Neopets
Encyclopedia
Neopets is a virtual pet website
that was launched by Adam Powell and Donna Williams on November 15, 1999. Two years after the web site was launched, Adam Powell and Donna Williams sold a majority share to a consortium of investors led by Doug Dohring
. On June 20, 2005, Viacom
bought Neopets, Inc. for US$
160 million.
Neopets allows the creation of virtual pets that inhabit the virtual world
of Neopia. Visitors can create an account and take care of up to four virtual pets, buying them food, toys, clothes, and other accessories using the virtual currency
called Neopoints, and Neocash. Neopoints can be earned through playing games, investing in the game's stock market
, trading, and winning contests, while Neocash must be purchased with money, although certain events may allow users to earn Neocash for free. Users can explore the world of Neopia with their Neopets and interact with each other through the Neoboards, NeoMail, guilds, and Key Quest.
Neopets also operates a pay-to-play version known as Neopets Premium, which offers additional features and benefits including Neopets Webmail, The Super Shop Wizard and access to the Premium Boards for a monthly fee of US$7.99. Neopets, Inc. produces and sells a wide variety of Neopets merchandise, such as plushies (discontinued), stickers, notebooks, three video games, and a trading card game
.
. Powell had started UK-based advertising company Shout! Advertising in 1996, which grew to be the third largest click-through program on the Internet by 1999. He also co-founded Netmagic, an online banner advertising design and sales firm and Powlex Ltd., a web site design firm. Donna Williams was a marketing manager for Shout! Advertising well flying from September 1997 to July 1999 responsible for internet advertising, sales and services, graphic and web design. Powell and Williams started creating the site in September 1999 and launched it two months later on 15 November 1999 from offices in Portsmouth Road, Guildford opposite Ye Olde Ship Inn Pub, still commemorated in the site in the form of a neolodge and a Pizzaroo producing the strangest pizzas. Powell was responsible for the programming and database, and Williams the web design and art. The site grew by word of mouth
and by Christmas
of 1999, they received 600,000 page view
s daily and sought investment to cover the high cost of running the site. The same month, Doug Dohring
was introduced to the creators of the site and, along with other investors, bought a majority share in January of the following year. Neopets, Inc. was created in February 2000 and began business the 28th in April. The website made profit from the first paying customers for an advertising method trademarked as "immersive advertising", touted as "an evolutionary step forward in the traditional marketing practice of product placement
" in television and film.
Media conglomerate
Viacom
purchased Neopets, Inc. on 20 June 2005 for $160 million and announced plans to focus more on the use of banner ads over the site's existing immersive advertising. On the first day of the 2006 FIFA World Cup
, the Altador Cup started as an annual international online gaming event and had 10.4 million participants the first year. The entire Neopets site was redesigned on 27 April 2007. On 17 July 2007, a new section of the site, the NC Mall, was launched in a partnership with Korean gaming company Nexon Corporation
. The next day, Viacom announced that by the end of 2008, Neopets, Inc would be renamed to NeoStudios, "which will focus on developing new virtual world gaming experiences online, while continuing to grow and evolve the existing ones." On June 17, 2008, Viacom formed the Nickelodeon Kids & Family Virtual Worlds Group
to "encompass all paid and subscription gaming initiatives across all relevant platforms", including Neopets.
To date, since August 2003, the site has been translated into ten other written languages: Japanese
, Traditional and Simplified Chinese, Spanish
, German
, Italian
, Korean
, Portuguese
, Dutch
and French
. However, Neopets announced on 1 January 2009 that the Italian, Japanese, and Korean areas of the site would no longer be updated.
In July 2009, the Neopets site was the target of an identity theft
hacking scheme that attempted to trick users into clicking a link that would allow them to gain items or neopoints. Upon doing so, malware
is installed on the user's computer. According to reports, the hack is aiming not at child player's Neopets accounts, but at using the malware to steal the financial data and identities of their parents. Viacom stated that it was investigating the issue, and that the hack was a version of social engineering
rather than an "indictment of Neopets security practices". In an on-site newsletter for players, Neopets denied the report and claimed that the site's security measures prevented the posting of such links.
In June 2011, Neopets announced that the website had reached 1 trillion page views since its creation.
. It also has its own economy
and stock market based on the Neopoint. Players earn Neopoints through various means including playing games and selling items. Once earned, they can be invested or used to buy various goods and services.
Upon visiting the site, visitors can create a free account
. Users may create up to five accounts per email but the rules state that only one account may be used to earn Neopoints; that account is referred to as a "main" and the rest as "sides". A user then creates a Neopet out of the available 54 and chooses its unique name, physical characteristics, and personality and may own up to four per account. When creating a neopet, users may pick between three sets of randomly rolled stats
used for battling in the Battledome. Players are expected to feed and care for their Neopets when they grow hungry or ill, although they will not die if they are neglected. New users start out with a newbie pack of various items that introduce basic features of the site, such as food for feeding a pet. More items can be bought from other users or from non-player character
s' shops.
Users are free to choose their own path in the world of Neopia, which could include collecting items, battling other Neopets, doing quests, playing games and more. Users can interact with their Neopets by reading books to them, caring for them, and playing with them. They can train their Neopets to be fighters in the Battledome against other player's Neopets or against non-player characters. Wearable items, such as certain clothing, can be used to customise a Neopet. Players can build a customisable Neohome for their Neopets and furnish it with furniture, wallpaper, and flooring.
