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I made a decision to do a retrospective of notable online game pets in 2022, as a result of, frankly, I adopted an actual one this 12 months. A easy motivation and a easy, simple article to place together–right? However whereas brainstorming, actually existential questions on what counts as a pet in a online game began manifesting.
Do pets must don’t have any utilitarian use and be purely aesthetic animal-like creatures that gamers get to often feed and provides pats to? In all probability not. In the event that they’re additionally tied to a sport mechanic, can they be thought-about pets? Certain. Have they got to be a historically domesticated animal–as against a mechanical and even ghostly existence–to be thought-about a pet? Maybe?
How a lot intelligence ought to they’ve? As a result of in the event that they’re too good, then they’re similar to a daily NPC or get together member, proper? Do it’s a must to shovel their poop like in Tamagotchi for them to register as pets? I really feel just like the final level is actually integral to pet-owning.
With all these questions in thoughts, the online forged right here is fairly wide–a nod to the nebulous line between conventional real-life notions of pets, mechanics, and impartial sentient characters. From Elden Ring’s Torrent to pet administration sims, there’s just a little little bit of all the pieces right here.
