Gearhead Mom

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Wide World of Webkinz

Posted by Missy W. @ 6:06 AM

Thanks to my sister, Gwen, for writing this review. A brave woman, wading into the world of Webkinz.

I admit it.  Webkinz World intimidates me.  When my sister asked me to review this website my daughter loves I knew it was time to confront my fears. I had spent long enough worrying about exactly what my child was doing in this cyber-world. It seemed OK, and I had heard an NPR story about the relatively rigorous controls on child-centered websites, but I didn’t really know. So, many hours and a surprising amount of research later, I offer this review so that we can all (pretend) to be better parents.

For those who may not be familiar with Webkinz, a warning:  they sneak into your house. For us, it was under the guise of a birthday present. T opened a small package containing a soft stuffed turtle, made by Ganz. She named it Mimi. I didn’t like the idea of having another stuffed animal on the bed, but the turtle was small and – I thought – harmless. Never jump to conclusions. 

On Mimi’s front paw was a plastic-wrapped tag that held her ‘code’.  T, like most six year olds, was well ahead of me. “Oh boy! It’s a REAL Webkinz! Mom – can I use your computer?!?” And with that, we were off.

What makes Webkinz so brilliant (or diabolical) is this link between the stuffed animal you buy (about $15 at our local bookstore) and the on-line world they link to.  Each plush toy comes with this unique code that allows your child access to Webkinz World, an on-line, interactive, cyber-community for children.  The code, when entered into the Webkinz Adoption Center, produces a cyber-replica of the toy online.  One in your hand, one on the screen with the same name.  T was thrilled.

The more of these Webkinz stuffed animals you have, the more that inhabit your “My Pets” page in your personal Webkinz World account and the more things you can do.  We now are the owners of five and have a constant lobby for more. Gulp. 

Once logged in at Webkinz, and after going through the ‘adoption’ process, the Webkinz owner can then explore this cyber world.  There is a lot going on!  This is where I checked out and 6-year old T got rolling.  She absolutely LOVES all the things to do.  There are games to play (some of which are even vaguely educational all of which reward the player with and Kinzcash that is then used to buy things on other parts of the page), things to buy (each Webkinz gets their own room that can then be decorated, each pet needs to be fed, entertained, etc.), classes to take (again, some educational, some about mouse coordination, etc.), codes to find (never have solved what this means – though T seems to), jewels to collect (? – or so she tells me) and much, much more.  The more time you have, the more you could discover, and from my research I learned that the site is constantly adding more.

So, why do I let my child play at Webkinz?  Mostly I do because she loves it and once we met Mimi on-line, there was no going back.  You have to care for your pets so she feels responsible for them; they have a happiness, a love and a hunger meter.  You have to play with them, buy them food, and generally please these little cyber creatures.  I’m not sure T separates the plush toy from the cyber-creature, but it doesn’t seem to bother her.  (Once in awhile there will be a mad room-cleaning looking for Hoppy the hippo or Kitty the cat because they may be unhappy lost in the mess under the bed, and that can’t be bad, right?)

There are a number of educational elements.  The first and primary is that T has learned to navigate a complex website.  There are so many tabs, bars, and pop-up pages on this site that it makes me dizzy.  She is unfazed and quickly moves from room to room, game to game.  It provided me a place to begin the dialog about how you behave in cyber-space: never give your name, your telephone number, etc.  (In her life, this is going to be like learning to cross the street responsibly.)

The child also has to do a lot of reading which is good, if your child is a reader.  Parents of pre-school age, be warned:  this is not a place for the non-reader to play independently because it is text heavy. If you adopt this little pet friend on-line, you’ll be sitting there reading with a child on your lap.  I’ve seen it happen to friends.  It isn’t pretty.  I’m actually convinced that T, at least in part, threw herself into learning to read so that she could do things like Webkinz without me.

I also have to admit that writing this review I’ve spent a stupid amount of time playing in Webkinz world and it was fun.  I just spent 8 minutes playing Switch-a-Roo, a game that I don’t get. Does T get it?  I have no idea.  Was it fun? Well, yeah.  And playing it got Mimi 9 happiness points, filling her happiness back up to 100 so I have at least done something productive?  I’d really like to take the Kinzcash I earned playing the game to buy her food so that her hunger meter would get out of the 60s, but then I’d have to explain to T that I was playing with her pets. Hmmmmmmmm.

Webkinz does have a chat-room component – the Kinzchat Clubhouse - but so far, T hasn’t even discovered it so I don’t have to decide whether she can go in or not.  I’m not sure exactly how it works, but there is a little cell phone icon on the bottom on your page that you can turn on (ours is currently in ‘do not disturb’ mode).  From what I’ve read other places, this phone allows the child to chat with friends they add or accept into their friends list.  Fortunately, there is no free-typing and chatting can only be done through pre-texted scroll-down options.  Since we don’t have anyone out there to obviously link to, this has stayed off.  For an older child, this might be a bigger part of the game. 

There is also another, more advanced, chat room: The Kinzchat Plus Clubhouse. This one allows free-text type but requires account email approval.  So if when your child signed-up, you put in your email as the primary email, any request to join will come to you for approval.  If you’d rather that this wasn’t an option at all, there is a limited parental controls page that allows you to block access to the Plus Clubhouse.  I blocked it, even though it has never come up.  It makes me feel like I’m being responsible. Finally.

Another thing I learned is that you can block outside advertising.  On your personal Webkinz Home Page, there are ad-like boxes all over the screen, most of which advertise other things you can do on the site (Go to School! Get a Webkinz Job!, etc.).  But evidently in the past year, a few ads for outside products have appeared in these boxes (mostly for children-targeted movies).  It isn’t a big deal, but all things considered, I’d rather not have to deal with the nag-factor on anything I can avoid.  It only took one click to turn them off. 

So for the past year, Webkinz has been a minor part of our life. When she’s bored or tired, we get the “Can I use your computer?” request. Mostly, she’s pretty responsible and listens to the limits we set (no more than 20 minutes at a time – unless Mommy has to take a phone call, then sometimes a BIT longer).  I didn’t think about it much.

The moment I knew that Webkinz was really a part of our life, though, came one day this summer. T got in the car after a day at summer camp absolutely panicked.  “Mom – there’s a Webkinz MURDERER,” she told me with huge eyes.  “Um, what?” I replied, driving down the narrow road from camp.  “Yes, a big kid at camp told me that if you go online, you walk by a red box and out jumps the murderer who cuts off your pet’s head and there is blood all over!” At this point she starts crying.  Oh, big kids.  I start madly explaining about urban legends and telling her that the Webkinz site would never allow that to happen and that I’m sure all her pets are safe.  When we got home, I went right to Snopes (mostly to confirm to myself that I was right) and found that I was correct, there has never been a Webkinz murderer but I was amazed at how closely T’s story from the big kid matched the version of the murderer described on Snopes.  I can only imagine how the Webkinz people feel about this urban-legend terror.

To show T that Mimi and friends were safe, and that there was not a beloved little turtle decapitated in the middle of her carefully crafted room, I insisted that she log on and play Webkinz.  She looked at me skeptically but eventually gave in (how stupid did I feel MAKING her hog my computer?).  She found for herself that Mimi and the entire gang were, indeed safe, happy – and hungry.  Thank goodness.

I’ll give this product a 4 out of 5, mainly because there are not enough parental controls (or so people say) and it’s especially confusing, but generally pretty great. And so it goes -
I’ve become one of those mothers who only sort of monitors her child on the web. 

Share: Email   |     |