14 DAY TRIAL // Activision Publishing announced yesterday that it acquired the rights to publish a range of videogames based on the Zhu Zhu Pets line of toys, one of the few stars of this year's Christmas shopping season. The deal was signed with Cepia LLC, the company that designed the hamster-looking toys, but the publisher did not specify when the videogames could arrive or what category of gamers they might be aimed at.
David Oxford, who is an executive working with Activision, said that “Zhu Zhu Pets' success in 2009 speaks for itself and we're confident it will be even bigger in 2010,” while Natalie Hornsby, the director of marketing strategies at Cepia, stated that “Ever since Zhu Zhu Pets exploded in popularity, launching a video game has felt like a natural fit in product evolution.”
The toys, which are capable of autonomously moving around an area, climbing obstacles and even able to show some kind of electronic-powered affection towards their owners, are currently selling for 10 dollars at retail but because of the scarcity of the product, resellers can get four and five times as much for a Zhu Zhu hamster.
GameMill has been selected by Activision as the developer that will handle the creation of the Zhu Zhu Pets titles and the first one is set to arrive on the Nintendo DS gaming platform. The publisher is probably betting that the popularity of the Zhu Zhu hamsters will not disappear immediately after Christmas and that when games start being released, probably in late spring or in early summer, people will be interested in playing around with a simulated version of the already fake hamster.
The Zhu Zhu Pets games may be aimed at more casual players and will rely on the image of the toys to sell more than on complex gameplay mechanics.