a trademark, perhaps on RoboPet?), but is not mentioned anywhere in the article.

I'm not certain we need a separate article; if we do the two should be well cross-referenced.

PS: There's a whole other category of these things: mobile phone apps that provide e-pets, often in a multi-pet "collector" mode; most often, these seem to be "idle games", requiring less frequent interaction than the old-school "feed me or I die" type. Probably the most famous of the Android/iOS apps is Cat Game - The Cat Collector!, though there are innumerable entries in this market now. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:24, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 21 April 2022

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) ASUKITE  15:15, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

Digital pet → Virtual pet – The WP:COMMONNAME by far in Google Ngrams with "virtual pet"'s usage rising far more than "digital pet"'s throughout the 1990s and remaining much higher to this day. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 05:41, 21 April 2022 (UTC) — Relisting. Colin M (talk) 14:10, 5 May 2022 (UTC) The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Support per rationale. Cat&#39;s Tuxedo (talk) 20:33, 26 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Support, this is the more used term. 182.1.79.184 (talk) 02:28, 30 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Inclined to oppose . "Digital pet" probably has a greater scope, doesn't it? This article seems to include not only online "pets" but also devices like Tamagotchi, which are "digital pets" but not "virtual pets" given that they are contained in a particular physical item. Dekimasu よ! 05:25, 30 April 2022 (UTC)
 * the article doesn't explicitly explain the differences of digital and virtual pets. It uses the term interchangably. 182.1.77.70 (talk) 08:57, 30 April 2022 (UTC)
 * The dictionary definition of "virtual" is "simulated in a computer" which can also apply to the Tamagotchi. "Digital pet" probably could also extend to robots as well, which would definitely be out of the scope of this article, so I think the smaller scope of "virtual pet" is a good thing. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 17:38, 30 April 2022 (UTC)
 * All the above arguments sounds like original research. I'm supporting this proposal solely because COMMONNAME. 182.1.91.126 (talk) 02:05, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
 * It is not original research to state the definition of a word, that is simply WP:COMMONSENSE. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 06:59, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Withdrawing my objection. It seems like there is consensus here. Dekimasu よ! 05:17, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Support - "Virtual pet" has consistently been the common name for as long as the terms have been used. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 19:14, 5 May 2022 (UTC)