It has been 25 years since the first Tamagotchi appeared on the market. This toy has disappeared from schoolyards and has been replaced by smartphones, but many of its features have had a major impact on the video game industry.
The Tamagotchi screen was 32×16 pixels and has three small buttons, was released on November 23, 1996, in Japan by company Bandai. These buttons had different functions, such as feeding your pet, turning off the light, or cleaning the surroundings. If you didn’t care for your creation, the Tamagotchi will die. All that was left of him were the stars and what your Tamagotchi was.
It was a revolution in the video game industry, Tamagotchi was one of the first to use continuous play features. Over the following years, this feature became a key feature of popular games.
after the first Tamagotchi launched in 1996, it became not just a toy fad, but a social phenomenon, ”says Nobuhiko Momoi, managing director, and chief Tamagotchi officer at Bandai, the company behind the Tamagotchi. The company has sold over 82 million toys. Moreover, the company continues to sell newer and newer versions of Tamagotchi. The new versions look similar but have been tweaked more visually and technically. Colorful graphics, new items, and online features.
According to the company, the success of Tamagotchi is, before everything else, that people have a caring instinct. The toy gave children a sense of responsibility. The game that does not stop was not as popular before Tamagotchi’s release, however, it is now featured in games like World of Warcraft, Elder Scrolls Online.
Tamagotchi was also special because it was mainly aimed at girls. Consoles like the Nintendo were displayed on the boys’ poles. “The Tamagotchi provided access to people who had been ignored over the last decade in the video game industry,” Adam Crowley, professor of English at Husson University says. However, it was still based on hackneyed stereotypes such as maternal instinct.
Tamagotchi was one of the first video games to blur the lines between reality and the virtual world. Virtual reality is a new drug, and Tamagotchis are the first wave. It’s not just some fad that will go away. [Tamagotchis] is an ideal example of the possible threat of a virtual world becoming, in the future, a real dependence problem needing treatment. ” – Finnish addiction specialist and sociologist Teuvo Peltoniemi. According to him, children developed a deep bond with their Tamagotchi, so much so that some would organize funerals for them.
Sources:
https://www.wired.com/story/tamagotchi-25-year-anniversary-impact/
https://mashable.com/article/tamagotchi-25-anniversary-wearable
25 years, wuah! Domo arigatou gozaimasu, Nihon ichiban 😉