It might be time to log in to your neopets account again.
neopets, a virtual pet website that first launched in 1999, is certainly not the phenomenon it was in the early days of the internet. I have fond memories of the site, as a kid, I remember spending hours taking care of my character of Lupe, who looks like a dog, but I haven’t paid much attention to it. neopets for two decades because much of the site felt stuck in the past. Much of neopetsThe design is from 2005, many of the older games built on Adobe Flash no longer work, and some of the more recent attempts to revive interest, including an NFT project, feel out of place in their own way.
The many dedicated fans who still visit the site received some promising news this week. The team behind neopets has become an independent company, promises a “new era” for the game, and plans to make some changes quickly: a new home page launched on Thursday, and many fixed games will arrive on July 25. “We’re definitely ready to go full steam ahead and hopefully we can get Neopets back to its glory days,” says Dominic Law, CEO of the new World of Neopia, Inc., in an interview with the edge.
Although neopets Nearly 24 years old and well past its prime, the site still sees quite a bit of traffic: Law tells me that Neopets has “close to a million” monthly active users, and that number “has been really consistent” over the past few years. “Our community is very strong,” he says. Even though the site has languished, there is “a really loyal fanbase that has stuck around.”
With the new home page, the company wants to bring neopets return to one neopets, a kind of team experience for our users,” says Law. He talked about how, recently, there have been multiple neopets initiatives or projects running at the same time, but the teams have been working in silos. “At the end of the day, we are the same IP, we are the same brand, and we want to make sure that our users experience the best part of all games under one umbrella.”
Over the next year, much of the team’s efforts will be focused on fixing the classic Neopets site to fix basic issues like broken links. “There is a lot of technology debt,” says Law. That includes making many of the older games built in Adobe Flash work with the steering wheel emulator; neopets says that more than 50 games will be playable starting July 25. The team also plans to relaunch its island builders city simulator mobile game in the first quarter of next year, is working on neopets worlda new 3D open world game, and will release updates for its tic tac toe mobile puzzle game, Neopets: the hope of the fairies.
The new home page is live now, and in my opinion, it is much better. There are clear tabs for the classic. neopets, the hope of the fairies, island buildersand World of Neopets. there are useful “About” Sectionsincluding a revamped page with details on the real creatures of Neopet. There’s even a timeline of neopets‘ history. (She had forgotten that there was a neopets ps2 game, the darkest fairy.) However, if you dig deeper into the classic neopets browser gameYou won’t see a fresh coat of paint; that part of the site still uses its old design.
The new address means that neopets is moving from he Neopets Metaverse game, and Law tells me that Web3 and blockchain technologies are “not a focus for Neopets right now.” I also asked if neopets is looking at AI, another hot topic, and while Law says that “as IP, we always want to explore new technologies,” the team has “no plans on that front.”
Right now, Neopets need to find a way to be self-sustaining.
The long-term goal for the new team behind neopets is to “extend IP and revive it and let it live for another 25 years,” says Law. His personal vision is to make neopets in a franchise that would be recognized by its own children. But in the short term, the neopets The team needs to find a way to “be self-sustaining as an independent entity.” Right now, neopets it brings in cash through a few different avenues, including sales of the Neocash virtual currency, generating money from ads on its website, and earning revenue from licensing its merchandise. (Law sees a “medium” term goal in reviving neopets‘ licensing strategy.)
I asked Law why players like me who may have fallen should go back to neopets. “To be honest, nostalgia is definitely a thing,” she says. He suggests going back to say hello to his pets or play the games he might have spent time with as a child. He acknowledges that inactive users probably won’t play the old games like they did as kids, so he hopes the new neopets the games will be interesting for returning players.
