These are some Frequently Asked Questions about my Don't Bother Buying a Tamagotchi pages. I'm going to break slightly with netiquette and redefine "FAQ". Rather than being just questions, these are some of the subjects that are brought up most regularly in mail I get and I'm taking this opportinity to respond to the globally, because I don't have time to reply to people individually. They are roughly ordered by regularity, so the things that I get mailed about the most often are nearest the top. It might also give you an idea as to the sort of e-mail I get from people - only a small proportion of it is actually on my e-mail pages.
A: A valid point. Yes, it's true - a good deal of the eight-year-old kids who bought Tamagotchi are probably quite happy with them. However, I have had a lot of mail from people as young as ten saying that they were disappointed with the simplicity of Tamagotchi. It's perfectly possible to make a toy that is simple enough for an eight-year-old to use, but rewarding for older people. I could draw an analogy with a real pet - an eight-year-old can feed a gerbil, give it water and clean out its cage but it would take an older person to realise that it was not getting enough exercise, was eating too much or seemed unhappy. There's no reason virtual pets can't emulate this, and the fact that my nine-year-old sister is also now fed up of my Tamagotchi is only testament to this.
A: I was told by a few people that in Japanese plurals don't exist, so this should really be duplicated in English translations.
A: Sorry, no. When I decided I was less than pleased with it, I gave it to my nine-year-old sister, who broke it!
A: I do seem to be asked this (well, not so much asked it as have it presumed) with curious regularity. To put an end to the matter, I'd like to establish now that I'm heterosexual, and always have been. Not that I happen to have anything against homosexuals, of course.
A: This is a fair point, but a slightly misguided one. To answer the question - No, I am not trying to spoil little kids' fun. Yes, my page does contain some information that Tamagotchi fans might find slightly alarming, but if they choose to click on a link which says "Don't Bother Buying a Tamagotchi", I think they could reasonably expect a slightly anti view.