Should Virtual Petz Die?
Petz begin as puppies or kittens and age over time. Users witness their pet develop and can affect what kinds of personalities they turn out to have. However at a certain point the Petz stop aging and do not die. This has been an issue which our design team has fought over back and forth. Some argued that if the pet eventually dies it makes the lifecycle more important. Immortality may devalue the experience by making the user’s time with their pet less precious. On our website we recently conducted an informal poll asking users if they thought virtual Petz should die. 65% of the responses said they should not die. 30% said they would like to be able choose if their Petz should die. Only 5% said they wanted their Petz to eventually die. After long discussions with our marketing department, it was decided that the disadvantages of death outweighed the advantages. Instead of death we decided that the only way a user can lose their pet is if they severely mistreat them. After a few days o
