The Surprising Impact Of Petting Virtual Dogs
In terms of pets, dogs might be the ones that inspire the most empathy, love and care not only out of their owners during cockapoo grooming but also bystanders and passers-by.
A large part of the reason for this is that dogs seem to possess an infinite, unconditional love for people, and will form exceptionally powerful connections with them.
There is a delight to petting dogs, to the point that many computer games will include points where people can pet dogs that are depicted within them and an entire social media account is dedicated to chronicling the times in computer games when you can pet animals.
However, whilst “Can You Pet The Dog?” is amusing and sweet, it has also had a considerable impact on how video games have been made and, much like dogs in real life, how they can create and inspire empathy.
The original account was formed out of frustration with a lack of interactive empathy. In the post-apocalyptic action game The Division 2, there are countless stray dogs that the player can see, but these dogs cannot be petted by players, leading to frustration, sadness and anger that you cannot provide even the smallest of comforts.
He launched the account initially to highlight cases of major games where a dog appears and it is impossible to pet them, which is often seen as a sign of neglect in the minor details of a game and can potentially break the immersion of a game world.
Typically its impact has been positive, but there are cases where it has caused issues for developers, most notably Supergiant Games and the game Hades.
Given the focus on beautiful animations in that game, the team noted that to add the ability for the main character Zagreus to pet the three-headed dog Cerberus, other animations had to be removed or reduced.
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