Users found breaking the rules set in the Terms and Conditions may be sent a warning, have their account suspended, be temporarily blocked, or have their account permanently deactivated ("frozen"). If the owner of a "frozen" account finds the reason for deactivation invalid, they may email the Neopets support team and possibly regain access of their account, although such cases are rare. Recently, as of 2010, a new punishment has been created by The Neopets Team (TNT), called "silencing". When your account is "silenced", you can still play games, earn neopoints, and use most aspects of the website. But, "silencing" blocks your ability to communicate in anyway with other users (Neomailing, using the boards, editing your profile, etc.) This, just like suspending, can be temporary, or you can be permanently silenced, similar to having your account frozen.
to the site. Player contributions come in the form of prescreened submissions and readily editable content that is automatically filtered, such as the site's weekly electronic newspaper "The Neopian Times". There are different types of submissions that will be accepted.
and Shockwave games, PHP
games, 3D Life Player games, contests and spotlights, and quests to retrieve items.
Neopoints can be earned from playing games, most of which have a set maximum of earnings or playtime. Players may also earn trophies for their trophy cabinet from games if they score high enough for the Hi-Score Tables, which are reset on the first day of each month. Challenges may be made against other players or random players in a "World Challenge" for a prize piece for certain Flash games. A monthly competition also exists for multiplayer PHP games with four week-long elimination rounds.
Neopets offers several different contests and spotlights, where winners are chosen by judges on the Neopets staff or voted on by members of the Neopets community. Contests include several formats, such as writing a story, making a short animated film or drawing a picture of their Neopet. Spotlights showcase what users have done with customisable content. Winners also receive a trophy and a reward, which varies with the contest or spotlight.
In Australia, a cross-promotion with McDonald's
where McDonald's promoted Neopets plushies in their Happy Meal and Neopets featured McDonald's-related content led to a controversy with Neopets' luck/chance games in October 2004. A story on the Australian tabloid television
show Today Tonight
featured a nine-year-old boy who claimed that the site requires one to gamble in order to receive enough Neopoints to feed one's Neopet or else it would be sent to the Pound. While this is factually incorrect (gambling is not required, nor are pets ever sent to an orphanage if they are not fed), it is true that the website has a number of games of chance that are directly based on real-life games such as blackjack
and lottery scratchcard
s. After this incident, Neopets began prohibiting users under the age of 13 from playing most games that involve gambling.
Neopets Premium is an extended version of the site, for which members pay for monthly or yearly subscriptions. With Premium membership, external ads are removed and certain benefits are added, like extra Neopoints, Premium only forums, own Premium emails and access to beta versions
of games. Neopets Mobile was a simpler version of the site using a web-to-wireless application developed by In-Fusio. Initially released to Cingular/AT&T, it allowed access from a mobile phone
where users got exclusive access to Lutari Island and other exclusive content but has since been discontinued.
The NC Mall allows players to buy items used mainly for customising their Neopets or Neohomes using Neocash. Players must purchase Neocash with real money through PayPal
. Customers in the United States can also buy Neocash cards at Target
stores, the Target website, and at selected Wal-mart
stores. The Mall was created through a partnership with Nexon
, which also handles the sale of NX Cash used in the analogous "Cash Shop" of MapleStory
. It was initially released for beta on 28 June 2007 and then fully released to players in the United States on 17 July. Two months later, it expanded to English users in other countries. Most Neocash purchased items remain with the buyer permanently, but could not be transferred or sold to other players until recently, when the gift box was introduced. A few items have expiration times, after which they disappear from the buyer's accounts.
In February 2008, Neopets announced Key Quest, a feature that will engage users by having them buy Neopets merchandise at Target and other stores, using a virtual code to redeem tokens for their user accounts. However, people with no merchandise can play as well.
In part one of the Krawk Island disappearance event of 2011, players get mysterious treasure chests during the search for the missing Island. The only way to open this chest is to buy a key from the NC Mall and use it on the treasure chest. Doing so, the player would receive an exclusive prize.
that are provided by the website, as players cannot upload their own. To comply with COPPA
, players under 13 years of age cannot access any of the site's communication features without sending in parental consent. The main features include:
Discussions through these features are restricted and may not involve topics such as dating and romance or controversial topics like politics and religion. Continuous moderation is performed by paid Neopets staff members, and users can help moderate the site by reporting messages they believe are inappropriate or offensive. Messages are also automatically filtered
to prevent users from posting messages with profanity or lewd content.
+ Only available to users over 13 and/or has sent in a parental consent(COPPA) form via Fax or mail.
A useful part of this community is the Help Chat, a place where users will give advice and guidance to other users in need. It's a good starting point for newbies, along with the Newbie Board. The Help Chat even has it's own guild, The HC Guild.
On that userlookup, there are also links to each user's shop and gallery. In a shop, users can purchase items from one another. A gallery is used to display collections that users accumulate throughout their time on the site. On each Neopet's page, users can see the pet's statistics such as level, strength, and intelligence. Also, battledome statistics are listed along with whether or not that Neopet has a petpet.
of Neopets. They follow a storyline depicted by short animated films or (in recent years) comic strips. Plots usually unveil significant additions or changes to the site, most often a new world to visit. There are also mini plots, which are not as significant. Users who participate may be asked to choose a side, solve puzzles, or battle with their Neopets.
