I'd been hearing about Webkinz for several months and resisted. I'd heard tales of friends going on a hunt to find certain ones and seen the signs at the stores saying "limit 2 Webkinz per person". Honestly, this had beanie baby written all over it and I didn't have much desire to get into 'the webkinz craze'. But after a week of solid rain and a very bored six year old, I decided to give Webkinz a try. On a whim, I picked 2 of them up on a late night shopping run for milk when I saw an entire display of them with just about every Webkinz variety to choose from. I selected a frog and a pink pony knowing that if I bought for one child I'd need to get for my other one too - even though she's really too young to play on the interactive site, she has to have what her big brother does.
What are Webkinz
Webkinz are plush toys from GANZ that come in just about every animal imaginable. They are affordably priced at around $12.99 (though different retailers/e-tailers will set their own prices) per plush. Sizewise they are not so big, slightly larger than the TY beanie babies - which is nice as my children already have way too many obnoxiously large plush toys that end up getting ignored. The plush toys are marked for ages 3+ though the actual Webkinz world interactive portion is geared for ages 5 and up. Younger children will require adult guidance in while in Webkinz world.
Webkinz come in just about every animal imaginable including frogs, horses, cats, dogs, bears.. you name it. Of course, the manufacturer GANZ releases new animals, special editions, renames current animals and retires some too. Most of the Webkinz have a colorful "W" logo on their foot or someplace on their body. In addition to the regularly sized Webkinz there's a tinier version (beanie baby sized) called Lil' Kinz that sell for a few dollars less.
But, Webkinz are not just plush toys. When you purchase your webkinz friend you'll notice that it has a little tag that is sealed in plastic and attached to its foot - inside this tag is a special code that you use to go online with it. Here is where the real "fun" of Webkinz comes when you register your Webkinz plush online.
Welcome to Webkinz World
Getting Started
Once you have a Webkinz you'll want to get it registered right away at Webkinz world. Go to www.webkinz.com and click on "New Member". You'll go through a series of sign on screens and create an ID and a password. Choose carefully when selecting your ID and pet's name since these cannot be changed. Miss Birdy will assist you in adopting your webkinz which includes selecting its gender and giving it a name. You can print out an adoption certificate and you can also view a bit of info about your pet including who its 'best friend' is and what kind of food it likes or what toys it would like to play with.
Note: If you have multiple children and multiple Webkinz they could each have their own Webkinz account, or you could create one account and adopt all the animals under that one account. If they are signed up separately then they have the added benefit of each having their own house and the two pets could play in games or tournaments against each other (if you have a way for both children to be online at the same time). Or, if you choose to add them both onto the same webkinz account then the 'friends' can pool their kincash together and live under the same roof (each in their own rooms). Since my older child is the one doing the playing in Webkinz world for his younger sister this is the route that I opted to take.
For each Webkinz pet that you register you are started off with 2,000 in Kinzcash which is the currency that is used in Webkinz world. You also get started off with an empty room and a 'gift' icon. When you drag the gift from your 'dock' (the area where all your webkinz belongings are stored) into your Webkinz room it bursts open with a few starter items for your pet. Our frog got a really nify lily pad bed, a welcome balloon, some special frog food, and a basketball. Our pink pony got a treadmill, a welcome balloon, and some special pony food. The welcome gifts vary by whichever webkinz animal you register.
You can use the rest of the 2,000 Kinzcash to get started in decorating your room and purchasing some food. Your room can be simple or an elaborate theme room. As you earn more kinzcash you can add on more rooms and decorate to your hearts content. If you tire of the theme you can go to the W-shop and sell off your belongings and start over. Our pony has a castle room, our frog has a lily-pad/bog room and we've since added a bathroom, a kitchen, and an outdoor garden.
Taking Care of your Webkinz
Once you are logged into Webkinz you'll notice that your Webkinz has 3 measurements - Happiness, Health, and Hunger. You'll want to keep these close to the maximum grade of 100 for each category if possible. To do so you need to feed your webkinz, play with your webkinz, and make sure it gets proper sleep.
