Webkinz: All About Greed
Although I felt that I had a firm grasp on the way things worked in the WebKinz World, I spent some more time throughout this past week exploring the site in hopes of uncovering more redeeming qualities that could potentially counteract its overwhelming focus on promoting consumer culture. Unfortunately however, all I could find was more evidence that the virtual component of Webkinz functions as a mini-capitalist economy, priming children to think first and foremost about getting more money in order to buy more things.
“It feeds into ‘you can never have enough, and the more you have the better it is.’”
While I’ve included proof of the extreme reliance this site places on money, up until this point I thought that after purchasing the first Webkinz toy, real money was no longer NEEDED to fully utilize the components of the site. I was under the impression that, aside from purchasing an additional pet to gain quick kinzcash, one could exist and participate in the virtual world using only virtual money. Therefore, you can expect my surprise when I discovered the following two aspects of the site:
- First off, I encountered the
, and wanted to see what it was all about. However, after clicking on the icon to enter, I was instead greeted with a message indicating that I would need to purchase at least one Webkinz charm in order to gain access to this portion of the site (and not using Kinzcash, I would have to spend real money). And conveniently enough, this message directed me towards the place where I could find a full list of all participating retailers near me. Just as I could not enter the Webkinz World without first buying a stuffed animal to get the access code, there are additional features of the site that remain closed unless you are willing to spend more money on other Webkinz products. But in essence, all you’re buying is an access code, the little charm is there only to help mask this fact. - Secondly, I was very disappointed when I came across the
tab, located in the W Shop. Apparently, there are items in the Webkinz World that no amount of Kinzcash can buy. The only way to attain these elusive goods is to increase the number of pets you adopt (aka = the amount of stuffed animals you beg your parents to buy for you). And the worst thing about this feature is the fact that kids are lured in with knowledge that other Webkinz users will be able to see the special item when they have friends over to visit their virtual room. Therefore, this function not only works to make parents go out and buy more Webkinz, but it acts a status marker for kids within the world; propping those up that are willing to spend and adopt more pets, while pushing down those who don’t/can’t. AND it does all of this using the power leveraged from the potential to own a fake/virtual item that doesn’t even exist! 
“Reclaiming Childhood from Corporate Marketers”
As if it’s not enough that the site is obviously designed to sell more Webkinz, I also discovered this week that Ganz, the owner of Webkinz, has begun accepting and running ads for outside products. I have to admit that I’ve only seen two such advertisements (both for food products), but I only began looking for them a couple of days ago, after reading an article about “The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood” - a group that is focused on “Reclaiming Childhood from Corporate Marketers.” According to the article, there were Webkinz campaigns that promoted both the Alvin and the Chipmunks movie, as well as Bee Movie. 
Now, there are many problems with placing outside advertising on a site that almost exclusively targets young kids. But in focusing on the greed of Ganz, such advertising, as exploitive as it may be, simply translates into more money. Third party advertising is expected when dealing with a site that can be accessed free of charge, as everyone knows that a company must make money in some way or another in order to sustain itself and function.
However, access to the Webkinz site is not free. As aforementioned, it costs money to enter, and additional charges apply depending on where you want to go on the site and what you want to purchase with Kinzcash. And as a result of such charges, parents who purchase Webkinz for their children believe that they are paying not only for access to the site, but for an ad-free environment.
DECEPTION
At this point in my travelogue, I can’t help but acknowledge that I feel deceived by Webkinz, or more specifically, by Ganz. After looking back at my earlier posts when I still had faith in the Webkinz site as honest and educational, it seems that such feelings of betrayal stem, at least to a certain degree, from the covert and hidden manner in which Ganz goes about exploiting children and their parents. The Webkinz site is made to seem innocent, existing primarily as a space where children can learn responsibility, play fun and informative games, and chat with other Webkinz users in a safe and restricted environment. However, it has become abundantly clear throughout my experience with the site that all such features exist only to mask what Ganz is really after: money. They cleverly hook children (and their parents) into spending real money to play with and own non-existent items, while simultaneously molding little kids into top notch consumers with keen eyes for material goods and insatiable hungers to buy, buy, buy. And it’s all successfully done under the guise of good old educational fun.
Webkinz Exploiting Children
So this past week I made it into the Webkinz world for at least 20-30minutes a night, and sometimes longer. I’ve come to the conclusion that while there are some positive aspects of playing in this virtual world, there are many more negative components. In my opinion, It’s undeniable that the learning forums built into this site are beneficial for the children that typically engage in the Webkinz world. I found myself spending a fair amount of time in:
. I chose the 
option, which determines the level of difficulty in questions, and then I had the choice between the following subjects: The Arts, Social Studies, Health, Math, Language and Science. I dabbled in all of the offered subjects, and I have to admit I did get the occasional question wrong. I knew the vast majority of answers, but there were a couple of instances in which I hesitated between two answers (the questions come in form of multiple choice). And while I am no genius, I’m assuming that if I was able to learn some things by participating in Quizzy’s Question Corner, children half my age and younger would also certainly be able to pick up valuable information.
