Good-Bye!

I'm writing this for the very few of you who are still logging into this blog on a regular basis in the hopes that I would update it. I know it's been over a year since I wrote my last entry. One of the reasons why I've gotten around to writing this new entry is because I was suffering from a long-lasting cold at the time when I wrote my last entry and I didn't want to leave the impression that the reason why I haven't updated this blog in a long time is because my cold was really some serious disease that killed me.

I also wanted to provide some closure to this blog since I'm no longer interested in Webkinz and I have since moved on in my life to other things that have nothing to do with Webkinz or virtual worlds.

Here is what I've been up to since last year. I did suffer from health problems (which was unrelated to the lingering cold that I suffered from last February) and last November I underwent surgery to correct those problems. It has been over six months since my surgery and I now feel much better than before.

As for this blog, I really couldn't keep up with updating it. Besides, once I reached a certain point in my gameplaying things didn't really change quite as much as in the first few weeks I logged on to the Webkinz.com site. At first I decided that I would update the blog only if major changes happened to my virtual pets. But I ended up falling out of the habit of updating it entirely.

As for Webkinz.com, I continued to log on into it for another month or so after my last entry but I eventually grew tired of it so I stopped. My membership in Webkinz.com expired back in January. I could've extended it by an extra year by purchasing another Webkinz stuffed animal but I decided not to so I let it lapse. Granted I was still in recovery from my surgery at the time but even if I was in perfect health I still would not have purchased another Webkinz just to keep my membership in Webkinz.com active.

Basically I grew tired of Webkinz.com. If you wanted to do anything for your pet, you had to procure Kinz Cash. Feeding a pet and keeping it healthy and happy required Kinz Cash to purchase the food and other necessary products. Expanding the Webkinz's home beyond the default room and bed that each pet gets required Kinz Cash. Adding an outside yard required Kinz Cash. (That's right, a Webkinz virtual pet was stuck indoors unless you forked over some Kinz Cash to buy a yard.) Purchasing toys and other things (such as a swimming pool) that had the potential to improve the pet's quality of life required Kinz Cash. Even educating a pet required Kinz Cash for tuition.

I spent the bulk of my time on Webkinz.com procuring Kinz Cash. I would get a job through the Employment Agency, play various arcade games, spin the Wheel of Wow, visit the Wishing Well, and play Wacky's Bingoz in an effort to earn Kinz Cash. All of these efforts earned low wages. The most amount of Kinz Cash I ever earned was the time that I purchased two packs of Webkinz Trading Cards and I entered the codes of some of the codes and I earned hundreds of Kinz Cash at once. I also earned more Kinz Cash when I purchased my Webkinz (Floyd the Pig). But I really hated the idea that in order to earn lots of Kinz Cash I had to go to a store to purchase a Webkinz product that I really didn't need (such as a Webkinz mouse pad or a pack of trading cards) in the hopes of being able to score lots of Kinz Cash.

After a while I realized that Webkinz.com was just like real life in that adults have to find ways of earning money in order to survive. From an adult's perspective, it was too much like real life and I grew tired of it. From a child's perspective, it's sort of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it's good to teach children that if they want anything out of life, they have to work to earn money and save that money in order to afford to but it. But, on the other hand, I'm not sure if it's good to teach children that earning money in order to be good consumers is the only thing in life. I mean there is more to life than just the continuous cycle of working to earn money in order buy stuff which then makes you broke so you have to repeat the cycle. (For example, there is less of an emphasis on making and spending time with friends on Webkinz.com than earning Kinz Cash to buy stuff for your pets.)

The best part of Webkinz.com was the arcade games. Not only did I earn Kinz Cash for playing them but I did have fun playing them for a while. But, after a while, I even lost interest in playing arcade games, especially since I can play arcade-style games without having to log into Webkinz.com. (For example, I can go to iTunes and purchase arcade games for my iPod Touch. Or I can play my collection of classic arcade games--with titles like "Namco Museum--from the 1970s and 1980s on my Sony Playstation 2. Or I can play games on my Nintendo DS.)

