Photos will turn yellow as time goes by, videos will stop being updated, and Emptyfish Desktop Pet wants to turn "your pet" into a digital companion that will always stay with you on the screen.
Hebei HeiYa Technology Co., Ltd. is advancing the Emptyfish Desktop Pet project. Starting from custom real pets, the project converts pet images provided by users into personalized avatars that can accompany users on commonly used digital devices, and attempts to connect pet commemoration, daily companionship and digital content consumption. According to the project team, Emptyfish Desktop Pet has generated paid orders through custom services, and some users have put forward subsequent value-added demands after the first delivery. The team hopes to expand product growth channels at this stage, and carry out cooperative pilots with pet brands, content platforms, as well as media, cultural relics and cultural tourism institutions that own their own IP avatars.
Demand for Pet Companionship Enters Daily Screens
Pet owners usually use photos, videos or physical souvenirs to preserve the memories of living with their pets. These carriers are suitable for recording, but their interactivity and continuous sense of companionship are relatively limited. On the other hand, most common digital pets adopt unified avatars and standardized content, with limited degree of personalization, making it difficult to carry the unique appearance and life memories of a real pet. The resulting demand is not simply to save a photo, but to bring the familiar pet avatar back to the mobile phone and computer screens that are used at high frequency.
Emptyfish Desktop Pet targets pet owners who attach importance to emotional connection with their pets and are willing to pay for personalized content. When the pet is still accompanying the family, the digital pet can record its appearance and habits, becoming a supplement to daily interaction; after the pet passes away, the same avatar can also be retained as a relatively restrained way of commemoration. The project does not position the product as a therapeutic tool, nor does it make medical promises for emotional improvement. Its core value still lies in personalized restoration and continuous companionship.
This demand requires the product to take into account avatar recognizability, ease of use and long-term content carrying capacity at the same time. Therefore, Emptyfish Desktop Pet does not stop delivery at a single image or a single animation, but hopes to form a digital companion product that can be continuously used and expanded. On the mobile end, the digital pet can perform basic actions such as walking, resting, sleeping, greeting and responding to touches, and also supports customizing exclusive actions according to the living habits of real pets, so that the behavior performance of the digital pet is more coherent and natural, and closer to the companionship state familiar to users.
Cross-end Product Undertakes Customization and Long-term Interaction
Emptyfish Desktop Pet is based on the pet photos and videos provided by users with authorization, and completes the customization of digital avatars according to the pet's appearance characteristics and representative habits. The project does not pursue mechanical reproduction of real pets, but through recognizable visual expression and moderate interaction, allows users to continuously see the familiar pet avatar in daily digital scenarios. The customization process retains the necessary user confirmation links to control the deviation between the delivery result and user expectations.
The product capabilities are mainly reflected in three levels: personalized content carrying, daily interaction and multi-device usage. Users can maintain lightweight interaction with their exclusive digital pets on common terminals, and can also expand content according to actual needs in the follow-up. Compared with static souvenirs delivered in one-off, this product form emphasizes more on continuous use value, and leaves room for long-term services and content updates.
According to the team, the project has been adapted for mainstream mobile and desktop ends, and continues to optimize operation stability and user experience. Cross-end capabilities help lower the threshold for users to use digital pets across different devices, but the underlying architecture, adaptation methods and data processing solutions are the core capabilities of the project and are not disclosed to the public for the time being. The project team stated that user materials are only used for the agreed customized delivery, and more complete authorization, storage and deletion rules still need to be adopted to strengthen privacy protection in the follow-up.
In addition to the software experience, the project is also exploring the combination of digital identity identifiers and physical carriers, so that the exclusive pet avatar has a clearer sense of belonging and commemorative attributes. The related forms will be gradually verified according to the resources of partners, user demands and terminal conditions, and no deterministic promises will be made for capabilities that have not yet completed verification at this stage.
Paid Customization Verifies Demand and Explores IP Cooperation
Emptyfish Desktop Pet currently generates revenue mainly through personalized customization services, and forms different service solutions according to the delivery scope. In addition to the first delivery, users can also select subsequent content updates or value-added services as needed. The specific pricing method, cost structure, production working hours and service configuration are internal business information, and the project team has not disclosed them to the public.
According to the project team, the customization service has generated real payments, and secondary payments from users for additional actions and functions have emerged. This shows that some pet owners are willing to pay for exclusive avatars and continuous interaction, but the project has not yet disclosed the user scale, number of orders, repurchase rate and revenue amount. Therefore, the commercial verification at this stage is more appropriately described as that the payment link has been fully operational, and large-scale customer acquisition and unit economy still need to be verified through subsequent operating data.
From the perspective of market boundaries, the recent target users of the project are still pet owners, and the revenue sources are concentrated in customization services and subsequent content value-added. As the product and delivery capabilities gradually mature, the same set of digital companionship capabilities can also be opened to pet brands, media, cultural relics and cultural tourism institutions, providing digital companionship scenarios for mascots, cultural images or city IPs, and exploring co-branded content and derivative cooperation. This direction is currently in the stage of cooperation expansion, which is not equivalent to the formation of stable enterprise customer revenue.
In terms of the team, Emptyfish Desktop Pet is developed by Hebei HeiYa Technology Co., Ltd., and the person in charge Fu Yuanxi participates in both product R&D and project promotion. The team currently covers product R&D, content production, user service and project operation. In the next stage, the project plans to continue to improve delivery efficiency and user experience, establish trackable user and operating indicators, and seek cooperation and verification with pet brands, content channels and institutions with mature IP resources. The project currently takes industrial resources and business cooperation as its main demands, and the specific financing arrangements have not been disclosed.