A list of past plots
. The event mostly takes place sometime at mid-May and ends about a week after the Fourth of July. In the Altador Cup, players are divided into teams and accumulate points for their respective team. Winning teams (and the team they were up against) for each year are:
bought the site. Instead of running pop-up
and banner ads, immersive ads integrate advertisements into the site's content in interactive forms, including games and items. Players can earn Neopoints from them by doing things such as playing advergames and taking part in online marketing surveys. Prior to the arrival of the NC Mall, it contributed to 60% of the revenue from the site with paying Fortune 1000
companies including Disney
, General Mills
, and McDonald's
.
It was a contentious issue with the site with regard to the ethics of marketing to children. Half a million of the 25 million users were under the age of eight in 2005 and children under eight have difficulty recognizing ads. It draws criticism from parents, psychologists, and consumer advocates who argue that children may not know that they are trying to be sold something, as it blurs the line between site content and advertisement. A psychology professor at Georgetown University
stated, "It's self marketing, selling to kids that don't know they are seeing anything". Dohring responded to such criticism:
Others criticised the functionality of the site. Susan Linn, another psychologist and author of Consuming Kids: The Hostile Takeover of Childhood said, "The whole purpose of this site at this point is to keep kids in front of products". Kalle Lasn
, editor-in-chief and co-founder of Adbusters
magazine, said the site was "encouraging kids to spend hours in front of the screen and at the same time recruiting them into consumer culture", which was "the most ingenious mind-fuck ever". Neopets executives have stated in 2004 and 2006 that paid content comprised less than 1% of the site's total content. Children are not required to play or use sponsor games and items.
Consumer advocates also argue that immersive ads should be clearly labelled as advertisements. Dohring has said, "We're not trying to be subliminal or deceive the user. We label all the immersive ad campaigns as paid advertisements."
and the Pokémon
franchise. It has been described as an online cross of Pokémon and Tamagotchi. The website maintains high "stickiness" rankings, which is a measure of the amount of time a user spends on the site. Neopets has been praised for having educational content, such as word games and an HTML
guide. Its popularity spawned real world plushies, a magazine, book series, cereal, and merchandise in other media as well.
A press release from Neopets in 2001 stated that Neopets.com led in site "stickiness"
in May and June, with the average user spending 117 minutes a week. Neopets also led in the average number of hours spent per user per month in December 2003 with an average of 4 hours and 47 minutes. A 2004 article stated that Nielsen//NetRatings
reported that people were spending around three hours a month on Neopets, more than any other site in its Nielsen category. By May 2005, a Neopets-affiliated video game producer cited about 35 million unique users, 11 million unique IP addresses per month, and 4 billion web page views per month. This producer also described 20% of the users as 18 or older, with the median of the remaining 80% at about 14. Neopets was consistently ranked among the top ten "stickiest" sites by both Nielsen//NetRatings and comScore Media Metrix
in 2005 and 2006. According to Nielsen//NetRatings, in 2007, Neopets lost about 15% of its audience over the previous year. In February 2008, comScore ranked it as the stickiest kids entertainment site with the average user spending 2 hours and 45 minutes per month.
Most of the users are female, higher than in other massively multiplayer online game
s (MMOGs) but equivalent to social-networking-driven communities. Lucy Bradshaw, a vice president of Electronic Arts
, said, "Games that have a tendency to satisfy on more than one dimension have a tendency to have a broader appeal and attract girls".
, Target
, and Limited Too. There are also exclusively online retailers involved, such as Zazzle
. Each merchandise has a prize code which can be redeemed at the site for an in-game reward. Neopets had planned to "bring the online and offline worlds together in ways that have never been done before". An investment banker at Allen & Company
in New York said Neopets was the only online media he had seen "that might have the ability to capture market share in the offline world". Neopets signed a licensing deal with Viacom Consumer Products in 2001 to get the right developers and publishers for their offline content. A deal with Thinkway Toys produced the first merchandise brought to an international market. Offline products expanded in 2005 with film and video game deals. In February 2008, offline products were further expanded when it was announced that Jakks Pacific
and Enterplay would produce a new line of merchandise, including new plushies and trading cards, to tie into Key Quest.
Wizards of the Coast
released the Neopets Trading Card Game
in September 2003 based on the online characters and setting. In 2004, the cards were promoted in three of General Mills "Big G" cereals and ten Simon Property Group
malls. The TCG received two different nominations for "Toy of the Year" and two other recognitions.
Neopets: The Official Magazine, published by Beckett Media
, was a bi-monthly magazine released in September 2003. The magazine was sold through a subscription service and in stores, with back issues available for order on the magazine web site. The magazine's features included Neopet games, stories, guides to the Flash games on the Neopets site, news on upcoming site events and merchandise, and drawings for readers. It also regularly offered games tied to the site that allowed the reader to receive a prize on the Neopets site. After 26 issues, Beckett sent a notice to subscribers announcing that the January 2008 issue would be the final issue of the magazine and that Beckett would replace the issues remaining in the subscription with their new magazine Beckett Plushie Pals, which would still include some Neopets news, but also news related to various other companies, including Ganz Webkinz
, Disney's Club Penguin, TY Beanie Babies, and Kookeys.
Neopets signed a deal with Warner Bros. Pictures in March 2005 to produce films. The unreleased first film was announced to be written by Rob Lieber and produced by Dylan Sellers and John A. Davis
in February 2006 by Variety. The film shelved
production in early 2008.
