#gigapets

Cyberspace was so prevalent in the Y2K era that it made its way into fashion and collectible toys, like handheld virtual pet games!

What cool cyberpet did you have in the 2000s? Vote in the poll to let us know! :) We hope you gave it lots of love and made new friends with your virtual pet online! :)

Tell us more about cyberpets in our zine, Y2[areyouo]K Issue #2-Cyberspace! We're still accepting submissions until July 16th! Link to submit is in the bio! :)

I did some thinking about it and it just feels like Bandai was determined to shoot itself in the foot when it comes to virtual pets ( Something that seems to still be true today )

Despite Tamagotchi gen 1 and 2 being fairly gender neutral, from the Angel onward Tamagotchi's marketing leaned HARD on the notion that it was a "Girls Toy"

Tamagotchi Ocean feels like it was on store shelves for exactly one week and had absolutely zero marketing. You'd be forgiven for thinking you just imagined it.

They completely gave up on Tamagotchi after the Ocean until 2004's Tamagotchi Connection relaunch

They refused to greenlight the Tamagotchi cartoon

Digimon were actually really hard to find on store shelves and even harder to find anything that wasn't a version 1, you'd be forgiven for thinking we never got more than version 1 in the west

Why the fuck was the "Digivice" in the anime not based on the original v-pet?? They wanted it to sell a completely different toy?? Why?? Market what you have already!! Not only that but the anime changed the rules about digimon from how we know them in the virtual pets ( it was a dope anime but this was a double edge sword )

They made Digimon World play like a virtual pet, but couldn't think of a way to integrate actual v-pets into the game like how pokemon stadium did with the N64 transfer pak. Hell even Sonic figured that out with the Chao and the Sega VMU ( too bad the Dreamcast crashed and burned )

Kids moved on from v-pets when the robo dog and furby became the hot new toy, Bandai didn't even try to compete

When all of these factors lead to the decline of virtual pets popularity, bandai just kind of threw up their hands and quit, didn't touch Tamagotchi until Tamagotchi Connection, but continued to market it as a "Girls Toy", maintaining the stigma ( don't shoot the messanger btw, I hated the stigma but I also had a dad who "threatened" to get me girls toys for christmas to emasculate me which caused me to distance myself from Tamagotchi ), the only Digimon things we got was anime, and anime tie-in toys.

Happy New Year 🎉

I have been in a digipet slump for awhile but I am excited to get a new GigaPets 😄