Now, I’m not really complaining about the video games, or the multiple mediocre anime series, the cards, or even that Tamagochi like “Digivice” thing; you know that one got thrown at the back of my head in maths class, yeah that one. I am complaining about the unfulfilled potential, the idea behind Digimon had.

When I first heard of Digimon my initial thoughts were something to the beat of: “Oh great! Another Pokémon clone”, and at a time when Nintendos rinse and repeat MO for hawking their games had just started to exhaust my patience/wallet. I think few people would argue that Digimon wasn’t always in Pokemon’s shadow. The similar visual styles, target audience, and market space made comparisons almost unavoidable.

However, Digimon unlike Pokémon had it’s core principals rooted in reality (technically Pokémon can be a reality one day; but I doubt we’d go to such unethical/expensive means, just to see giraffe-dogs fight). Digimon (the monsters that is) on the other hand are little more than lines of <insert your favourite programming language here> code. That’s why they can evolve then revert to their original forms, as well as trans-mutate with the additions of certain items (expansion packages, I assume).

So, if you can ignore all the fictional elements of the media (anime series mostly); things like the physical manifestations of digital programs, like when the Digiguys moved into the real world from the digital world, or the digitisation of physical matter bollocks, like when the kids popped into the digital world to have a wee look around; then there is little about Digimon that can’t be effectively replicated in real life. The Digiworld for example is not that different from those in an MMO (massively multiplayer online) game; a (semi)centralised unit with multiple access vectors. Imagine how interesting it would have been if instead of hawking a plethora of franchised tat at us until we got sick of the whole thing and lost interest; the string pullers behind Digimon instead decided to use their money to make an MMO, a real Digiworld, a huge sprawling thing of an island, that you can explore as your Digifellow of choice.

Let’s face it though, if an MMO was indeed made it’ll probably suck. Why such a dim view of MMOs you may ask? Well, it’s because they are one of the most expensive games to create, fiscally as well as in time. And quite a bit can go wrong in a long development cycle. Anything from funding being pulled, game engine falling out of date (it happens), to audiences losing interest after playing the game during a long Alpha or Beta release phase and moving on. However usually because MMOs are so expensive to produce, the people producing them, rather understandably, are less inclined to take risks while doing so, this then leads to a reduction of new ideas and innovations. Instead, producers tend to merely reiterate previously proven formulae of success. Ever wonder why there are so many MMOs that are like World of Warcraft? Unfortunately this has lead many people to misunderstand the term MMO, it is more of a definition of a medium than a specific genre of video game.

I suppose the real reason why I am disappointed in Digimon isn’t so much because they didn’t make a game, that in my opinion would’ve been a real-world manifestation of the concept of Digimon; it is more because like most franchises that primarily target children and young teens, it became a fad that came, had it’s rather brief time in the sun and then went; but in doing so it salted the ground for that concept. The idea of creating a digital world, with it’s own denizens, cultures, beliefs, weather, it’s own set of rules that may not necessarily reflect, either directly or in abstraction, our own worlds. A digital world that didn’t pretend to be anything other than what it really was, a world that is digital. In other words, unlike other MMOs that have come out, Ever Quest, Raiderz, Grand Fantasia, to name but a few that I’ve played in the past, as the player you wouldn’t have to suspend your disbelief to enjoy the fantasy of the worlds existence; because it actually exists.

The reason why I think Digimon is ultimately something of a bastion of unfulfilled potential is twofold; one, it had excellent ground work (all them cute monsters and that, as well as the island) for creating an interesting game world where the fantasy was more akin to an extension of our own reality than anything; and two, in being as popular as it was, it has somewhat claimed dominion over the idea of digital beings and worlds to the point that if a new company with considerable resources decided to create something along those lines, i.e. a digital game world, they would undoubtedly be compared to Digimon, likely thought as little more than a reiteration of Digimon and its ideas, thus making the creation of such a world less likely in the foreseeable future.

But you never know, I could be wrong, I really hope I am. Such a thing if done right (and I wouldn’t presume to know what that is), could be a very interesting prospect. Especially, in my opinion: if they created more of an interactive world, than a video game. By that I mean a platform, with tools for the creation of user generated content; in order to build the sort of world where people can genuinely build a home for their avatar, fight for territory, produce resources to sell, steal irreplaceable items, kill characters with real history. The sort of world that can develop it’s own social hierarchy, economy, and justice system; in a fluid and natural way. The sort of digital world that can just as easily be enjoyed by players, as it can be studied for insight into how such societal systems can come to be and develop as they mature.