The Future of Home Pets?
by CheekyGuy, HSM guest contributor
The virtual pet industry, up until Home 1.7, literally exploded in Home; it was becoming rare to see an avatar that wasn’t walking with a little companion, be it a dragon, a fairy, a little puppy or something else tagging along by his or her side. In evolutionary terms, they’ve come a long way since 2010. There was just this sense that Home developers were simply experimenting or toying around with the idea of the Home community having companions or pets, and were themselves perhaps surprised to see it take off.
Pets in Home, especially in your private estate, give your Home experience more character and emotional context. If you had a Villain’s Lair, for example, what better way to compliment the Blofeld motif than with a sinister, fluffy white cat or a mini-devil with pitchforks? Besides, I rather dislike being alone in my own apartment, as I suspect is the case for many of you. Thus, a pet is just another way (even if it is all artificial) of keeping you company when all your friends are offline.
There’s no question that, despite perhaps some waning popularity thanks to Home 1.7, pets are far more than just a niche curiosity. I particularly loved the little robot dog that came out of its kennel and followed your commands through the gesture tabs. But I was disappointed that you couldn’t take him with you outside of your private estate. Now we have virtual companions that come with their own sound effects. How cool is that?
The next logical step in Home pet evolution, though, is a level of interactivity and responsibility akin to Tamagotchi. The closest we’ve come to this so far are Hudson’s dolphies, which required a limited amount of menu-driven interaction in order to breed a dolphy capable of winning competitive races against other users.
I recently received a gift from a friend on rival virtual world Second Life: they were bunnies. Just cute, little bunnies that interact with one another if you put them both in the same space. They had a new animation technology that made them look a bit more lifelike. I could watch them for hours just to see what they were up to. Usually it was mischief: at any given point they would be hiding under a top hat, or nibbling on a carrot, or just communicating with one another. They could sit on your shoulder and snuggle up against you. Breedables in Second Life have always been around, and granted, they can be a small annoyance, but this has been resolved now with the option to turn the breedable function off so they don’t multiply and take up so much space on your land.
That may sound like a crazy concept to a Home user, but in Second Life, it can be a real problem. We once had a chicken farm that got completely overrun and out of hand. For real.
I really want to see more choices of pets that you can have in Home. Not necessarily wilder choices — just more variety within a category. I’m a dog lover, so I would love to see many breeds of dog out there that you can have. And why not accessories for them, too, assuming there’s room to program it in? Home pets may never reach Tamagotchi levels, but a certain amount of limited interactivity could go a long way.
Perhaps the most important aspect of a virtual companion that one would use for a lengthy period of time — long after the novelty of showing it off has worn away — is the relatability of the pet. Wacky pets are all well and good, but to an extent a virtual pet is an extension of the owner’s personality, and thus having more domestically familiar pets isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I’m not saying that every pet in Home has to be true to life — really quite the contrary — but I do like my pets to be emotionally resonant with how I feel. Even something as simple as fish work well; perhaps it’s because I’m a Pisces, but there’s something about just watching virtual fish in an aquarium which is remarkably calming.
Is there room to program a greater level of AI into Home pets? The conspicuous lack of AI in Home virtual companions, save for the aforementioned robotic pets, suggests that there isn’t. Or perhaps it’s simply a matter of belief: that there isn’t enough consumer demand to warrant the extra development cost and time to create such a thing, particularly now that downloadable dance moves and locomotions are all the rage. I do hope, though, that the Home virtual pet hasn’t already concluded its day in the sun; as the western world becomes increasingly urbanized, and the feasibility of owning a real pet diminishes for more and more people, the idea of owning a virtual pet and thus satisfying that emotional need for companionship becomes increasingly appealing.
How far can virtual companions go in Home? I don’t have the answer to that. Personally, I’d love to have the tools to build my own, within certain parameters. That may sound outrageous, but if you don’t dream big, then what’s the point of virtual reality?
November 16th, 2012 by CheekyGuy | 6 comments
CheekyGuy is a loveable, mischievous Brit who first entered virtual reality via Second Life, and now frequents Home as a Grey Gamer to keep in touch with friends. In real life, Cheeky is a video editor who has just completed a Master's degree in screenwriting from Liverpool John Moores University.
You make a point I haven’t thought of until earlier today. I have just recently started playing Mercia and unlocked a neat little companion that’s a beetle larvae…I really wish i could evolve it!
Great ideas Cheeks,glad to see you back to writing too. I think that you are right on the mark with this. If the pet market in Home is going to survive the locomotion epidemic that is sweeping through, they are going to have to up it a notch. Being able to breed one that you could take out with you when you are in public would be an awesome way to do this. That way everyone’s pet could look different and it would add another layer of creativity to Home and that will appeal to a lot of people for sure. I know I would love it. Nice read.
Welcome back Cheeky great to see you writing again :)Would I like to breed my own virtual pet absolutely! In the the past HOME has given a fish tank and a car to evolve, why not a pet companion. Fun article Cheeky definitely got me thinking what I would want to breed
The idea of a Tamagotchi level of pet in Home is definitely one they should be thinking of, but as you’ve already said, there might not be enough spare memory for that level of pet. I’m not particularly big on pets in Home myself, generally because you gotta keep jumping in and out of menus to turn them on/off. I did buy a worm guy a while back, and the dark wolf to go with my vampire outfit, but it’s the lack of interaction that usually stops me from buying them.
If memory is the real issue. I could imagine having the “option” for raising a pet in a space built for raising it. Where after you raised it, that print of custom code on the pet followed you to other spaces.
A public park for taking it out, and showing off the tricks you taught it. The memory allotment for showing your pet off can come from the space itself being a game.
I know we have this in the dolphy space.
Why not a park type of environment? Frisbee anyone?
Great article Cheeky!:)