Petz Beach

The original Petz games — Dogz: Your Computer Pet and Catz: Your Computer Pet—were developed by PF.Magic, released in 1995 and 1996 respectively. They reused the graphics engine used in Ballz. Rob Fulop conceived of Dogz, following the controversy surrounding his previous title Night Trap, which resulted in him wanting to make a game that was "so cute and so adorable that no could ever, ever say it was bad for kids". He claims to have consulted a shopping mall Santa Claus about what children wanted, and was informed that puppies were the most popular request every year.

Following the success the company, instead of continuing to branch out into other household pets, developed Oddballz, focused on Chimeraic and mutatable creatures. This would release along with sequels to the Dogz and Catz.

The original software was generally well received, with The Salt Lake Tribune giving 1995's Dogz 4 out of 5 stars, and PC Zone and Entertainment Weekly giving Catz an 8/10 and B+ respectively. However, later games were less well received, in particularly compared to other virtual pet experiences that were available, with the 1999 Game Boy Color games negatively compared to Tamagotchi, and 2005's Dogz for the Game Boy Advance, being seen as an attempt to ape Nintendogs.

By 2007, Joystiq recommended buying games in the series only for "people you hate". On the other hand, a 2008 feature in Game Developer opined that Ubisoft's "casual titles"—specifically mentioning the Petz and Imagine series—had distinguished themselves by being "well-made non-shovelware" that didn't try to "take advantage of the innocence of the target market."