Webkinz is a Stuffed toy and toys-to-life video game franchise created by the Canadian toy company Ganz Midwest-CBK. The game launched on April 15th, 2005, with Webkinz Day being celebrated on April 29th.
Each Webkinz plush toy includes an attached tag with a unique "Secret Code" printed on it. With this code, players can unlock and play in Webkinz World, an online world, with a virtual version of their plush toy.
On October 23, 2020, Ganz released Webkinz Next, a 3D successor to the original Webkinz game. The original game continues to be playable, being renamed to Webkinz Classic. While originally playable from the site, following the announcement of Adobe Flash Player shutting down in 2020, the game has now become downloadable.
The game was originally made to be in 3D. However, due to the amount of time that would be taken to model the number of pets and with the difficulties in animation, this idea was scrapped in favor for 2D. This then led to a 2D skeleton system to be made which can be applied to multiple different pets. With this, the team was able to continuously add new pets. The game was made using Adobe Flash and ActionScript 1, 2, and 3. The art was made using Adobe Illustrator.
Throughout the development of the game, multiple playtests were conducted. From this, the team was allowed to gain an understanding of the audience's reactions and understanding of the game was at the time. New ideas were also learned from these playtests which the team took and further developed. One playtest, occurring in August 2004, ended with the team scrapping some finished work and concepts. This led to the team missing their plan of releasing the game during the holidays.
After the site’s premiere in 2005, users could register the code on the tag of their plush toys and play games with the virtual version of their adopted Webkinz pet. The original site had among its features a few games in the arcade section, the “W-Shop” where users could use their in-game points for virtual items, and the ability to customize the pets’ rooms, but many more interactive features have been added to Webkinz World since, including a school (called the “Kinzville Academy”) where users can play minigames which improve their pets’ abilities, and a trivia section where users can earn points for answering questions.
In 2015, a decade after the site’s launch, Ganz introduced a major update to the game (called Webkinz X), which had been failing due to certain technical errors in the coding. Webkinz X improved many of these problems, but also created many more, as the unique mixture of new code and code as old as 2005 resulted in several hundred in-game objects disappearing, or otherwise not functioning properly; the animation joints of some Webkinz avatars also were affected, often resulting in an awkward and disjointed appearance.
The Webkinz World site was run by Adobe Flash, and in 2018, in accordance with Adobe’s decision to no longer support Flash Player, Ganz worked with Adobe to convert the entire game interface from an embedded Flash Player-driven web game into a desktop app, which can be downloaded directly from the Webkinz website.
The Webkinz Signatures were designed by a different toy company which had partnered with Ganz, and included three different sub-lines of plush: Webkinz Signature, Webkinz Small Signature, and Webkinz Signature Endangered, the latter being based on real-life endangered species of animals, and unlocking a trivia section about the respective animal; purchasing a Signature also unlocked access to a virtual item from the Signature theme. Production of Signatures stopped when the contract Ganz held ended, and new Signature plushes were not made, in part to their steeper price. Ganz continues to release new Signature pets, albeit without their plush counterparts, with certain pets only available as special promotional items; virtual Signatures and other pets given away in this manner often run for an extremely steep price, ranging from $25 per code on third-party sites such as eBay, to $2,000 per code (including several other virtual promotional items), when acquired through the Ganz eStore website itself.
In May 2009, the Birthstone Pets series was released, with one new virtual Birthstone Pet (a brightly-colored dog with the corresponding birthstone on its hip) being released for each corresponding month. In April 2010, Ganz replaced the Birthstone Pets series with the Zodiac Pets series. Similarly, one Zodiac Pet was released every month, and were limited to just digital avatars, with no plush being made available; however, there was greater variety in the types of animals offered, not comprising only dogs as in the Birthstone Pets series, but including an eagle, a snake, a horse, a crab, and even a butterfly.
