Petz Elsewhere

Outsider and insider pieces on Petz, other PF Magic games, and related virtual pets.

Interviews and Internal Views

 * Digital Press: "DP Interviews... Rob Fulop"
 * The RKC Petz Forum: "OFFICIAL INTERVIEW WITH A PETZ DEV"
 * Andrew Stern: Virtual Babyz: Believable Agents with Narrative Intelligence

News

 * Business Wire: "Dogz and Catz Dash Past 1.5 Million Mark; PF.Magic's Virtual Petz Brand Established as Leader in Category"

Reviews

 * Entertainment Weekly: "Catz: Your Computer Petz"

Accolades from Petz.com
GameWEEK Magazine, November 17, 1999:"As 'virtual life' products go, Mindscape's Dogz and Catz series is a bona fide hit. Now, the newly-released Dogz and Catz 4 features voice recognition technology where cyberpets will respond to basic commands like 'sit', 'fetch' and 'roll over.' Even better, virtual owners can interact digitally with their pets by turning their scanned pictures into the program's 'play environments'."Forbes, December 2, 1996:"They do what a pet does, and people bond with them in a really cool way. One mother wrote that her disabled daughter's digidog has changed the girl's life. Whereas she was too ill and clumsy to have a real Fido, the fake one responds to her perfectly. The PF Magic software is so lovable that, unlike almost every other category of computer entertainment, it attracts a mostly female audience."Investor's Business Daily, Los Angeles, CA, December 9, 1998:"It all started when Emily McClory, 13, of Phoenix was given a software program called Dogz as a birthday gift from her brother. ... Dogz features full-color digital animals. The canines' barks sound real. The dogz also bury objects on the screen and slurp water when thirsty. Catz, Dogz's feline counterpart, features a cat that stalks across the screen and hides. ... Users say computerized pets have some advantages to live ones. The digital creatures take up less room and there are no messes to clean up. Parents also like computerized pets because they teach responsibility. The beasts 'run away' if not cared for. They urge children to tinker with the PC and the Internet as well."Chicago Tribune, December 30, 1997:"(Dogz are) better, because you don't have to bring them to school and risk having them confiscated by a teacher, and there's more to do. - Cassie F., 14"The New York Times, August 27, 1998:"... Demanding as they are, Tamagotchis aren't complex enough to sustain a real relationship - they're more like goldfish or sea monkeys. But what about something that engages in spontaneous games of tug-of-war, buries its toys and looks guilty when it has been bad? What about something that acts so much like a puppy that you can't help adoring it and scolding it - despite yourself? That's the problem with Petz. Like real pets, these artificially intelligent puppies and kittens need affection and care. You have to feed them, but you also have to play with them, reward them when they're good and punish them when they're bad. If you want the virtual doggy in the window, you have to sign a pledge to that effect."

Scholarly Analysis

 * Tom Battey Design Journal: "Case Study: Petz"
 * Paper for the 1997 Socially Intelligent Agents AAAI Fall Symposium: "Socially Intelligent Virtual Petz"
 * Video Paper for the 1998 Autonomous Agents Conference: "Virtual Petz: A Hybrid Approach to Creating Autonomous, Lifelike Dogz and Catz"

Petz in General

 * Crunchyroll: "The Rise of Virtual Pets (Tamagotchi, Digimon, and NEOPETS?!)"
 * Gamasutra: "GDC Classic: Multiple character interaction in Petz games"
 * Gamasutra: "Feature: Veteran Designer Rob Fulop On How Night Trap Led To Petz"
 * LGR: "Catz, Dogz & Oddballz: Petz Retrospective"
 * Nathalie Lawhead: "About desktop pets & virtual companions: discussing the inhabitants that fill the void of our digital spaces"
 * Polygon: "Petz wouldn't exist without Night Trap"
 * Wellcome Collection: "The life and death of Tamagotchi and the virtual pet."

Petz Community

 * Becky Hansmeyer: "Ballz & Linez: Remembering the Golden Age of Petz Hexing"
 * Game Rant: "7 Video Games From The 90s That Still Have An Active Community"
 * The Mary Sue: "Gaming's Forgotten Petz Subculture and the Women Who Shaped It"

Babyz

 * CBS News: "From the Folks Who Brought You Petz... Babyz"
 * The New York Times: "Virtual Parenthood, Complete With Mess"

Ballz

 * The Worst Fighting Game: "Ballz 3D"

Other Wikis

 * Fanlore: Petz
 * TV Tropes: Petz
 * Wikipedia: Petz