Eating:
You'll probably find that you are feeding your pet quite a bit - they are hungry little buggers. Each day you can get 1 free food item for your webkinz pet and a small allotment in Kinzcash by visiting the Kinzcare page and clicking on the day of the week. Since that food gift isn't enough to keep your Webkinz full and satisfied you will want to visit the W-shop and pick up some food. You'll find specialty dishes, fruits and veggies, entrees and junk food priced from just 3 kinzcash pennies on upwards to 20 or more kinzcash. My son of course likes to pick out things like french fries and hot dogs but I've found that healthier choices are not only more affordable they also keep the pets hunger at bay longer. If you tire of selections in the W-Shop there's also some ways to create your new dishes for your pet. I highly suggest that you build a kitchen for your webkinz and add at least one of the interactive items like the blender, the oven, or the sandwhich maker. Be sure to purchase the corresponding recipe guidebooks which show how to make new dishes using 3 specific ingredients so you don't make some sort of sludge-like concoction. Another fun way to feed your webkinz pet is to make an outdoor garden and grow your own veggies and fruits. This requires an upfront investment in the seeds and guidebook as well as the time to go each day spend a minute or two gardening but you can also save on kinzcash by growing your own healthy foods.
Foods Tip: Webkinz don't like broccoli. If you feed your pet broccoli you will see its happiness meter drop by 1 point. Webkinz have a sweet tooth, but don't overdo it on sweets. When you feed your pet sweets (candy bar, fudge, marshmallows, cream soda) it's health meter will go down.
Playing & wellbeing:
You can play with your webkinz by doing games, 'talking' to it - using pull down menus, and interacting with it on the Webkinz site. The pet won't actually speak to you but little text bubbles pop up from time to time to tell you how its feeling, initiate interaction, or respond to you.
You should find out what your webkinz favorite toy or food is to help keep it happy. Your webkinz can travel all around the room that you make for it and do things like watch TV, play games, run on a treadmill, sit down, etc. You can spend all sorts of kinzcash making 'the perfect' home for your pet(s). One of the favorite rooms in our webkinz house is the bathroom, complete with a flushing toilet and an interactive bathtub. I definitely recommend adding a bathtub to your webkinz world because not only is it really cute and fun to bathe your pet using shampoo, bubble bath and a rubber ducky- but this activity adds to their overall wellbeing.
Sleeping:
Most importantly, always remember to put your webkinz to sleep in its bed before you sign out of Webkinz World. If you sign out before putting your little friend to bed you are going to return to a pet that is unhappy, hungry, and sick. But, never fear - you can visit "Dr. Quack's office" and your webkinz will get remedied. This part of Webkinz reminds me of the old "Tamagotchi" craze of yesteryear. The good news is that unlike the Tamagotchi which could die and fly off to heaven - your Webkinz pet will not die. Each Webkinz does come with an expiration date of 1 year, but you can supposedly subscribe to Webkinz to extend your pet for another year OR simply adopt another pet into your Webkinz family on the same account to extend the account expiration date out.
Things to Do in Webkinz World
The Webkinz world is divided up into different areas including 'your room', the arcade, quizzies, the employment office, the clubhouse, Dr. Quacks office, the W-shop, the Curio-Shop, Kinz Post and more.
The game selection changes but includes several arcade style games similar to tetris, simple jump 'n run type games, shooting games, etc. My son likes the "zingoz pop" game which includes launching bubbles that pop when you have clusters of 3 or more of the same color all together. He also really gets a kick out of the pie-throw game where you have to aim pies at the zingos before they throw a pie at you. I enjoy the letter lunch game which is a typing game where you have to type letters or words before they fall to the floor. All of these games can be played individually or you can enter a tournament and play against other webkinz members. If you have a high score you take the lion's share of the pot and all the other winners split the remaining kinzcash. I've noticed however that the high scores on these tournaments are out of this world high - so unless you are super good at a game the payout isn't all that great. My son has pretty much stuck to the single player games.
The clubhouse is a virtual world where you can take your webkinz to interact with other people's pets. You can't really chat per se because its all scripted phrases that you access by using a pull down menu. There are different themed rooms in the clubhouse like an exercise room and different game rooms that have single and multi-player games in them. At this time the more 'open' Kinzchat Plus area which allowed free-form chatting (but with a word/content filter) is shut down to make it a more child friendly environment. There are parent controls available to lock your child out of entering this area, also.
