Yes, you read that right. My cat has become obsessed with playing an iPad game developed for Purina's Friskies brand of cat food. At first, I thought Cat Fishing was just a novelty; surely she'd grow tired of it after a few days. Nope. We're coming up on two months since she first tried the game, and she still tackles it with the same amount of enthusiasm.

My cat now seems to be under the impression that when one of us humans is using the iPad, we're playing her game. And she wants in, too. She strains her neck, climbs on the furniture, or meows inquisitively as if to say, "Can I play?"

I've been spotted.

The game itself is quite simple. You tap the screen to start, and a brightly-colored fish appears on a backdrop that resembles a small pond. It swims around in circles and figure eights. If you tap the fish, it swims back into the depths; if you tap anywhere else, a ripple of virtual water propagates outwards from the point of contact while the screen shimmers slightly. When one fish disappears, another emerges, the next one moves a little faster than the one before, and no two are the same color. After "catching" ten fish, you win.

My cat's first reaction on seeing the game was one of excited wonderment. How did those fish get in there? How do we get them out? Like a curious and determined child, the cat tried everything she could think of to catch her potential prey. Then she tried to find them when they disappeared.

She snapped her mouth at the virtual fish. She tried to look underneath the iPad. She came at it from different angles. She sniffed and probed at the screen. Nothing worked.

Perhaps not the most effective strategy.

The ongoing mystery of where the fish come from, where they go to, and how they live inside that screen has not yet diminished her enthusiasm. Sometimes she likes to just watch them swim. (There was some alarm the first few times the screen went to sleep from inactivity, as the fish suddenly disappeared.) Other times, she works herself into a frenzy, desperately clawing and grabbing at the screen. Much to our amusement, the kitty even tries the old surprise attack routine: She hides or pretends to be cleaning herself, and then she suddenly pounces at the iPad.

My cat hasn't caught any actual fish yet, but she's getting awfully good at getting these virtual ones. She has figured out how to start the game, provided we get it set up for her first, and she has tried to press the home button to wake up the iPad (to no avail -- our feline compatriot's lack of dexterity keeps us safe from the catpocalypse).

Cat Fishing in action. She isn't always this lazy, I swear.

Much to my concern, she also looks at my MacBook Air, which is only slightly bigger than an iPad, with that excited, unpredictable anticipation. I now fear leaving my laptop on with the screen unattended; I'm worried she might try to get her game running on there. The screen on a MacBook Air is not anywhere near as sturdy as that of an iPad -- it has no glass covering, and it is susceptible to scratching.

This behavior has got me wondering: How can game companies be ignoring this enormous untapped market? A cursory search reveals only a fledgling industry for cat-targeted video games -- pioneered by Hiccup's iPad Game for Cats.

It seems just a matter of time before we are inundated with cat games. Who knows what the cats will do if we don't give in to their demands. Cats already control the Internet, so why not the game industry too?

No iPads were harmed in the writing of this article.