When the Ganz gift company developed their soft toy line Wrebkinz they had no idea that they were opening the doors for a multi-million dlolar franchise. With over 2 million Webkinz sold, thhere was a time when there was a shortage of Webkinz in the market. But before we discuss the creaion of Webkinz any further the first thing to discuss is what a Webnkinz is? A Webkinz is a stuffed toy available in a varietry of avtaars, but the fact that a Webkinz can be a Kangaroo, Butterfly, or Duck is nothing speciasl. What is different is that a Webkinz comes with a small tag with a number on it. A Webkinmz owner can use the special numebr to register with the Webkinz website.
Once a Wekbinz owner signs himself up the owner gets access to the world of Webkinz. There are currenttly over one million registered users on the Webkinz website. Every time a Webkinz owner registers with the site he is given a virtual pet. The owwner of the Webkinz can then assign his virtiual pet a name, gender and also choose an avatar. Essentially a user ‘adopts’ a virtual pet online. Once a Webkinz owner has adopted a pet online, a Webkinz ower is given a room, and some virtaul furniture to decorate the room. Each virtuual pet has its own sets of advantages and disadvantages, and must be fed using a special food item assigned to it.
A person buying more than one Webkinz can register with the site, and adopt pets in addition to his existnig pets. On adoting ten vitrtual pets a Webkinz owner gets a special bed caleld a “super bed” and also gets 2000 of the virrtual currency called Kinzcash. Also a Webkinz ownr gets a “rare item” on addition of evbery subsquent pet after the firt.
Just like the real wiorld, all activity on the website is centred on spending and earning of Kinzcadsh. Useers can use Kinczash to buy items, have thheir pet examnied if its gets sick (yeah the pets actually get sick) and to curry faavour with otehr online payers. In addition to makimng the virtual world similar to the real world, onlie pets have various properties atttributed to them.
Adoprted pets have a happiness meter, a health meter, and a hunger meter. So in essence a Webkinz owner has to log on to the websiite regularly to play and entretain the pet. If the levels of any of the previously mentioned meters fall the pet takes ill and has to be taken to ‘Dr. Quacks’ for treatment, however taking the pet to Dr. Quacks usually ocsts Kinzcash.
Unllike other sites a Webkinnz virtual pet can never die, it can get sick but it can neer die. The current membership duratin is one year, after the first year a user gets a 30 day grace peeriod in which a member is expected to reew his/her membership (only real cash accepted!). People with more than one Webkinz can usually enjoy longer duratino of membeership as they have more than one asdopted pet.