In November 2005, Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc. released Neopets: The Darkest Faerie
, for the PlayStation 2
. A second game, Neopets: Petpet Adventures: The Wand of Wishing
, was released March 14, 2006 for the PlayStation Portable
.
A very popular form of merchandise for Neopets was their set of toys in 2005 at McDonald's, which brought many people in to Neopets. A second release of Neopet toys occurred at McDonald's
because of the success of the last promotion. These toys have been released in countries such as Australia, USA, Singapore, and the U.K. In September 2008, Neopets toys came to Burger King
in the United States and Canada. There were complaints in the U.S. when some Burger Kings were not supplied with the proper Kids Meal bags (with virtual prize codes).
Neopets Puzzle Adventure
, a video game developed by Infinite Interactive
and published by Capcom
, was made available for Windows PC
, the Nintendo DS
and Wii
on November 25, 2008. The game is similar to the video game Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords
.
Neocash Cards are sold in many stores around the US, most prominently at chain stores such as Target
or Wal-Mart
, and come at different prices (e.g. $10 and $25). They are used at the NC Mall (released in July 2007) which is a large shop full of clothes, Neohome items and other assorted items for Neopets; many of these items are animated and very popular. The price of the card is directly related to the amount of Neocash received; a $10 card would provide 1000 Neocash. Since these cards are not available in all countries, sites have been created to sell the neocash cards to international users.
Neocash Cards were released in 2009 in the UK. To date, only £5 cards (750NC) and £20 (3000NC) are available. One is able to purchase these at Sainsburys, WHSmiths, Game and Gamestation, although he or she may only find them in shops of a certain size. Sainsburys offers the biggest range, offer all four NeoCash cards, while the other 3 companies seem to currently only stock the two £5 giftcards.
Virtual pet site
A virtual pet website, virtual pet site or VPS is a website on which users interact with a browser-based virtual pet. A virtual pet site is typically based within a virtual world for users to explore , often consisting of a virtual currency, game items and minigames...
that was launched by Adam Powell and Donna Williams on November 15, 1999. Two years after the web site was launched, Adam Powell and Donna Williams sold a majority share to a consortium of investors led by Doug Dohring
Doug Dohring
Doug Dohring is owner of the Dohring Company, a marketing research firm based in Glendale, California.-The Dohring Company:Dohring formed The Dohring Company in 1986, with his wife serving as president. Customers for the company's market research services have included retail chains including...
. On June 20, 2005, Viacom
Viacom
Viacom Inc. , short for "Video & Audio Communications", is an American media conglomerate with interests primarily in, but not limited to, cinema and cable television...
bought Neopets, Inc. for US$
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
160 million.
Neopets allows the creation of virtual pets that inhabit the virtual world
Virtual world
A virtual world is an online community that takes the form of a computer-based simulated environment through which users can interact with one another and use and create objects. The term has become largely synonymous with interactive 3D virtual environments, where the users take the form of...
of Neopia. Visitors can create an account and take care of up to four virtual pets, buying them food, toys, clothes, and other accessories using the virtual currency
Virtual economy
A virtual economy is an emergent economy existing in a virtual persistent world, usually exchanging virtual goods in the context of an Internet game...
called Neopoints, and Neocash. Neopoints can be earned through playing games, investing in the game's stock market
Stock market
A stock market or equity market is a public entity for the trading of company stock and derivatives at an agreed price; these are securities listed on a stock exchange as well as those only traded privately.The size of the world stock market was estimated at about $36.6 trillion...
, trading, and winning contests, while Neocash must be purchased with money, although certain events may allow users to earn Neocash for free. Users can explore the world of Neopia with their Neopets and interact with each other through the Neoboards, NeoMail, guilds, and Key Quest.
Neopets also operates a pay-to-play version known as Neopets Premium, which offers additional features and benefits including Neopets Webmail, The Super Shop Wizard and access to the Premium Boards for a monthly fee of US$7.99. Neopets, Inc. produces and sells a wide variety of Neopets merchandise, such as plushies (discontinued), stickers, notebooks, three video games, and a trading card game
Neopets Trading Card Game
The Neopets Trading Card Game, also called Neopets TCG is a collectible card game and a spin-off of the popular virtual pet website, Neopets. Launched in 2003, this game is produced by Wizards of the Coast, a large trading card company that produces a variety of other trading card games...
.
History
Neopets was conceived in 1997 by Adam Powell while he was studying at the University of NottinghamUniversity of Nottingham
The University of Nottingham is a public research university based in Nottingham, United Kingdom, with further campuses in Ningbo, China and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia...
