Inside the 13-Year Popularity of Talking Tom, the Virtual Pets Who Want to be Your Friend

Your children may not be ready to take care of a real pet, but chances are they're already spending time with a virtual one.

Counting the amount of times my oldest child has asked to buy a fish could fill both hands, but every time, I’ve said no. We’re approaching an age where being in charge of a creature isn’t unreasonable, but we all know how much work it takes, even a fish, and we all know how little children are actually going to participate in that process.

So, no, we don’t have a fish, and probably won’t for a little bit. A virtual fish, though?

The virtual pet has been a mainstay among kids for decades. Heck, I lived through the Tamagochi phenomenon in the 90s, though I was more of a Chao Adventure person, personally. It’s natural, then, to watch the virtual pet become more elaborate, as has been the case with Outfit7’s Talking Tom.

Talking Tom started only a few years after the launch of the first iPhone. It was a novelty. Tom could tell jokes, and apparently, loved to fart. But even as a novelty, Talking Tom tapped into the same awe that makes things like Tamagotchi so popular. You feel a response of responsibility, and even friendship, with a digital creature. 

These days, Talking Tom has seen sequels, spin-offs, and, of course, animated shows. 

One of those spin-offs, My Talking Angela 2+, involves taking care of a cat, and it recently launched on Apple Arcade, the robust (and very! kid-friendly) games subscription service for Apple devices. As part of that, I chatted with Helder Lopes, VP of creative functions and research & development at Outfit7, and asked her about what it’s like to build these types of apps and cater to huge audiences, including kids.

 

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Crossplay: Can you take me back to the original design for Talking Tom, which launched Outfit7? What were your hopes, and what surprised you about the reaction to that original experience? Did the original Talking Tom have a playtest with children, or was it just a shot in the dark? What changed as the app took off, became its own universe of characters, and started to explode in popularity?

Helder Lopes: In 2009, the mobile app market was still relatively new, and the fate of any individual app was uncertain. Talking Tom Cat, which marked the beginning of Outfit7, was just one of many app ideas the company was exploring. However, as Talking Tom Cat began to capture the hearts of users all over the world everything within the company underwent a significant transformation. In the beginning, we didn’t have formal user testing at all. We tested our apps on friends and family, and on ourselves, of course. But as the Talking Tom Cat app took off, we realized we had a real opportunity to build upon what we had. Even then, though, there was still a lot of trial and error along the way. After Talking Tom Cat, it was three years before we hit upon a formula that would take Tom to the next: My Talking Tom, your virtual friend.

What does it mean to design experiences for children? What's unique about your goals and aims?

Helder: At Outfit7, we take pride in designing experiences for a very wide audience, and for a very wide range of platforms, including My Talking Tom and My Talking Angela 2 on Apple Arcade, of course. We don’t have unique goals and aims for children, or for any other segment of our audience. One of our main goals is always to be as accessible as possible, so we focus on delivering an experience that is as intuitive as possible. Of course, that does mean that our audience includes children, and for that reason, we're committed to safeguarding children's privacy and always comply with regulations like COPPA and GDPR.

Do you consider apps like Talking Tom and My Talking Angela to be games? Play? Experiences? How do you describe the work you're creating, and how do you think of it in relation to what we call "traditional" games?

Helder: Well, My Talking Tom and My Talking Angela 2 are both on Apple Arcade for example, which is a game subscription service. So, there’s your short answer. But to elaborate, our apps go beyond traditional definitions, offering a unique form of entertainment. We blend virtual companionship, creative expression, silliness, and fun, creating a distinctive category that appeals to a wide, almost universal, audience. So yes, we think of them in all the ways you mention. They’re playful game experiences. 

How do you research what's connecting with kids? What are your playtests like? 

Helder: Our research combines user feedback and market analysis across pretty much every market segment you can think of. We also conduct internal market research and user testing with a wide variety of user groups. So, we’re always researching what’s connecting with a broad, all-ages audience of casual gamers without honing in so much on specific groups and segments. We have our own local testing labs, but we also do testing online and through agencies in other parts of the world. That way we get as broad a perspective as possible.

What feeling do you want children to have when they play something like My Talking Angela? 

Helder: We want players of all ages to feel that My Talking Angela is an inclusive and welcoming space for everyone. It's a game centered around friendship, allowing players the freedom to be themselves. With numerous care-taking, customization, and activity options, we've ensured that players can have fun in their own way. There are no right or wrong choices, and our wardrobe doesn't distinguish between "good" or "bad" styles. It's all about letting people express themselves authentically.

I feel like children's game/app/experience design is a black box to a lot of people—it's just not a world they know very much about. When you hire new people, how do you explain how it works? What's the onboarding like?

Helder: It’s not really a matter of explaining how it works. Moreover, after working here for a while, everyone sees for themselves what does and doesn’t work best for our audience. Of course, the company as a whole has over a decade of experience, so we know a lot about what does and doesn’t work based on what we’ve tried. But the mobile gaming audience changes and evolves extremely rapidly, so we never assume that something we learned a few years ago still applies today. So we sometimes give old ideas a second chance, alongside trying out new ideas.

Lastly, how do you handle complexity? With children's games, you're probably having to hold back in terms of what something like My Talking Angela is capable of, but how do you ride that fine line? How has it evolved over time?

Helder: Well, while our longer-serving team members have “evolved” a degree of instinct as to what is and isn’t too complex for our broad, casual audience, the fact is that user testing is vitally important, as is carefully monitoring player engagement once a game is out there. And if you look across our entire portfolio, there certainly is complexity of a kind. There are a lot of different things to do in our games. From simply tapping an object repeatedly in return for a reward in My Talking Tom, to playing the competitive multiplayer minigame Space Trails in My Talking Tom 2, we like to think we offer something for everyone.

Have a story idea? Want to share a tip? Got a funny parenting story? Drop Patrick an email.

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Also:

• These apps/games/experiences have never really taken off in our house. In fact, my youngest cares more about the skeleton cat we bought her from Home Depot.

• Chao Adventure was so dang cool. The whole VMU idea from the Dreamcast, where your memory card had a screen that also had games, was ahead of its time.

• Do people still play Tamagochi-likes? I guess the answer is Neopets, right?