Our children already score goals in stadiums that don't exist, walk streets that are copies of real ones, and say goodnight to pets that never need a vet. The question is no longer whether the virtual world is coming. It is who will be raising whom.

VANCOUVER — It is a Sunday evening in an ordinary Vancouver living room. A ten-year-old is captaining a football club against an opponent in Seoul. Her younger brother is building a theme park inside a game with more daily visitors than most countries have citizens. On the kitchen counter, a palm-sized egg with a glowing face chirps. It wants attention.

None of it is real. Yet all of it is real enough.

This summer, Vancouver hosted the FIFA World Cup, and the city felt what real football does to a crowd. But while BC Place roared, a quieter revolution kept running on phones and consoles in every home. Virtual football, virtual cities and virtual pets have each crossed from novelty to infrastructure. Taken together, they are reshaping how the next generation plays, belongs and loves.

The beautiful game, rendered

Virtual football is now a mass habit, even if it is not yet a mass spectator sport. EA Sports FC 26 sold nine million copies in its first week, and its successor, FC 27, landed on September 25.

The professional side is growing too. The FC Pro World Championship ran July 22, 2026 in Paris, where 36 players competed for US$1.5 million, the richest prize pool in the game's e-sports history. The previous season logged 41 million hours watched before its final. Programs like these introduce students to real-world technical skills like coding, game design, video production, and digital literacy

Yet here is the twist most headlines miss. Football is the world's biggest sport but one of its smallest esports. The all-time viewing peak for EA's football esports, about 340,000 concurrent viewers, was set back in 2023. In January 2026, Twitch audiences averaged roughly 26,000. EA does not try to beat the real game; it schedules its big releases around the real tournaments.

So what is the virtual pitch really for? For millions of kids, it is the training ground of fandom. They learn the players, the tactics and the club badges with a controller long before they buy a stadium ticket. The pixel game does not replace the grass. It recruits for it.

Cities with a twin

The second trend is bigger than any game: whole cities are being copied into software. An "urban digital twin" is a living 3D replica fed by traffic cameras, sensors, satellites and weather data, so planners can test a flood, a bridge closure or a new transit line before it even happens. Digital twins integrate with municipal Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and land-use databases. The moment a demolition or construction permit is approved, the twin logs the upcoming phase, so it stays up-to-date.

The money is serious. Virtual Singapore, the first national-scale twin, cost about SGD 73 million. Saudi Arabia's NEOM has set aside US$1.8 billion for its twin, and Britain's transport department has budgeted up to £30 million for a national transport twin through 2030 (Treeview). In August, Saudi authorities approved a platform that maps Riyadh, Mecca and three other cities to roughly 10-centimetre accuracy.

The United Nations now has a word for it: the "citiverse," debated this May at its 3rd UN Virtual Worlds Day in Geneva. 11–12 May 2026. Meanwhile, Wiesbaden (in Germany) lets visitors take virtual camera flights through its digital twin to tour more than 30 World Design Capital 2026 projects.

Children, meanwhile, already live in a virtual city of their own. Roblox reported 144 million daily active users at the end of 2025. Roughly a third of its verified daily users are under 13, and in January it introduced mandatory facial age verification. For many kids, it is the town square, the playground and the mall rolled into one.

The Tamagotchi grows up

Remember the 1990s Tamagotchi that died if you forgot to feed it? It is back, and now it talks. At CES in January, startup Takway unveiled Sweekar, an egg-shaped pocket pet with AI memory. It recognizes its owner's voice, grows through four life stages and eventually wanders off on virtual adventures, returning with stories. It is expected to sell for US$100 to $150.

Others go further. Japan's Ludens AI showed Cocomo, a robot pet that follows you around the home and learns what comforts you and what makes you laugh. The app Pengu, reportedly the biggest AI character app in the U.S., requires two people to raise each pet together. Consumers spent more than a billion dollars on AI companions in 2025.

This is where lawmakers have started to pay attention. California's companion-chatbot law took effect on January 1. In April, a U.S. Senate committee unanimously advanced the GUARD Act, which would require age verification and bar AI companions that simulate emotional relationships for anyone under 18; it still awaits a full Senate vote. The line between a cute digital pet and an emotional AI companion is exactly where the next legal fights will be.

Where this is taking our children and grandchildren

The three trends are converging into one: a persistent virtual layer over everyday life. The game, the city and the companion are merging. Picture a child in 2040 whose AI pet knows her mood, who meets friends in a digital copy of her own neighbourhood, and who scouts her favourite club's next signing in a simulation before it happens.

The promise is real. Children who build worlds in Roblox are learning to code. Kids who walk through a city's digital twin may one day vote with a better grasp of transit, housing and climate risk than any generation before. A shy child may practise friendship on a pet that never mocks her. Grandparents may play a match with a grandchild on another continent.

So are the risks. Attention is the business model, and a pet that never sleeps can be designed never to let go. Children's data — voices, faces, routines, moods — is the raw material. And a companion that always agrees teaches nothing about the friction of real friendship.

What will matter most is not the technology but the rules and habits we wrap around it. Four questions for families, schools and governments:

  1. Who owns the relationship? If a child loves a virtual pet, the company that hosts it holds the leash.
  2. What is it optimised for? Learning and well-being, or minutes on screen?
  3. Does it lead back outside? The best virtual football sends kids to the real pitch; the best city twin makes them care about the real street.
  4. Where is Canada? U.S. states are writing companion-chatbot laws now. Canadian families deserve a clear answer on how their children are protected here.

The virtual world will not wait for us to make up our minds. Our grandchildren will not remember a time before it. The task for this generation of parents and grandparents is simple to state and hard to do: make sure the screen remains a window, not a wall.

Elke Porter at:
Westcoast German Media
LinkedIn: Elke Porter or
WhatsApp:  +1 604 828 8788.
Public Relations. Communications. Education

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TAGS: #VirtualWorlds #DigitalTwin #EAFC #Roblox #AIPets #Parenting #FutureOfPlay #Vancouver

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