On November 23, 2016, the well-known Tamagotchi toy will celebrate its twenty-year anniversary - yes, twenty years have passed since the first egg-shaped devices appeared on the market, allowing you to care for a virtual pet. In the nineties, these toys were everywhere - they appeared in Japan, but very quickly spread around the world. Most likely, all adults know what tamagotchi is, but modern children are unlikely to have any idea that such a thing was once popular. They have smartphones and tablets that contain hundreds of different games, so Tamagotchi seems to be a very strange thing for them. But then, when this game was created, there were no smartphones or tablets, so it quickly gained popularity. Officially, the Japanese company Bandai is its creator, but in reality Aki Maita, who independently put forward this idea, is responsible. She was very fond of pets, but she always wanted to carry them with her, and not just keep them at home. It was then that she began to consider the possibility of creating a virtual portable pet. Over the course of the year, she reflected on how this could be brought to life, and she made the final decision when she saw a commercial on television. In it, the little boy really wanted to take his home turtle with him to school, and it was then that the idea of what tamagotchi was finally formed.
Tamagotchi Release
Naturally, Maita herself could not have created such a toy - she was the creator of the idea, and Akihiro Yokoi, an engineer from the WiZ company that developed and manufactured various toys and goods for children, helped her to realize this idea. As a result, a test version of tamagotchi appeared, which was still far from perfect. In October 1996, Maita armed herself with a set of test toys and looked into a local school, where she asked schoolgirls to try out a new toy and tell them if they liked it. For several weeks, she watched the children try to figure out what tamagotchi is, play with a virtual pet, she analyzed their reaction, and based on this, amendments were made. The test group amounted to as many as 200 girls, so the amendments were quite ambitious, but by the end of November the work was completed, and on November 23 it happened that later, for many years, it would eat up the time of people of all ages in huge quantities.
Form and name
Tamagotchi's toy was a plastic egg on which was a monochrome screen and three buttons, as well as a hidden reset button. And this tiny little thing has become a real bestseller. However, many still wonder what Tamagotchi is, that is, what the name means. There are various versions, however, the official version of the manufacturer claims that the name is derived from two words - Japanese tamago, which translates into Russian as “egg”, and English watch, that is, “watch”. So we can safely say that tamagotchi is an egg for which you need to look very carefully.
What's the point?
So, now you will find out all the details of this game. Tamagotchi was a real sensation in the first years after the publication of the day - the children spent a huge amount of time caring for their pets, because those without proper care died very quickly, shocking their owners. As a result, almost all the children went to school with plastic eggs, since they needed not only to study, but also to take care of little monsters. Yes, although the characters who were present in the tamagotchi looked like different animals, in fact they were aliens from a distant world. According to the story invented by the company, they flew to Earth to study it, but the local atmosphere and climate do not suit them, so they were enclosed in an egg-shaped shell so as not to die. Naturally, they have different needs, and the owner of tamagotchi just needs to satisfy them. And at first it was very relevant - when you just started the game, your little pet constantly wanted something, so for an hour you had to keep an eye on it. Otherwise, you risked starving him, killing him with an overwhelming depression, or even drowning his own excrement in the mountains. Each need was indicated by a characteristic squeak so that the owner could not miss it, and its development, its character and many other elements depended on how well you cared for your pet. Tamagotchi games were just starting to gain popularity - over the years, they became more and more common.
Pet development
Over time, various pets began to appear, such as dragons, unicorns, and ponies. Tamagotchi initially assumed only a few different kinds of creatures that you could have. From the very beginning, you had to choose between two different types of creatures, and as they matured, they could transform into six different types of adult individuals. And it all depended on how you behave with the pet. The best adult options, of course, required special care, full control not only during the day, but also at the exact moment when the transformation began. In addition, it is worth noting that over time, your pet began to call you for various reasons, that is, not only if he needs something, but also “just like that”, because he became bored. In general, you had to pay a big price to grow your little pony. Tamagotchi nonetheless remained one of the most popular toys in the world.
Incredible success
Now you can even download Tamagotchi on Android, but these toys no longer have the same popularity as they had in the late nineties and early zero. In order for you to have an idea of the scale of success of the project, it is worth giving some figures. So, everyone remembers that Tamagotchi appeared on the market at the end of November 1996, but by the end of this year, that is, a little more than a month, 350 thousand units were sold in Japan - this was an amazing result, which, of course, attracted the attention of foreign markets. As a result, in the spring of 1997, tamagotchi appeared already in the United States, and then began to spread around the world. An incredible figure was reached in 1999 - forty million copies of tamagotchi were sold worldwide. It was a sensation that dragged the whole world into the process. Manufacturers simply could not satisfy the demand for toys, shelves in stores were empty, because all new arrivals were swept away instantly. One toy cost $ 16, but given the scarcity, it could be bought at least twenty times more expensive from the hands - there is evidence that there were cases of the sale of Tamagotchi even for a thousand dollars. People stopped taking toys with them, and if they took them, they used them secretly from others, because attacks and robberies began to occur more and more often, and robbers were not interested in money, but only in tamagotchi. So, in principle, we can be glad that now you can freely download Tamagotchi on Android and not be afraid for your health.
Mortality
So, first of all, it is worth saying that the characters whom you so carefully brought up were mortal. Even if you created ideal living conditions for them, they could not live longer than a month. However, few people managed to ensure that his pet could survive for 31 days - most often the pets lived about ten days less, even if they were well cared for. What can we say that the pet could die even in infancy. Later, this ceased to be a serious problem, since Tamagotchi acquired a reboot function, and after the death of the character, it was possible to start again. But the first version of the game, released until 2004, was one-time, which leads to a different mortality rate for tamagotchi. You can find many articles online that tell that children once committed suicide because their pets were dying prematurely. It is not known what proportion of truth is in this news, but the fact remains that there were extremely many similar messages, and a huge number of children were stressed because of this toy. A virtual cat (tamagotchi) could cause nervous breakdowns, tantrums, attempts to harm itself, and much more. However, while the popularity of the game still remained at its best.
Connection
Tamagotchi toys came out for eight years, when the manufacturer decided that he should not miss the impressive profit that he received from sales, which began to slowly subside. Therefore, in 2004 a new version was released, which received an incredible feature - the ability to play with other people. Tamagotchi now has an infrared port that can be used to connect with another toy. And in this way it was possible to introduce, play a variety of games among themselves, exchange gifts and surprises, and most importantly - the topic of relationships was introduced. Now you could start a family between two pets from different toys and even “give birth” to children. Progress went further, and in the end there was an unusual opportunity to download tamagotchi to a computer.
TamaTown and color
TamaTown is a kind of tamagotchi-online, virtual city in which you can enter your character from a computer. There you can play various games, chat with other characters, visit different institutions and so on. This brought the game even more variety, but the most outstanding moment was the acquisition of color by the game in the Connection Plus Color model.
Further improvements
Tamagotchi, of course, will not work for free, although the popularity of the toy is already ten times less than twenty years ago. However, the manufacturer continues to attempt to revive the brand by introducing new features. Three years ago, the latest updated Friends Tamagotchi model was released.