I attempted to educate my pets in the Kinzville Academy but not only did I have to cough up the tuition but I had to do all the work for each class. And that was just for one pet. For my second pet I had to sign up for the same classes and do the same work. It got very repetitive. And I never understood why I needed to educate my pets in the first place. I finished a couple of classes for my two pets and neither one of them behaved differently from before.

I also felt frustrated with the virtual world at Webkinz.com. For example, there was this Magical Charms Forest that was locked to members unless you purchase at least 1 Webkinz charm. Once you gained access you got more rewards for your pets when you purchased more Webkinz charms. The big problem is that none of the stores in my area ever carried the Webkinz charms. They carried Webkinz lip balms, Webkinz mousepads, Webkinz bookmarks, and Webkinz clothes for the large Webkinz stuffed animals but not Webkinz charms.

The closest I ever got to being able to access the Magical Charms Forest was the one time that one of the local stores got a shipment of Webkinz charm bracelets. Of course it made sense for Webkinz to make charm bracelets so you would have a place to put your Webkinz charms. But that store didn't have the Webkinz charms--just the Webkinz charm bracelets. I purchased the bracelet thinking that I would gain access to the Magical Charms Forest.

Except when I got home and entered the code, I didn't gain access to the Magical Charms Forest. Instead I got this piece of furniture where I could store my virtual charms. I placed the furniture in the main room of my pets' home but I never found any Webkinz charms so it was moot. At one point I even searched some of the authorized Webkinz stores in New York City while I was on a trip to visit relatives and the ones I visited didn't have the charms in stock. They had everything else marked "Webkinz" but the charms.

I think the fact that I was unable to find any store that sold Webkinz charms so I could access the Magical Charms Forest online was another reason why I lost interest in Webkinz.com.

I never got a chance to visit the Magical Charms Forest so it's useless to speculate whether I would've stayed longer as a member of Webkinz.com if I had gained access to it or if it would've been another part of Webkinz.com that I would've grown bored with quickly.

The biggest frustration was that I purchased a second pet only because I thought it would be cool to see my two pets interact together--just like the characters in The Sims did if you ordered them to do so with a few keystrokes. (The Sims was a videogame that I played with for a while a few years back but I quickly grew bored with it and haven't touched it since.) But Magic the Unicorn and Floyd the Pig never interacted together--even if they were in the same room facing each other. They both only cared to interact with me and they ignored each other even if they stood face to face with each other.

Then there were the frequent bugs on Webkinz.com that would sometimes log you off while you're in the middle of doing something or the times when you tried to log on but the screen would just freeze before you successfully logged on or it would crash your browser.

So I basically stopped logging into Webkinz.com after last March and I never looked back. I don't regret letting my membership laspe. To be honest, I don't think Webkinz is quite as big a deal as it once was, especially since the economy started tanking last fall. In recent months I've seen more stores having clearance sales on Webkinz along the lines of "Buy 2 for $25!" or "Buy 1 Get 1 Free!"

Besides, there have been other companies that have copied the Webkinz concept. Ty, the manufacturer of Beanie Babies, have come out with Beanie Babies 2.0 where the purchaser can join a special virtual world with these new and improved Beanie Babies. Ty has also come out with a line of female bean bag dolls called Ty Girls that have their own virtual world made just for girls. Build-A-Bear Workshop also has a virtual world that one can join with a purchase of any stuffed animal from that chain.

Then there's Disney with its Disney Fairies.com. This one is unique in that membership is free (that's right, you don't even need to purchase any real life products to become a member) and you even get to create three virtual fairies with this free membership. If you want to create more fairies, then you have to pay a fee.

But there's a catch. Even if you choose to stick with the maximum free three fairies, you can purchase stuff for your fairies only if you go shopping in the real world and buy specially-marked Disney products that contain codes that you can enter so your fairies can get a nice gift from you.

Now you know why I haven't been in a big rush to get a free account with Disney Fairies.com.

I know there are other virtual worlds geared more towards adults like Second Life and Wizard of Warcraft. But I've been leery about trying either one of them because I figured that I would grow tired of those worlds just like I grew tired of Webkinz.com. Or I would become totally addicted to the point where other things in my life would suffer (like doing housecleaning on a regular basis).