. Powell had started UK-based advertising company Shout! Advertising in 1996, which grew to be the third largest click-through program on the Internet by 1999. He also co-founded Netmagic, an online banner advertising design and sales firm and Powlex Ltd., a web site design firm. Donna Williams was a marketing manager for Shout! Advertising well flying from September 1997 to July 1999 responsible for internet advertising, sales and services, graphic and web design. Powell and Williams started creating the site in September 1999 and launched it two months later on 15 November 1999 from offices in Portsmouth Road, Guildford opposite Ye Olde Ship Inn Pub, still commemorated in the site in the form of a neolodge and a Pizzaroo producing the strangest pizzas. Powell was responsible for the programming and database, and Williams the web design and art. The site grew by word of mouth
Word of mouth
Word of mouth, or viva voce, is the passing of information from person to person by oral communication. Storytelling is the oldest form of word-of-mouth communication where one person tells others of something, whether a real event or something made up. Oral tradition is cultural material and...
and by Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
of 1999, they received 600,000 page view
Page view
A page view or page impression is a request to load a single HTML file of an Internet site. On the World Wide Web a 'page' request would result from a web surfer clicking on a link on another 'page' pointing to the 'page' in question. This should be contrasted with a hit, which refers to a...
s daily and sought investment to cover the high cost of running the site. The same month, Doug Dohring
Doug Dohring
Doug Dohring is owner of the Dohring Company, a marketing research firm based in Glendale, California.-The Dohring Company:Dohring formed The Dohring Company in 1986, with his wife serving as president. Customers for the company's market research services have included retail chains including...
was introduced to the creators of the site and, along with other investors, bought a majority share in January of the following year. Neopets, Inc. was created in February 2000 and began business the 28th in April. The website made profit from the first paying customers for an advertising method trademarked as "immersive advertising", touted as "an evolutionary step forward in the traditional marketing practice of product placement
Product placement
Product placement, or embedded marketing, is a form of advertisement, where branded goods or services are placed in a context usually devoid of ads, such as movies, music videos, the story line of television shows, or news programs. The product placement is often not disclosed at the time that the...
" in television and film.
Media conglomerate
Media conglomerate
A media conglomerate, media group or media institution is a company that owns large numbers of companies in various mass media such as television, radio, publishing, movies, and the Internet...
Viacom
Viacom
Viacom Inc. , short for "Video & Audio Communications", is an American media conglomerate with interests primarily in, but not limited to, cinema and cable television...
purchased Neopets, Inc. on 20 June 2005 for $160 million and announced plans to focus more on the use of banner ads over the site's existing immersive advertising. On the first day of the 2006 FIFA World Cup
2006 FIFA World Cup
The 2006 FIFA World Cup was the 18th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international football world championship tournament. It was held from 9 June to 9 July 2006 in Germany, which won the right to host the event in July 2000. Teams representing 198 national football associations from all six...
, the Altador Cup started as an annual international online gaming event and had 10.4 million participants the first year. The entire Neopets site was redesigned on 27 April 2007. On 17 July 2007, a new section of the site, the NC Mall, was launched in a partnership with Korean gaming company Nexon Corporation
Nexon Corporation
Nexon Co. Ltd. is a South Korean video game developer and publisher of online games and MMORPGs. Founded in Seoul in 1994, Nexon's headquarters is currently based in Tokyo. Nexon provides over 30 games which are serviced in 72 countries globally, reaching 1.14 billion players...
. The next day, Viacom announced that by the end of 2008, Neopets, Inc would be renamed to NeoStudios, "which will focus on developing new virtual world gaming experiences online, while continuing to grow and evolve the existing ones." On June 17, 2008, Viacom formed the Nickelodeon Kids & Family Virtual Worlds Group
Nickelodeon Kids & Family Virtual Worlds Group
Nickelodeon Kids & Family Virtual Worlds Group, formerly Neopets, Inc., develops and manages all virtual world initiatives for kids, tweens, teens and families for the Nickeloden Kids & Family Group...
to "encompass all paid and subscription gaming initiatives across all relevant platforms", including Neopets.
To date, since August 2003, the site has been translated into ten other written languages: Japanese
Japanese writing system
The modern Japanese writing system uses three main scripts:*Kanji, adopted Chinese characters*Kana, a pair of syllabaries , consisting of:...
, Traditional and Simplified Chinese, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, Korean
Hangul
Hangul,Pronounced or ; Korean: 한글 Hangeul/Han'gŭl or 조선글 Chosŏn'gŭl/Joseongeul the Korean alphabet, is the native alphabet of the Korean language. It is a separate script from Hanja, the logographic Chinese characters which are also sometimes used to write Korean...
, Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
, Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
and French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
. However, Neopets announced on 1 January 2009 that the Italian, Japanese, and Korean areas of the site would no longer be updated.
In July 2009, the Neopets site was the target of an identity theft
Identity theft
Identity theft is a form of stealing another person's identity in which someone pretends to be someone else by assuming that person's identity, typically in order to access resources or obtain credit and other benefits in that person's name...
hacking scheme that attempted to trick users into clicking a link that would allow them to gain items or neopoints. Upon doing so, malware
Malware
Malware, short for malicious software, consists of programming that is designed to disrupt or deny operation, gather information that leads to loss of privacy or exploitation, or gain unauthorized access to system resources, or that otherwise exhibits abusive behavior...
is installed on the user's computer. According to reports, the hack is aiming not at child player's Neopets accounts, but at using the malware to steal the financial data and identities of their parents. Viacom stated that it was investigating the issue, and that the hack was a version of social engineering
Social engineering (security)
Social engineering is commonly understood to mean the art of manipulating people into performing actions or divulging confidential information...
rather than an "indictment of Neopets security practices". In an on-site newsletter for players, Neopets denied the report and claimed that the site's security measures prevented the posting of such links.
In June 2011, Neopets announced that the website had reached 1 trillion page views since its creation.
Gameplay
Neopets is set in the fantasy lands of the virtual world of Neopia, which has its own calendar and timezone running concurrent with the real-world Pacific TimePacific Time Zone
The Pacific Time Zone observes standard time by subtracting eight hours from Coordinated Universal Time . The clock time in this zone is based on the mean solar time of the 120th meridian west of the Greenwich Observatory. During daylight saving time, its time offset is UTC-7.In the United States...
