Digital Leisure, and the Evolution of Home’s Virtual Pets
by Burbie52, HSM team writer
My father loved fish. He had an aquarium in our home all of my childhood, and I learned to love watching them swim and have babies and grow in their tanks. He loved to decorate his tanks, too; he went so far as to build a beautiful pirate ship model then burned a hole in its hull and sank it in his aquarium for the fish to hide in. I have always found it to be a soothing experience watching fish glide about in their tank.
Digital Leisure is famous for bringing us the Casino in Home as well as the Space Station and Old West Saloon personal spaces. They are very good at adding fun to their product lines, and a bit of humor as well; just go to their free hotel room and see what happens as it changes on a regular basis.
Now they are stepping into the pet market in Home in a big way: enter the Pet Shop.
Not only are they breaking into the pet market, but they have created a whole new store complete with one of the coolest new items I have ever seen in Home: the Aquarium.
From Digital Leisure:
“The Pet Shop is the ultimate place to pick up the latest and greatest companions and aquatic items for you and your personal spaces. Just for coming by you’ll take home a free Goldfish Tank. This full interactive aquarium item allows you to feed your fish, clean your tank and rewards you for keeping them alive. Put it on display and customize it the way you want with more fish and decorations. There is a wide selection of aquatic life and ornaments to choose from. If that goldfish tank just isn’t big enough, there are even more tank sizes available! All of these can be previewed, and purchased, at the Pet Shop.
“The Pet Shop is not only home to our underwater friends, but there are cat and dog companions waiting for your attention and love. The shop also houses a Dancing Weasel companion that was created from The Casino’s custom home item contest.”
This is taking the pet market to a whole new level. You will have to tend your fish or they will not thrive, introducing a Tamagotchi element to Home pets not seen since Hudson’s dolphies. The tanks look to be a beautiful addition, and it seems they will offer many sizes and shapes as well as fish to add to them. Not only that, but we will be able to decorate them in a myriad of ways as well. This is a very smart move on Digital Leisure’s part; they are tapping into the creative streak many in Home have. We love to make things our own, and this is going to do that for us.
This new Pet Shop is going to be home to dogs and cats of varying types available as well. I can’t wait to go there and check out what they have made for us. Creating a virtual environment which triggers an emotional desire to purchase an animal is a really smart move for motivating sales. They even have added a dancing weasel companion that was created as a result of their contest in the Casino that urged people to create their own Home items and submit them.
With the saturated pet market in Home it will be interesting to see how popular these new additions become. The Aquarium will likely be a huge hit; as for the rest, it remains to be seen. Companions have reached a point where they have to be something special because they are now forcing us to choose between locomotion and pets. This will be an interesting market segment to watch.
December 11th, 2012 by Burbie52 | 3 comments
Burbie52 is a 62 year-old published author and founder of the Grey Gamers group within Home. Born and raised in Michigan, she has lived there her entire life, with the exception of a twelve-year residency on the Big Island of Hawaii. She enjoys reading and writing, as well as video games, especially RPG's. She has one son in his twenties.
Awww yeah. I love my fishies! I have an 80 gallon tank at home and although I had a mass-suicide due to some rare disease from live food, I’m working on getting it back to its former glory. This though, this is a first-day purchase for me. Nice one DL, let’s just hope LKWD dont do to these fish, like they just did to Palace of the Seven Winds…
Fish are not ezactly my favorite animals but I do have good memorys of our small fish tank when I was a child.When your name is Do-Little, this is a must buy,
Unfortunately, Digital Leisure has poisoned the well by adding some bizarre requirements to unlock those fish tank rewards. Some rewards can only be unlocked if friends visit your tank more than 500 times (once per day). Some require 50 unique people to visit your tank.
The most onerous ones require your friends to buy something from your tank with Aquabux, the currency that is generated from each visit, or more rapidly bought through the Digital Leisure store. This is the most appalling “business model” I’ve seen yet in Home: Salesman of the month gets the rewards.
Devs should understand that we are not here to peddle their wares. I had money set aside for a fish tank, but I’m passing on them until they come up with a realistic reward structure.