In 2011, the CandyKinz series was released, which was originally composed of virtual-only pets with various dessert-related themes. Later, plush versions of some of the CandyKinz were made available, such as the Gingerbread Puppy. In June 2012, the Rockerz Pets series was released, which consisted of rock band-themed pets. The purchase of a plush toy unlocked a virtual pet and a virtual item from the Rockerz theme, in a similar manner as the Webkinz Signatures. Some later Rockerz pets were only available as digital avatars.
In 2019, Ganz announced that the “first generation” of Webkinz plush was ending and that no new plush pets would be released for the time being, but fully virtual pets would still be created and available to purchase. In November 2020, Ganz resumed the creation of plush Webkinz toys for the spin-off game Webkinz Next. New pets include a code for Webkinz Classic and a code for Webkinz Next.
All inactive accounts were once stored to later be unarchived upon retrieval, but it was announced by Ganz, that on Oct. 1, 2019, all archived accounts would be deleted after seven years of inactivity, due to storage issues, and a change in children’s online privacy laws. No new accounts were archived, and users with free accounts which had been abandoned for more than six months would be deleted.
The Webkinz World is an online play area with Virtual economy controlled by Ganz. The user can earn money (called KinzCash) by adopting new pets, playing online games, answering general knowledge questions, and through daily activities like spinning the Wheel of WOW, playing Wishing Well 2, or completing jobs (minigames) available once every 8 hours. Each day, there is a Game of the Day which can be played for bonus KinzCash, and other bonuses are available each hour, full days on weekends, and afternoons only on weekdays. With each Webkinz toy purchased, more KinzCash, rooms, and items are added to the user's account.
Many of the tasks in Webkinz World involve collecting items. For example, are released for the players through , or (formerly) one of the in-game TV shows called The Secret Chef. "Gems" can be mined once a day at the Curio Shop, with a full set of gems being turned into the Webkinz Crown of Wonder and used to buy exclusive items. A similar feature, called Alyssa's Star Challenge, involves users clicking on colored stars to find valuable stars.
The online world also contains many rare or exclusive items. Some of these items require developing a friendship with the Curio Shop owner to purchase, while others are obtained by registering other Webkinz accessories purchased in the real world. Each type of pet gets a special item, and food available exclusively for them. A "Pet of the Month" is announced at the beginning of each month. Users with the Pet of the Month on their account can participate in special minigames and rewards; if a person registers the announced pet in that month, they will also receive other exclusive items.
Series 1 contained 80 cards, featuring specialty cards called: Challenge Cards, Curio Shop Curiosities, and Webkinz Doodlez. Challenge Cards allowed for a game to be played and had 15 cards in total to build a deck with. Curio Shop Curiosites featured rare items on foil cards. Webkinz Doodlez, as the name implies, featured sketches showing the concepts for ideas in game.
Series 2 contained 85 cards, adding new characters and items that were added in game after the first series of cards. This series added 15 new Challenge Cards and introduced two new types of specialty cards, these being called: W-Tales Snapshots and At Paw Level. W-Tales Snapshots is a foil set of 8 cards with illustrations from in game stories. At Paw Level is another set of 8 foil cards displaying how in game items look from a pet's point of view.
Series 3 changed the card format slightly. Cards from series 3 now has full card art and Webkinz trivia on the back. This series introduced two new card types, this being the Webkinz Profilez and Webkinz Sticker cards. Webkinz Profilez featured photos of the plush toys and added pet facts. Webkinz Sticker cards would have stickers of Webkinz pets, items, and in game logos. This series also introduced a card exclusive pet named the Magical Retriever.
Series 4 contained 90 cards, adding a new W-Tales whose story spans through all 90 cards. The Webkinz Sticker cards got updated as well, including more stickers on the cards and introducing new Dressed Up sticker cards. Another addition is the inclusion of two puzzles. The pieces of the puzzle would be found behind the sticker cards. The regular sticker cards would complete one puzzle, while the Dressed Up sticker cards would complete the other. This series introduced another card exclusive pet named the Magical Panda.
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