If you have a friend who is also on Webkinz you can add them as a virtual friend and do things like send packages (with up to 3 items), letters (the text is pre-written), visit each other's rooms, and play games and tournaments with them.
Ways to Earn Kinzcash
You'll want to accumulate lots of kinzcash so that you can add to your webkinz room and house, and buy food. Each day you should click on the kinzcare award for automatic kinzcash and some food. There will also be certain games that they run a bonus on for extra kinzcash. You are also alloted one spin per day (sometimes they have a bonus spin) on the Wheel of Wow, 5 wishes at the Wishing Well 2, and free bingo balls for the Bingoz games. Be sure to check the daily schedule that is posted for times when they are giving away free spins, free kinzcash, or free food items. You also can go into the Webkinz news twice a week and answer a survey question and they give you a kinzcash bonus.
A fun way to boost your kinzcash include going into the employment office every 8 hours and completing a job from the posted jobs on the job board. The jobs start out simple and as you complete them they get more difficult and also pay out a bit more in Kinzcash. My son likes to do the shoe store clerk, make burgers, paint fences or assist Dr. Quack.
The most lucrative way to add more kinzcash is to answer the daily trivia question, complete calendar trivia and complete quizzies. The quizzies are broken out into age ranges and the questions and answers require reading. My 6 year old is able to complete many of the questions for 5-6 year olds as well as the "for everyone" category. For every 50 questions you answer correctly you earn around 200 kinzcash points - and that takes around 10-15 minutes. I find the quizzie process cumbersome but confess that I do go on and complete quizzies for my son to earn up kinzcash for him in my formerly free time which is now being consumed by Webkinz world.
My son's experience with Webkinz
My 6 year old spends the lions share of his time on Webkinz world playing directly with his pets in his room. He and I both enjoy going to W-Shop and buying new things to decorate and build new rooms as well as articles of clothing to dress his webkinz in. He picked out jeans, glasses and a t-shirt for his frog and a hairbow, shoes and a bathing suit for his sister's pink pony.
It's no surprise that one of the first things my 6 year old son wanted to purchase for his webkinz home was a toilet. Being the bath person, I suggested we get a bathtub and I'm so glad we did. My son gets a real kick out of the webkinz bathroom and the interactive bathtub which he repeatedly overfills with bubbles and shampoo, runs the shower to rinse and then repeat... over and over until he decides that it is time to play in the kitchen.
In the kitchen, we have added a refrigerator (that can store up to 6 items), several counters, a stove, a blender and a sandwhich maker. My son loves to read the corresponding guidebooks for these gadgets (purchased separately with kinzcash) since they are chock full of recipes. He is able to pick a recipe, see which 3 ingredients are required and head to the W-shop to pick up anything that he doesn't already have on hand in his "dock". He's also had some fun mixing up his own selections with surprising results. Some combinations of food will also yield a final product that is an actual edible dish - have fun exploring and finding your own recipes!
Tip: If you have a Television in your webkinz room you can also watch a program called "The Secret Chef" which provides extra recipes and also 'mystery recipes' to try out in the kitchen. The extra recipes are ones that are not listed in the special cookbooks but will still yield edible food dishes into of the sludge like substance which they can eat, but it makes their tummy hurt. The mystery recipes show 2 of the correct ingredients and one wrong ingredient and its up to you to figure out trial or error how to correctly make the dish. You'll need spare kinzcash because these dishes that you cook, blend or make in your sandwhich maker each require 3 ingredients so on average a single completed dish may cost around 10-20 kinzcash to create. Left to his own devices he would most likely create these recipes over and over and over until all of his kinzcash stash is depleted so after a few minutes of cooking I like to steer him to other parts of the Webkinz world.
Which brings him to the arcade games, or playing games in his pet's rooms. They have games and a studio that you can purchase for at the W-shop for more Webkinz fun with your pet. We have a puzzle game as well as checkers that he'll have his pet's play and earn a few kinzcash while he's at it.