. It also has its own economy
Economy
An economy consists of the economic system of a country or other area; the labor, capital and land resources; and the manufacturing, trade, distribution, and consumption of goods and services of that area...
and stock market based on the Neopoint. Players earn Neopoints through various means including playing games and selling items. Once earned, they can be invested or used to buy various goods and services.
User (computing)
A user is an agent, either a human agent or software agent, who uses a computer or network service. A user often has a user account and is identified by a username , screen name , nickname , or handle, which is derived from the identical Citizen's Band radio term.Users are...
. Users may create up to five accounts per email but the rules state that only one account may be used to earn Neopoints; that account is referred to as a "main" and the rest as "sides". A user then creates a Neopet out of the available 54 and chooses its unique name, physical characteristics, and personality and may own up to four per account. When creating a neopet, users may pick between three sets of randomly rolled stats
Statistic (role-playing games)
A statistic in role-playing games is a piece of data which represents a particular aspect of a fictional character. That piece of data is usually a integer or, in some cases, a set of dice....
used for battling in the Battledome. Players are expected to feed and care for their Neopets when they grow hungry or ill, although they will not die if they are neglected. New users start out with a newbie pack of various items that introduce basic features of the site, such as food for feeding a pet. More items can be bought from other users or from non-player character
Non-player character
A non-player character , sometimes known as a non-person character or non-playable character, in a game is any fictional character not controlled by a player. In electronic games, this usually means a character controlled by the computer through artificial intelligence...
s' shops.
Users are free to choose their own path in the world of Neopia, which could include collecting items, battling other Neopets, doing quests, playing games and more. Users can interact with their Neopets by reading books to them, caring for them, and playing with them. They can train their Neopets to be fighters in the Battledome against other player's Neopets or against non-player characters. Wearable items, such as certain clothing, can be used to customise a Neopet. Players can build a customisable Neohome for their Neopets and furnish it with furniture, wallpaper, and flooring.
Users found breaking the rules set in the Terms and Conditions may be sent a warning, have their account suspended, be temporarily blocked, or have their account permanently deactivated ("frozen"). If the owner of a "frozen" account finds the reason for deactivation invalid, they may email the Neopets support team and possibly regain access of their account, although such cases are rare. Recently, as of 2010, a new punishment has been created by The Neopets Team (TNT), called "silencing". When your account is "silenced", you can still play games, earn neopoints, and use most aspects of the website. But, "silencing" blocks your ability to communicate in anyway with other users (Neomailing, using the boards, editing your profile, etc.) This, just like suspending, can be temporary, or you can be permanently silenced, similar to having your account frozen.
Site content
The content of the site is updated almost on a daily basis with the addition of new games, items, and weekly content. In addition to the site content updated by Neopets, players also contribute user-generated contentUser-generated content
User generated content covers a range of media content available in a range of modern communications technologies. It entered mainstream usage during 2005 having arisen in web publishing and new media content production circles...
to the site. Player contributions come in the form of prescreened submissions and readily editable content that is automatically filtered, such as the site's weekly electronic newspaper "The Neopian Times". There are different types of submissions that will be accepted.
Games
There are many active games from which users can earn Neopoints and awards. Before November 22, 2006 the games were divided into three categories: Puzzle, Action, and Luck/Chance. After that date the Games Room was reconfigured and now games are divided into many more categories. Various games and activities include FlashAdobe Flash
Adobe Flash is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to web pages. Flash is frequently used for advertisements, games and flash animations for broadcast...
and Shockwave games, PHP
PHP
PHP is a general-purpose server-side scripting language originally designed for web development to produce dynamic web pages. For this purpose, PHP code is embedded into the HTML source document and interpreted by a web server with a PHP processor module, which generates the web page document...
games, 3D Life Player games, contests and spotlights, and quests to retrieve items.
Neopoints can be earned from playing games, most of which have a set maximum of earnings or playtime. Players may also earn trophies for their trophy cabinet from games if they score high enough for the Hi-Score Tables, which are reset on the first day of each month. Challenges may be made against other players or random players in a "World Challenge" for a prize piece for certain Flash games. A monthly competition also exists for multiplayer PHP games with four week-long elimination rounds.
Neopets offers several different contests and spotlights, where winners are chosen by judges on the Neopets staff or voted on by members of the Neopets community. Contests include several formats, such as writing a story, making a short animated film or drawing a picture of their Neopet. Spotlights showcase what users have done with customisable content. Winners also receive a trophy and a reward, which varies with the contest or spotlight.
