Digimon started out a little virtual pet that you had to take care of. It could die of age, hunger, sickness, or it could get injured from fighting. The series was inspired by tamogotchi. It was made in Hongo's mind "A Tamogotchi for boys...". Most of the Digimon games are in a role-playing actions game format (despite the series starting as a life simulation series), but the series also has a number of other genres including life simulation, adventure, video card game, strategy, fighting and racing games. The first actual video game Digimon World was released in 1999 on the PlayStation, before the anime, in Japan. It was later released worldwide the following year.