Just when you might think you’ve seen everything, a new extremely goofy event takes place in the world of video games. Additional content and cosmetic bonuses are often how games are creating new revenue streams these days. Gotta keep the servers on somehow. But while people seem willing to buy gun skins whenever asked, sometimes devs go the extra mile for the sake of some fun. That’s exactly what’s happening here, as Activision announced Tomogunchi, an innocently-named virtual pet you can raise, feed, and take with you onto the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare battlefield.
Activision has gone all out with this thing, introducing it via a huge blog post and a bunch of Team Fortress 2 -style fake corporate advertising. Despite the fictional toy maker involved here, the Tomogunchi is very real, and very reliant on a certain IP-holder’s benevolence. Tomogunchi comes in the form of a watch you can buy in the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Item Shop.
Much like Tomogunchi’s… inspiration, this watch provides a cute, little virtual pet for your hardened military combatant, but with a twist only the involuntary sociopathy of minds working on a video game like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare can provide. That was a joke, calm down before you break your keyboard. Instead of taking care of your Tomogunchi via giving it food and cleaning up after it, the little critters feed off things like your wins, killstreaks, objectives, and other multiplayer metrics.
Each creature has a different focus metric, which can change as they grow and evolve into new forms. Doing well in those areas keeps them healthy and happy, while doing poorly in matches will send the little monsters to an early digital grave. There’s a good chance this could result in animal cruelty charges, so stay on the capture point for goodness’ sake.
Source: Activision