It doesn't help that I was unnerved by a film that I saw at a local film festival last fall called Second Skin. It was a documentary that focused on people who became totally hooked on World of Warcraft and it was scary. There were relationships and marriages that broke up over that game and people who got fired from a job because their obsession with the game interferred with their on-the-job performance. There was even a mother who tearfully talked about her son who took his life over a similar game called EverQuest. There were independent programmers who made money by doing things (like searching through a virtual world finding virtual cash or weapons for a player) or making things (like a special weapon) on behalf of World of Warcraft players in that virtual world. In other words, these players paid others people for virtual services or virtual products that were only used in that virtual world. The players spent a lot of money on Wizard of Warcraft and, in some cases, it led to financial problems.

I was grossed out by the scene when some guys had just purchased an add-on software for World of Warcraft and they were so engrossed in it that they chose to pee into empty bottles rather than take a short break to make a trek to the toilet. They even decided to forgo sleeping because they were too engrossed in that game to go to bed. There was footage of guys sitting in front of computer screens in the middle of the night who were nodding off while they were fighting the urge to go to sleep.

I'm glad that I never got THAT hooked on Webkinz.com. In fact, my time in that virtual world has made me decide that I would rather spend more of my time in the real world in a virtual one.

I still have my two stuffed Webkinz animals lying somewhere around my home. I may eventually donate them to Goodwill but right now I'm too busy doing other things in my life to look for them. I know that one day they will turn up when I least expect it so I'm not too worried about not having seen nor held them in a long time.

It has been over a year since I last logged into Webkinz.com but I don't miss it. I've moved on in my life. I've had my experiment with spending time in a virtual world but I would rather experience real life than spend the bulk of my life in a virtual world.

This marks the last entry in this blog. I'm going to leave it online as a review for anyone else who's thinking about joining Webkinz.com or a similar virtual world. My final verdict on Webkinz.com is this: It was cute, colorful, and fun at first but it became time-consuming and repetitive as time went on--especially when it came to earning Kinz Cash--and it eventually led to my boredom and I ended up quitting.

I'm going to close this entry and this blog by putting up the last few screenshots I ever made of my pets and their home before I lost interest in Webkinz. The yard was taken last February soon after the virtual snow melted and I purchased a new swimming pool. The screenshots of the main room (which was a combination living room, dining room, playroom, and kitchen) were taken last March, just a few weeks before I grew bored with Webkinz.com and stopped playing.

Good-bye!

This Week on Webkinz.com

The cold that struck me last month is still lingering. At first it entererd my head and I felt extremely tired. Then it went into my chest and it was determined to stay there and it even affected my voice. Right now I'm almost at the end of the second week of this extended cold hell and I'm at the point where I have partially regained my voice and I have cut way back on coughing. Every day I make a little bit more progress but my biggest enemy is fatigue. I'm glad that this cold is waning on its own because, at one point, I thought about going to the doctor. But just when my husband and I discussed the doctor, I started to feel better.

In any case, I was too sick to visit Webkinz.com until today so I missed that Winter Festival entirely, which ended yesterday. (Based on what I read on Webkinz Insider, that festival was similar to the Goo-Goo Berry Festival where random snowflakes would cascade down the screen and if you clicked on one, you got a prize of some sort for your pet.)

So today was the day that I made my one and only visit that week. I noticed that the main page of Webkinz.com has changed again (which is just as well since Christmas is long over).

Since I still felt tired from my recent illness, I decided not to push my luck too much and spend a lot of time on that site. Several weeks ago I got some tips from the Webkinz Insider forum on what to do if you want to earn Kinz Cash quickly but don't have a lot of time to spend on Webkinz.com. I finally decided to follow that advice.

I checked out the Wishing Well for the very first time. It's pretty cute. As I looked down into the Wishing Well, I kept on thinking about the first musical number in Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs where Snow White kept on singing "I'm Wishing" into this well and she would hear her echo in the well.

Basically I made a wish by pressing the "Make A Wish" button and I got random prizes. I won some Kinz Cash, which was pretty cool. (I ultimately won 50 Kinz Cash.) I was only entitled to five wishes per day but at least I got some money out of it.

I checked out the Wheel of Wow as well. I won 20 Kinz Cash spinning that wheel (which I can only do once a day), which was okay.

