Do Webkinz dream of electric geeks?
So, I’m on Webkinz now. I bought a little stuffed chocolate lab (I do enjoy a chocolate dog now and then), entered its code and now I have an online version that walks around and demands to be fed.
It started out as a way to keep in touch with my two nieces. They have more than a dozen of these things between them. Webkinz is a combination Tomogotchi, mini-game portal and social networking site. My nieces are now my friends on Webkinz, like a tweens’ version of Facebook.
But these mini-games are surprisingly addictive. Playing Bejeweled is hooky enough, but its Webkinz clone, Goober’s Lab, has the added bonus of giving you KinzCash as a reward. This currency can be used to buy food, furniture and clothing for the virtual animals.
And, oh, these Webkinz people are clever. They’ve made rare items that are hard to get and cost a fortune. I’d rather not say how much I covet the Kooky Scientist furniture.
And some of these games are pretty tricky. I did the science trivia quiz for players aged “13+”. It asked me what an organelle was. And the function of a vacuole. Cellular biology!
One of the games, Kinzpost Sorter, involves stacking numbered boxes coming off a conveyor belt until the columns add up to given totals. After losing the first time (ugh, this is a site for 9-year-olds, right?), I asked myself, “Wait a minute. Is this an NP-complete knapsack problem?” (I’ve never taken anything above an introductory computer science course. Everything I know about such things comes from Wikipedia and this comic.) So, yes, it’s educational.
Webkinz also doesn’t advertise to make its money. Once you buy your plush toy, you’re in for a year. That’s the revenue stream, so there’s no buying buying cans of Coke to give your pet a health bonus or anything. (Actually, fruits and vegetables are the healthiest foods, even if your pet is a lion. Go figure.)
And while there is a social aspect to the site, you can’t type messages to your friends, as you might do on Facebook. All the messages are pre-set: “I’ve just adopted a new pet!”, “Just a note to say how awesome you are!” and so forth. There is a chat room where messages can be typed in, but the dictionary of allowed words is severely restricted.
So, yes, I like the site — fun for the whole family and all that — but I do realize that there’s a dark side to this. This G&M story profiles a woman who spends three hours a day maintaining 129 virtual pets on Webkinz. She says she’s spent $2,000 on plush toys in one year.