Legendary video game designer Masaya Matsuura often kept a Sony Aibo robotic dog in his office for employees to care for and play with.
One day, in order to test Aibo's attraction to the color pink, a programmer tied a pink ball to a wire and attached it to Aibo's head so that it dangled directly in front of his face. Unsurprisingly, Aibo continued to walk forward in pursuit of the ball.
More surprisingly, so upset was a female employee by the "torture" of Aibo that she sent a memo to Matsuura damanding a full investigation!
Sources
Masaya Matsuura, "What are the Cultural Borderlines of Games?? (Convention speech, March 22, 2001)