In Australia, a cross-promotion with McDonald's
McDonald's
McDonald's Corporation is the world's largest chain of hamburger fast food restaurants, serving around 64 million customers daily in 119 countries. Headquartered in the United States, the company began in 1940 as a barbecue restaurant operated by the eponymous Richard and Maurice McDonald; in 1948...
where McDonald's promoted Neopets plushies in their Happy Meal and Neopets featured McDonald's-related content led to a controversy with Neopets' luck/chance games in October 2004. A story on the Australian tabloid television
Tabloid television
Tabloid television, also known as Teletabloid, is a form of tabloid journalism. Tabloid television newscasts usually incorporate flashy graphics and sensationalized stories.Often, there is a heavy emphasis on crime, stories with good video, and celebrity news...
show Today Tonight
Today Tonight
Today Tonight is a controversial Australian News and Current Affairs program, produced by the Seven Network and shown weeknightly at in direct competition with rival Nine Network program A Current Affair....
featured a nine-year-old boy who claimed that the site requires one to gamble in order to receive enough Neopoints to feed one's Neopet or else it would be sent to the Pound. While this is factually incorrect (gambling is not required, nor are pets ever sent to an orphanage if they are not fed), it is true that the website has a number of games of chance that are directly based on real-life games such as blackjack
Blackjack
Blackjack, also known as Twenty-one or Vingt-et-un , is the most widely played casino banking game in the world...
and lottery scratchcard
Scratchcard
A scratchcard is a small card, often made of thin paper-based card for competitions and plastic to conceal PINs, where one or more areas contain concealed information which can...
s. After this incident, Neopets began prohibiting users under the age of 13 from playing most games that involve gambling.
Exclusive content
Certain features on Neopets require a user to pay some amount of real money and include Neopets Premium, Mobile (discontinued), and some features of the NC Mall. Neopets Premium allows access to areas of the site otherwise restricted. Purchase of NeoCash allows use of the NC Mall to purchase items to customise a user's Neopet or Neohome, but users can sample clothing and furniture before purchase and can win free NeoCash on some occasions, including a daily NeoCash giveaway based on random chance called the Qasalan Expellibox, a free 50 NC giveaway from the Advent Calendar on December 19, 2008, and a free 50 NC from finding all the Halloween goodie bags hidden around the site in Halloween of 2008.Neopets Premium is an extended version of the site, for which members pay for monthly or yearly subscriptions. With Premium membership, external ads are removed and certain benefits are added, like extra Neopoints, Premium only forums, own Premium emails and access to beta versions
Development stage
A software release life cycle refers to the phases of development and maturity for a piece of computer software—ranging from its initial development, to its eventual release, and updated versions of the released version to help improve software or fix bugs still present in the software.- Pre-alpha...
of games. Neopets Mobile was a simpler version of the site using a web-to-wireless application developed by In-Fusio. Initially released to Cingular/AT&T, it allowed access from a mobile phone
Mobile phone
A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...
where users got exclusive access to Lutari Island and other exclusive content but has since been discontinued.
The NC Mall allows players to buy items used mainly for customising their Neopets or Neohomes using Neocash. Players must purchase Neocash with real money through PayPal
PayPal
PayPal is an American-based global e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet. Online money transfers serve as electronic alternatives to paying with traditional paper methods, such as checks and money orders....
. Customers in the United States can also buy Neocash cards at Target
Target Corporation
Target Corporation, doing business as Target, is an American retailing company headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the second-largest discount retailer in the United States, behind Walmart. The company is ranked at number 33 on the Fortune 500 and is a component of the Standard & Poor's...
stores, the Target website, and at selected Wal-mart
Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. , branded as Walmart since 2008 and Wal-Mart before then, is an American public multinational corporation that runs chains of large discount department stores and warehouse stores. The company is the world's 18th largest public corporation, according to the Forbes Global 2000...
stores. The Mall was created through a partnership with Nexon
Nexon Corporation
Nexon Co. Ltd. is a South Korean video game developer and publisher of online games and MMORPGs. Founded in Seoul in 1994, Nexon's headquarters is currently based in Tokyo. Nexon provides over 30 games which are serviced in 72 countries globally, reaching 1.14 billion players...
, which also handles the sale of NX Cash used in the analogous "Cash Shop" of MapleStory
MapleStory
MapleStory is a free-to-play, 2D, side-scrolling massively multiplayer online role-playing game developed by the South Korean company Wizet. Several versions of the game are available for specific countries or regions, and each is published by various companies such as Nexon...
. It was initially released for beta on 28 June 2007 and then fully released to players in the United States on 17 July. Two months later, it expanded to English users in other countries. Most Neocash purchased items remain with the buyer permanently, but could not be transferred or sold to other players until recently, when the gift box was introduced. A few items have expiration times, after which they disappear from the buyer's accounts.
In February 2008, Neopets announced Key Quest, a feature that will engage users by having them buy Neopets merchandise at Target and other stores, using a virtual code to redeem tokens for their user accounts. However, people with no merchandise can play as well.
In part one of the Krawk Island disappearance event of 2011, players get mysterious treasure chests during the search for the missing Island. The only way to open this chest is to buy a key from the NC Mall and use it on the treasure chest. Doing so, the player would receive an exclusive prize.
Community
Neopets has a community in which users can chat with and contact each other. Users may request other users to be "Neofriends" or block other users from contacting them. Players are represented by small icons known as avatarsAvatar (computing)
In computing, an avatar is the graphical representation of the user or the user's alter ego or character. It may take either a three-dimensional form, as in games or virtual worlds, or a two-dimensional form as an icon in Internet forums and other online communities. It can also refer to a text...
that are provided by the website, as players cannot upload their own. To comply with COPPA
Children's Online Privacy Protection Act
The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 is a United States federal law, located at .The act, effective April 21, 2000, applies to the online collection of personal information by persons or entities under U.S. jurisdiction from children under 13 years of age...