I also decided to try my hand at Wacky's Bingoz. I picked the 3 ball game version where I was entitled to just three balls. I only got one match out of the three.

Once I went through the three balls, that was it. I would have to wait another day to see if my game further progressed, which is kind of lame. I mean, I've played Bingo in real life and the game just continues until someone in the room yells "BINGO!" and the game judges verify that Bingo. You're not limited to just three balls then told to come back tomorrow to continue.

I also completed a job at the Employment Agency but, for once, it was something other than putting burgers together. The burger job wasn't available so I decided to work in the doctor's office where I had to match the right course of treatment to the right affliction each patient was suffering. (It was an ice pack for a bump on the head, a bandage for a scrape on a limb, and cold medicine for a red nose.) I successfully completed that job with no trouble at all.

I gave the Kinzville Academy another shot. I found that if I get Magic to complete the same classes five times in a row, that little unicorn will eventually earn badges. So I took the same classes, which had the same games as before and I passed them all.

I also decided to enroll Floyd as well since I wanted him to be as educated as Magic and I really don't want to show any favoritism towards any of my pets. So I enrolled him in a painting class and a weight training class and he passed them both real easily.

At that point I began to grow tired from my illness so I cut my visit short. Well, there's always next week where I'll feel better (I hope).

This Week on Webkinz.com

Yes, I know I skipped last week. That's because I was busy preparing for a craft show last Saturday that I was involved in so I didn't get a chance to log in at all. I managed to get a few hours of checking out the site only on Monday (Martin Luther King Day). I did the daily Calendar Quiz only to find out that, for some weird reason, the site had me as not doing any of this month's quizzes, even though I had done some of them before. (The only thing I can figure out is that it must've been some server glitch.) So I ended up re-doing the quizzes for this month up until Monday.

I went back to the employment agency and did the burger job again. It's cool that I got a raise for that job so I'm able to bring home more Kinz Cash these days. I played a couple of arcade games. I did some shopping and I purchased a few yard chairs for the backyard.

The only new thing I really did was check out the Kinzville Academy. I was starting to get bored with doing the quizzes, arcade games, and jobs so I thought it would be something interesting. Basically you pick a pet then select a course for your pet to finish. You can try any course for free but you won't get credit and you're only entitled to three free tries total on the classes. When it comes time for paying for classes, I could take the class myself for 50 Kinz Cash or hire a tutor to take the class for me for 250 Kinz Cash. I was a cheapskate so I selected the lower cost option.

I had to select which pet could go to class so I picked Magic since she's technically older by a few weeks. I was limited to taking three classes for credit per day. On top of that, I had to do the actual required tasks but my pet got the credit. At times I felt like I was playing a glorified arcade game and there were times when I felt that this was the equivalent of having my mother doing all of my school projects for me during elementary, middle, and high school.

First, I enrolled Magic in a Fashion class where I had to memorize what outfits a poodle model was wearing while she was walking down the runway. I did pretty well on that.

Then I enrolled Magic in a Language class where I had to solve a series of word puzzles. I did pretty well at that as well.

For the third class I picked Weight Lifting because I thought that Magic should learn how to be healthy. I had to "lift" weights with a mouse while making sure that it stayed within a certain set of lines (which you can see in the picture above the "Lift" button). After a false start, I learned it quick and I also got Magic to pass that class.

Here is Magic's report card at the end of the day. It's nice to see that she did great on her first day. But, on the other hand, I have to wonder what's the purpose of giving my pet an education. Will it encourage my pet to be more independent-minded? Will I get free virtual goodies for completing a certain level of coursework? Will I have to enroll my other pet (Floyd) as well in order to have a well-educated household or could I get by with having Magic tell Floyd what she's leared at school? I'm going to have to read up more on the Kinzville Academy before I venture further because I really don't want to be throwing my hard-earned Kinz Cash at something that's not going to be a real long-term benefit for my pets.

Monday was the only day that I was on Webkinz.com because, that very day, I developed a scratchy throat that has developed into a full-fledged head and chest cold. At one point I completely lost my voice. I've been feeling extremely tired and I just didn't feel like having anything to do with Webkinz. Right now I go through periods where I cough like mad for several minutes. This coughing has started to affect my sleep and I hope this all ends for me soon.