Neopets, a once popular website in the early 2000s, where users raised adorable virtual pets by battling them, feeding them, reading to them, and more, has had a consistently declining player base over the years. This can be attributed to a player base that has aged out, a mostly disliked conversion of the pet artwork to make them customizable, and then the heavy monetization. As a result, the end of Flash, which the website heavily relied on, and the heavily disliked NFT project.
Still, to this day, the website maintains a loyal fanbase that still plays all these years later and has demonstrated a love of the IP throughout the many highs and lows that Neopets has weathered.
Neopets Revival is a Passion Project by Developers and Players
After being sold by its original owners, Donna and Adam, Neopets has been passed around by multiple companies. Gradually moving away from what players had liked about the game in the first place, removing what was most popular such as Key Quest and the Habitarium, and clearly having a tremendous reliance on cash shop items with each update having a heavy focus on Neocash items. This dissonance between players and staff came to a head when the NFT project went ahead despite loud protests from the players that this was not what they wanted and would be a breaking point for them, with many following through and leaving the game entirely when Neopets did not back down.
It was a welcome surprise to players that Neopets announced that it was making a comeback. The new leadership team “Word of Neopets” is made up of both developers and longtime players and headed by Dominic Law, a player himself potentially single-handedly saved Neopets by pushing for it to be saved after the company that owned it, Jumpstart, closed down on June 30, 2023.
The team immediately announced issues that they plan to address alongside this change. The leadership team is putting four million dollars into the project. The big issues that they are tackling are fixing the current issues with the website, which are largely a result of Adobe Flash ending. Neopets, right until the end, relied heavily on Flash, and the conversion to HTML5 has been incredibly slow. As of the time of writing, there is still a mix of updated pages, original pages, and pages that do not load at all. Alongside this, most of the games still are yet to be converted to HTML5 and do not work.
Neopets Will See Many Much-Needed Updates
World of Neopets plans to provide a stream of new content on the website, and a new plot has been teased to immediate fan excitement. The mention of reviving old game modes has many players hopeful that Habitarium and Key Quest both will be reinstated. Communication is another issue that has been lacking in the past, and they mentioned that they will be holding monthly AMA sessions.
They also mentioned that support will be addressed. Support tickets are in drastic need of a revamp, with players often waiting months or more to get their ticket reviewed by staff. This will be a welcome change to players still waiting to access their old accounts after 2FA was implemented by force. On the games front, they announced that they would be using Ruffle to bring back 50 of the games that are yet to be converted to HTML5. These will be available on July 25, 2023.
Players can breathe a collective sigh of relief knowing that the Neopets Metaverse, the disdained NFT project has been officially scrapped by the new team.
We also took a long, hard look at community feedback on Neopets Metaverse, and it quickly became clear that the game just didn’t line up with everything that made Neopets… well… Neopets!
WoRLD OF nEOPETS tEAM, jULY 17, 2023
World of Neopets have stated that prior to this announcement, they have already seen success with the roadmap that they laid out last year. In particular, support ticket backlog has decreased by 80%, and with the new team in place, they have made significant progress on the roadmap itself. From July 20, 2023, players will be able to view the roadmap itself when the leadership team launches a new central hub for the Neopets brand. Bringing the main Neopets website, World of Neopets, and other spinoffs such as Island Builder’s and Faerie’s Hope together. World of Neopets also plans to invest in merchandise and physical collectors’ items. In 2024, they will be continuing the Neopets trading card game of yesteryear, with more information to be provided in the near future.
World of Neopets itself will be a brand new mobile-based game that has the player exist as a Neopet whilst they explore Neopia. Touted as a social life-simulation game, it will include everything that players love and expect from Neopets: questing, Neohomes, games, and more. It is yet to be seen how the app will coexist with the Neopets website, but information seems promising thus far.
The World of Neopets Team Needs Your Help
All of that said, even with the new team, four-million-dollar investment, and revamping of the website. World of Neopets has stated that they need your help. Neopets cannot thrive without a player base. The team asks that you log on, interact with the site, and discuss it on social media. The number of people confused when this announcement came to be clearly illustrated that Neopets has a long way to go to have an online presence today. Talking about it on social media is one way to help build the community back up so that players can enjoy Neopia for many years to come.
If you are a current Neopets player or someone who has logged in or made a new account due to this announcement, make sure that you enter the Neopets 2,000,000 Neocash giveaway that is live July 17, 2023, until August 6, 2023.
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