But on the negative side of Webkinz, I found the majority of the rest of the site to be rather exploitive of children. Specifically, this quality became increasingly evident throughout the portion of the site where you decorate your pet’s room and buy clothing etc. for it.
First of all, many of the item descriptions did not sit well with me. For example, when I went to buy clothing for My Little Pony (as my pet is named), I ended up purchasing this shirt: 
. I don’t like the idea of planting the idea in a child’s head that any item, whether it’s clothing, furniture or a toy, is “a must have.” It implies that you are less worthy if you don’t have a particular shirt, and I think this reinforces the notion that material goods can be used to measure how good or bad someone should feel about him/herself.
Secondly, the Webkinz site has a feature that allows your pet’s friends to come and see your room (and you can go visit their’s). In my opinion, this is a great way to create a sense of competition, where visiting a friend’s room with more decoration and more toys than your own can cause that child to feel inadequate and push him/her to purchase more with their Kinzcash. And I have to admit that this assessment is, to at least some degree, coming from my experience with the site. As you can see here: 
my room is very sparsely decorated, and after visiting two other of My Little Pony’s friend’s rooms, I wanted to buy more in the WShop…but I had very little Kinzcash left. And while I could try to earn more money by playing some of the games, (such as Mini Golf, Ant Mania and Cash Cow) the amount of Kinzcash I would likely earn in a reasonable amount of time would be nothing in comparison to me purchasing another pet altogether (which automatically gives you 2000 in Kinzcash). Therefore, if I were, say, an 8 yr. old girl, GANZ, (the company behind Webkinz), would have been successful in getting me to beg my parents to pay REAL money for another Webkinz pet, just so I could derive a sense of self-worth by adding to a FAKE room by spending FAKE money.
Lastly, I found some of the options that were available for me to buy for My Little Pony to be strange. A prime example of this would be a treadmill, which I purchased. At first I didn’t think the site would allow her to actually run on it, because there are things like basketballs and other sporting goods that you can purchase for your pet, but are just for show (My Little Pony couldn’t bounce the basketball or shoot it or anything). However, to my surprise, the Webkinz site had a feature that would allow My Little Pony to actually get on the treadmill and run.
Out of curiosity, I let My Little Pony run on the treadmill for 12 minutes straight, and I was never prompted to stop, and she never told me she was tired. I took her off the treadmill after almost 15 minutes had elapsed because I was bored of watching the tiny pony run on the tiny pink treadmill, but I found the whole thing altogether odd..but funny. It was weird that this was a feature of the site (why the ability to run on a treadmill instead of bounce a basketball, which is a game?), and that it existed with seemingly little attention paid to my clear mistreatment of my pet.
Also, on a quick side note, I was constantly getting logged off of the Webkinz site. I thought at first that it may be my internet connection, but after doing some quick research, I learned that it is in fact a very common problem experienced but virtually all Webkinz users. This issue was particularly annoying when I was trying to emerge myself in Kinzchat. After finally finding a friend that would add me to their buddy list, I would get signed off and it would take me at least 5-10 minutes before I was able to sign back on - making it very difficult to try and carry on a conversation - (although, when I did manage to stay logged in for a decent amount of time, I found it virtually impossible to have an actual interaction with other Webkinz users due to the formatting restrictions of the Kinzchat feature).
Interacting with Webkinz Interface
In keeping this week’s article and focus on interface in mind, I wanted to pay particularly close attention to the ways in which my actions were controlled to remain within the confines of the Webkinz interface, and the type of interaction and communication facilitated and/or restricted by it.
When I first attempted to begin my interaction with Webkinz, I repeatedly received a notification that the site was currently unavailable due to important maintenance issues that were being dealt with. Therefore, I simply began clicking around aspects of the site that were still accessible, when I encountered the following message:
We at Webkinz World are fully aware that members are using tools to attempt to cheat on our site. We want to make our position on the use of these tools very, very clear. First of all, remember that any attempt to circumvent the security of our site violates the User Agreement. Accordingly, any use of a cheating tool will lead to the immediate and permanent termination of the account on which the tool was used. Whether the account has one pet or 50, the account will be closed. All codes for pets on the closed account will remain used. You will not receive a warning, and it will not matter whether you have used the tool (or used other means to attempt to circumvent the security of our site), once or many times. Also note, as we have stated before, all activity that occurs on an account is the responsibility of the member who is registered on that account. If a “friend” or anyone else used your account to cheat on our site, you will still be the one who loses your account. If you ever find a large amount of KinzCash on your account that you know you did not achieve, DO NOT USE IT. Contact us immediately and we will remove the excess KinzCash and you will not lose your account. We have already terminated the accounts of dozens of members who have cheated on our site. It saddens us each time we have to close an account, but we must protect the security of our site and we will continue to do so.
Noting the emphasis as mine, I found this warning quite interesting. Not only did it come across as severe, but I thought it was a bit unnecessary. While it’s true that I have no previous experience with the website, I find it hard to believe that they have had so many issues with little kids cheating. And even if that is in fact the case, IT’S FAKE MONEY, or “Kinzcash” as it is called in the Webkinz World. Now I’m in no way advocating cheating, or implying that it should go unpunished, but the threatening tone of the overall message does not seem to belong on a site that refers to itself as “a safe, educational and fun online community”. It seems that explaining why cheating is wrong and encouraging young kids to be honest would be a more conducive approach to curb the amount of cheating on the Webkinz site.
