![\"\"](\"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/pe1n23\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2025\/10\/image-3.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nThroughout the 90’s, screenmate characters would become very popular, maybe one of the most famous being Microsoft’s Clippy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Usually, but not always, a virtual pet will have various needs the user will need to meet, such as food, hygiene and play. Notable examples of this include pets like Tamagotchi, which combined this with being a small, portable toy making it extremely popular with children and teens across the world in the late 1990’s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Software and Games<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
From the late 90’s to the 2000’s the genre was embraced by standalone video games, the first notable example being the Petz<\/em> series in 1995. After this, games such as Neopets<\/em> launched online and allowed players to upkeep and trade virtual pets over the Internet, a trend that continued for the next decade in online social games such as Club Penguin<\/em> and MMO’s such as World of Warcraft<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While controversies raised around virtual pets such as distractions to young adults by Tamagotchis or violent behaviour demonstrated on Furbys have usually been a light-hearted topic, the idea of emotional dependence by humans placed upon artificial companions has been a continuing dilemma surrounding their existence. This has become even more of a hot topic within the last 3 or 4 years as advanced large language model (LLM) chatbots have become readily accessible to the wider public and adopted en masse. Many cases have recently surfaced of humans becoming exceedingly attached to these models and anthropomorphising them to the point of believing they are sentient. Some particularly horrific stories describe the models’ unsupervised correspondence with mentally vulnerable users leading to them encouraging said users to harm themselves or others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In some ways virtual pets were a predecessor to this phenomenon, as their cute presentation and interactions were designed to garner human affection, hooking them into gameplay loops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some modern games have attempted to appeal to the shared nostalgia surrounding virtual pets in a variety of ways, as well as use their underlying systems<\/a> to create experiences that appeal to current player demographics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This game features a screenmate virtual pet with a 90’s-style artificial desktop and uses the horror genre to explore themes of existentialism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/pe1n23\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2025\/10\/image-4.png\")
Artificial Intelligence<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Contemporary Games<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
KinitoPET<\/h3>\n\n\n\n