WE ARE PETS OF OUR OWN
Pet Society by Playfish
Pet Society is a real-time-based game where you create a pet and try your very best, to take care of it. Sound simple, but I find the game is challenging and difficult to some extend, as the perfectionist in me could never be satisfied with this western tamagochi.
The game is pretty much simple. First you create a pet, with your own choice of colors, ear shape, facial shape, eyes, etc. Then you'll name it. Once you do, you are given a house, starting with a few rooms and you'll gain new rooms as your level increases. Next, you are able to furnish your rooms, buy clothes, toys, and even fishing. The main mechanics of the game is to collect things. Whatever that you do, regardless whether you are playing balls, racing in the stadium or fishing at the pond, you'd gain something. You will receive either coins or items, as an exchange of your time.
It is a real-time-based game afterall. Means, if you plant a seed and it says 24 hours to grow, come back the next day, your flower would have bloomed. Coming back before the specified time, would leave you waiting for it. This time-based factor adds another layer of excitement and contribute the the extreme difficulties of the game. You'd lose money, opportunities and even special items when you miss the time frame. Remember too, that this game is all about collecting, the rarer the items are, the better your pet would look like, and that leads to, the better player you are.
Pet Society is not just a game for leisure. But it becomes a trend, a part of gamer's life. It is almost impossible to stay in the game for a consecutive 1 hour or so, as it is boring. But once you log off, do some other things, and for the next 3 hours, you'd want to come back. You'd want to fish more, you'd want to check if the food is cooked. You'd want to get money. And with money, you'd want to get rare finds.
The brilliant outcome of the game, is its possibility of being a habit. Being a time-based game, Playfish, the company also adds and discards items from the shop regularly. If the items are removed, it becomes rare. Items that are special for Christmas, Halloween or Chinese New Year becomes an extreme novelty. Owning them, means everything.
It has become a habit for many people, and this leads them to spend real money, to get exclusive items. Through dollars and cent, you'd be able to purchase Playfish Coins which can be used to buy special items. When a player has spent real money in the game, he or she has turned the game into an investment. Not only money, but also time.
This game too has created new languages and form of communications. In the forum, many would want to buy rare items with code such as 4*999, 7*9999, 6*99 and so on. It is meaningless to others but to this gamers, it is a symbol. For example, 4*999 means 4 items which cost 999 coins. 999coins-items are extremely rare, and cant be found in the shop. They are, limited edition.
After you play for quite some time, you'll start to realize that you have bought many items. And every items that you buy/get, you are proud of it. You would want to showcase them and when other players get into your house, they know how good you are. So you'd start placing all items in the room. Messy. This has become a reflection on human nature to pick things up, like flyers, old items and place them in their rooms. For me, what I am seeing now in my pet's house, its like a virtual form of my own rooms. This brings the game into a direct social comparison, despite it looking childish and pretty useless.
So, Pet Society is not merely game, but also a habit, an investment, an education, a research and a social commentary of today's society. It makes you feel as if you are a pet of your ow in the real world. An interesting game, indeed.
Play the game here : http://www.playfish.com/
Kelvin
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