But to situate this aspect of the post within the topic of interface, this message (or warning) brought to mind the possibility that such cases of cheating might be treated as forms of tactical media. Perhaps this is a stretch or just plain incorrect, but at the very least it seems like an interesting idea to consider as I am now curious to see if I can better understand why someone would feel compelled to cheat (or if perhaps I myself will be tempted) as I travel through the Webkinz World.
As we read for today’s class in Interface as a Conflict of Ideologies, interfaces have deeply encoded ideologies that are conveyed to its audience members. And I would say that an ideology supporting and promoting consumer culture is undeniably encoded within the Webkinz interface. In the first tutorial I clicked on for basic instructions about the many facets of the Webkinz community, I was greeted with this message from what appears to be a Mother Goose type character : shopping
Furthermore, I was introduced to the WShop, the place where I could buy furniture and pick wall and floor designs in the event of wanting to redecorate my virtual room, in addition to being where I’d go to purchase the necessary items to care for my non existent pet, such as clothes and food (to name just a few):
And the reinforcement of consumer ideology continues to run throughout the Webkinz interface as Kinzcash is the prize you receive for visiting areas such as:
and for answering surveys, visiting the employment office, adopting more Webkinz, participating in contests, or playing arcade games and in tournaments and weekly contests like these:
But perhaps the most interesting aspect of the Webkinz interface is the feature that allows you to chat with people that are also logged in to the virtual world. And while this is not the only area in which members are able to interact with other Webkinz users, it is the interface that most closely resembles the one-to-one interaction achieved through instant messaging. However, it is very important and interesting to note that users are not able to write with the same freedom as one can on AIM, GChat or other similarly designed interfaces. As seen below, the Webkinz interface greatly restricts what information can be shared by forcing its users to pick amongst a predetermined set of responses and questions, thereby exercising extensive control over the user’s behavior and the way he or she is able to interact with systems behind it.
Webkinz: The Proud Parent to a Pink Pony
Having grown up with the craze of Beanie Babies, I automatically assumed Webkinz to be a similar product with a similar allure. But despite the fact that the period of Beanie Babies does not seem to have existed all too long ago, I have to say I felt a bit old when I began researching Webkinz. It became abundantly clear that kids these days have a lot more fun and involved ways to keep themselves busy, due in large part to the growth of the Internet. In addition to getting the stuffed animal itself, when you purchase a Webkinz toy, you are also gaining access to the website that allows you to own a virtual version of that same pet and interact with others in the “Webkinz World”.
So, although I wasn’t particularly thrilled about spending $11 on a pink stuffed pony, I knew I was also paying for the code that would allow me to access and own my very own virtual pink pony. And after entering all the necessary information (my name, age, gender and proof that I had purchased the stuffed animal), I was ready to see where Beanie Babies left off and where the Internet’s connection with Webkinz picked up. Right off the bat I was presented with both a biography of my pet (which was definitely amusing and a bit random): 
and my very own Adoption Certificate:
But before I fully immerse myself in the “Webkinz World”, I wanted to get a feel for the opinions and discourse surrounding the product/game. As I mentioned briefly in my previous introductory post, my only prior experience with this phenomenon was the few stories I’ve been told by friends that babysit younger kids (who apparently LOVE the virtual aspect of Webkinz), and who themselves have gotten pulled into the game a bit. In fact, while researching Webkinz, I found quite a bit of support for older generations enjoying the site and all it offers (as demonstrated in this excerpt from a father whose son owns a Webkinz animal):
But there also exists a good deal of discussion surrounding some of the possibly negative effects of the Webkinz phenomenon, ranging from worries that it acts as a distraction from school and more intellectual activities such as reading, to more severe claims that kids are actually becoming addicted to interacting in the virtual world. To a certain extent, this concern seems to simply echo that of earlier parents surrounding previous childrens-toy crazes, but I think the new, added dynamic of a virtual world is something to pay close attention to as it extends the conversation into social networking sites and the effects that online interaction will have on the social development of young children that spend more time in their virtual worlds than they do living in reality.
Webkinz
Although I still think Nokia’s new Morph Nanotechnology is very interesting and embodies the future of mobile devices, the fact that it will not be widely available for at least seven years will prevent me from truly emerging myself in the environment. Therefore, I’ve decided to change the starting point of my third travelogue to the website Webkinz. I know the world of Webkinz is targeted toward younger kids, but their popularity among elementary and middle school age children makes me curious as to what their allure is and if there is room to expand the “product” to other age groups. 
I’ve talked to people that babysit and on more than one occasion they’ve told me about how addicting it is for the kids they watch to play, and how they themselves have become somewhat interested in the world. I know (well actually I think) that you purchase a virtual pet, but I’m not sure what else this phenomenon entails..but I’m now going to sign up and hopefully find out.