He also really likes to go to the Curio Shop which is a 2nd hand shop that has a special gem-mining activity. Each day you are allowed to enter the mines one time and mine for jewels that you collet in a gem collection box. If you collect all 30 jewels then you can trade them in for a special crown. We are no where near getting all 30 and have maybe 5 or so, since sometimes you get duplicates and sometimes you just find "slag". If you don't want to keep your gem you can sell it to Arte, the dog who runs the Curio Shop, for some extra kinz cash. Every hour new products are listed in the Curio shop, sometimes you can find a real bargain but other times the prices are actually higher than at the W-shop.. so shop carefully.
Curio Shop Tip: You can become one of Arte's preferred customers by frequently shopping there and also leaving him tips. The more you buy at the curio shop, the more information that Arte will give you including telling you if he has a rare item or when an item will be on sale.
Other Webkinz Products
If you've caught the Webkinz bug you'll probably find yourself adding on additional pets - either the regular Webkinz or the Lil' Kinz. If you've registered 10, 15, or more pets you get special exclusive items as gifts when you sign on. Of course, they want you to buy more and you'll be tempted to buy more so you can get the cool items like a super fancy exclusive bed. GANZ also sells special backpack and purse carriers, as well as trading cards, and charms (necklace/bracelet). The charms and trading cards have special feature codes to unlock further activities and 'prizes' in your Webkinz world - so while they are modestly priced.. don't be surprised to find yourself with the desire to purchase more.. more.. and more! Webkinz does seem to instill the MORE mentality which is something to watch out for.
In Summary
Parents, you WILL find yourself logging on to get your child extra treats or cash in your spare time. Just an FYI - the site goes down every night so if you are a night owl you may find yourself frustrated that there's no midnight webkinz access! I suspect that many of the high scores on webkinz are achieved by adults that have way too much free time on their hands (or who are probably using cheat codes to scam the system.. shame on them!) Despite the warnings from friends who were already Webkinz junkies, I had no idea really how much this site would draw me (as a parent) into until I experienced it. Sure enough, I'm definitely hooked too.
It's not just the parents who are getting hooked on Webkinz either. Webkinz... Webkinz.. Webkinz.. I can see children parking themselves in front of this virtual world for way too long. The site has so much to do.. a little social networking, some shopping, some interior design, games, and more. My son has so much fun on this website but I also limit how long he can spend playing on it. I also like to make sure that he does a good mix of things while in the Webkinz world instead of just playing games the entire time. I'm quite pleased that he actually prefers to do lots of other Webkinz activities over playing in the arcade. I see a lot of benefits and learning opportunities 'hidden' in Webkinz including teaching children about earning money, budgeting, as well as nurturing. Many of the "quizzies" are educational including categories like science, math, and the arts - to name a few. Sure, some of the games are 'fluff' and some may be bothered by the games that are more of a gambling nature (Wheel of WOW, Wishing Well, etc). As far as advertisements go, the advertisements on the Webkinz world are only for other Webkinz products or mock ads that advertise different areas of the site. Other ads on the site boast messages like 'eat your veggies' or 'enjoy the fresh air.. play outside'.
Still, even though it can be a time-waster it's also harmless, fun, and I enjoy that my son and I have an activity that we can do together. So many of his 6 year old boy toys are not all that interesting to me and Webkinz is a blast for the both of us. Little sister loves to watch her Big Brother play with the virtual pets and shouts out commands for him to do - it's an entire family webkinz experience.
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
Windows Requirements: PIII 800 MHz or higher, Windows OS 98/2000/XP, RAM: 128MB recommended, Browsers: IE 6, Netscape 7.2, AOL 9.0, Resolution: 1024x768 minimum, High Speed Required, Adobe Flash
Mac Requirements: 800 MHz or higher, Mac OS X 10.3, RAM: 256MB, Browsers: Safari 1.2.3 or higher, Resolution: 1024x768 minimum, High Speed Recommended, Adobe Flash
Have fun playing in Webkinz World!
www.webkinz.com
...with special thanks for Epinions member CopeSullivan for helping us get started on Webkinz
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 13 Type of Toy: Stuffed Toy
Age Range of Child: 6 to 8 Years
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