Online creatures, great and small
NEWTON -- Eight-year-old Madison Block sleeps with a small stuffed animal, a cat she calls Coco whose back is torn from wear. She has 11 more little creatures, including Fluffy the poodle and Doodles the panda, that she keeps on a closet shelf set up as a dollhouse or on her bed or in a doghouse on the floor. Down the hall, her 11-year-old sister, Dylan, has 14 animals seated on an overstuffed chair in her bedroom, including the polar bear Frosty that she sleeps with every night.
As cute as the animals are, being soft and cuddly is not their main asset. These are Webkinz, stuffed animals sold with a secret code that gives children access to an online world where the toys' virtual versions can socialize, play games, decorate their dwellings, and change outfits. Webkinz.com, along with similar sites such as Club Penguin, combines the shared-space, real-time interaction of "massive multiplayer online games" usually aimed at teens and adults with the pets-on-the- Web kid appeal of Neopets .
Webkinz and Club Penguin , which features animated tuxedoed birds without a stuffed animal tie-in, are two of the newest and hottest entrants on the juniors scene. The buzz has spread so quickly through the grade-school grapevine that, barely 18 months since they were launched, webkinz.com attracted 2.5 million unique users in December and Club Penguin drew more than 4 million.
"There is just a fascinating network of word of mouth," says Ellen Seiter , author of "The Internet Playground. " "To get to this point of enlisting kids into these [massive multiplayer online games], they've already been gaming online extensively. They've already been participating in the chat function and downloading."
Ganz , the Canadian gift wholesaler behind Webkinz, has been selling lots of the stuffed animals since introducing them in April 2005. Webkinz.com passed 1 million registered users last summer. "That number," says Ganz's Susan McVeigh, "is way in the dust now." So far Ganz has rolled out 41 Webkinz animals, including two it has already retired, and 25 smaller Lil'Kinz. Each user typically owns more than one of the animals, which are selling faster than many stores can keep them stocked. "It was a Webkinz Christmas," says McVeigh.
In Brookline the other day, Henry Bear's Park had only the $10 pegasus Webkinz and $7.50 unicorn Lil'Kinz on hand, and the nearby Magic Beans had none. "They're the next Beanie Babies," says Henry Bear's manager Jean Oliveira.
When the Block sisters log onto Webkinz or Club Penguin, they often put a friend on speaker phone for a virtual playdate that's part online arcade and part online paper dolls. Madison likes to sit a real-life Webkinz beside the computer.
"Me and my friend, we first discovered Club Penguin, and we got a lot of people on it," says Dylan. "Mostly all of my friends do Club Penguin and Webkinz. For Webkinz it's mostly girls. For Club Penguin it's both."
Madison shows a visitor her Webkinz house, which has 14 rooms and a yard. The playroom is stocked with a board game, soccer ball, and dollhouse. Madison enjoys competing for best outfit on Webkinz SuperModelz and avoiding falling candies on Candy Bash 2. She also feeds her virtual pets and monitors their health and happiness.
Dylan offers a tour of Club Penguin, where her penguin's amply furnished igloo features a fireplace and flat-screen TV and purple love seats and goldfish. Dylan likes to have her penguin "cart surf" atop a wagon speeding through a winding mine or send it racing with other sledding penguins. Sometimes penguins huddle en masse to try to tip the iceberg.
Though others have linked traditional toys with websites -- Neopets has added "plushies" sold at Limited, Too, and the Groovy Girls dolls now have a website -- Webkinz is the first to marry the two from the outset. Buy a plush toy and gain access to the website. Once there, everything's free. Children accumulate "KinzCash" playing games, and use it to buy things for their animals or houses. An account lasts a year and is renewable by purchasing another animal. "I like that you earn money for clothes and stuff, not just to get on a high scorer list," Dylan says.
Club Penguin, which launched in October 2005, offers free registration and access to games, though only $6-a-month members can use the virtual coins they win to clothe their penguins and improve their igloos. The Blocks' friend Ian Greer, who's 10, played for a year before becoming a member. Since August, Club Penguin has sold key chains and plush versions of its pet puffles.
Webkinz and Club Penguin may be the latest thing for tech-savvy youngsters, but they're not the first to bring massive multiplayer online games to children. In 2003, Disney launched the subscription-based Toontown, heralding it as "the first massively multiplayer online game designed specifically for kids and families." Last month Toontown attracted 2.2 million visitors. Disney plans to introduce a "Pirates of the Caribbean" MMO game this year. The medieval-themed Rune Scape, whose typical user is a 14- or 15-year-old boy, began in 2001 and attracted 5.8 million visitors in December.
Mizuko Ito , an anthropologist at the Annenberg Center for Communication at the University of Southern California, is glad to see massive multiplayer sites emerge that give children the chance to personalize their online play. "I think people thought kids weren't capable of mastering these things," she says. She also sees problems. "It's an acquisitive model," she says. "The kids with stuff have status."
These sites all offer safeguards to protect young users from online predators and bullying. Webkinz limits its chat options to pre-set choices, such as "Want to visit my room?" and "I love Cash Cow." Club Penguin includes a free-form chat option and blocks personal identifying information as well as profanity. Dylan Block and Ian Greer are also secret agents, which means their penguins have cellphones, and they're encouraged to report rule breaking.
Greer visits computer game sites and loves instant messaging and downloading music to his iPod, but Club Penguin is his favorite website. "You can see people walk around," he says. "You can chat more. And you can throw snowballs."