, players under 13 years of age cannot access any of the site's communication features without sending in parental consent. The main features include:
- NeoMail+, a personal in-game communication system like regular emailEmailElectronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
. Players can write messages to other players and restrict who can contact them through NeoMail. However, players cannot send messages to another player who is under the age of 13 unless that player has parental permission. - Neoboards+, public discussion boardsInternet forumAn Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least temporarily archived...
for on-topic discussions. Users can enter their own "neoHTML", a restricted form of BBCodeBBCodeBBCode or Bulletin Board Code is a lightweight markup language used to format posts in many message boards. The available tags are usually indicated by square brackets surrounding a keyword, and they are parsed by the message board system before being translated into a markup language that web...
, to customise their own posts and signatures, which are also used in guilds. There are different categories of Neoboards for different topics for players to talk about. - Guilds, groups of users with similar interests and their own message board+. Public guilds can be found through guild listings and anyone can join whenever they want, whereas private guilds are unlisted and invitation-only. Players can only join one guild on each account, or they can choose not to join a guild at all.
Discussions through these features are restricted and may not involve topics such as dating and romance or controversial topics like politics and religion. Continuous moderation is performed by paid Neopets staff members, and users can help moderate the site by reporting messages they believe are inappropriate or offensive. Messages are also automatically filtered
Wordfilter
A wordfilter is a script typically used on Internet forums or chat rooms that automatically scans users' posts or comments as they are submitted and automatically changes or censors particular words or phrases.The most primitive wordfilters search only for a specific string and replaces it...
to prevent users from posting messages with profanity or lewd content.
+ Only available to users over 13 and/or has sent in a parental consent(COPPA) form via Fax or mail.
A useful part of this community is the Help Chat, a place where users will give advice and guidance to other users in need. It's a good starting point for newbies, along with the Newbie Board. The Help Chat even has it's own guild, The HC Guild.
Personal pages
Each user is given a customisable profile page. In addition, a profile or "pet lookup", which can be edited like the user's profile, is given to each Neopet, and each Neopet also has a "petpage", which the user can edit with HTML and CSS. Unlike the pet lookups, petpages don't have to be related to the pet at all.On that userlookup, there are also links to each user's shop and gallery. In a shop, users can purchase items from one another. A gallery is used to display collections that users accumulate throughout their time on the site. On each Neopet's page, users can see the pet's statistics such as level, strength, and intelligence. Also, battledome statistics are listed along with whether or not that Neopet has a petpet.
Plots/Events
Plots are large events that contribute to the canonCanon (fiction)
In the context of a work of fiction, the term canon denotes the material accepted as "official" in a fictional universe's fan base. It is often contrasted with, or used as the basis for, works of fan fiction, which are not considered canonical...
of Neopets. They follow a storyline depicted by short animated films or (in recent years) comic strips. Plots usually unveil significant additions or changes to the site, most often a new world to visit. There are also mini plots, which are not as significant. Users who participate may be asked to choose a side, solve puzzles, or battle with their Neopets.
A list of past plots
- The Virtupets Plot
- Hunt for the Battledome
- Sacrificers
- Ski Lodge Murder Mystery
- The Tyrannian Invasion
- Brucey B and the Lucky Coin
- Usurper
- Search for the Crown
- A Curse on Maraqua
- The Krawk Cup
- Neopets Version 2
- Champions of Meridell
- The Gadsgadbogen Puzzle
- The Missing Petpets/Green Jelly Plot
- The Volcano Mystery
- Battle for Meridell
- Hannah and the Ice Caves
- Curse of Maraqua
- Lost Desert Plot
- Altador Plot
- The Cyodrake's Gaze
- The Tale of Woe
- Journey to the Lost Isle
- The Return of Dr. Sloth
- Operation: Petpet Park
- Atlas of the Ancients
- The Faerie's Ruin
Altador Cup
The Altador Cup is an online gaming event that was first released in 2006 after the FIFA World Cup2006 FIFA World Cup
The 2006 FIFA World Cup was the 18th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international football world championship tournament. It was held from 9 June to 9 July 2006 in Germany, which won the right to host the event in July 2000. Teams representing 198 national football associations from all six...
. The event mostly takes place sometime at mid-May and ends about a week after the Fourth of July. In the Altador Cup, players are divided into teams and accumulate points for their respective team. Winning teams (and the team they were up against) for each year are:
- 2006 AC Champion: Haunted Woods (defeated Darigan Citadel)
- 2007 AC Champion: Darigan Citadel (defeated Roo Island)
- 2008 AC Champion: Roo Island (defeated Krawk Island)
- 2009 AC Champion: Krawk Island (defeated Shenkuu)
- 2010 AC Champion: Lost Desert (defeated Kreludor)
- 2011 AC Champion: Virtupets (defeated Krawk Island)
Immersive advertising
Immersive advertising is a trademarked term for the way Neopets displayed advertisements to generate profit after Doug DohringDoug Dohring
Doug Dohring is owner of the Dohring Company, a marketing research firm based in Glendale, California.-The Dohring Company:Dohring formed The Dohring Company in 1986, with his wife serving as president. Customers for the company's market research services have included retail chains including...
bought the site. Instead of running pop-up
Pop-up ad
Pop-up ads or pop-ups are a form of online advertising on the World Wide Web intended to attract web traffic or capture email addresses. Pop-ups are generally new web browser windows to display advertisements...
and banner ads, immersive ads integrate advertisements into the site's content in interactive forms, including games and items. Players can earn Neopoints from them by doing things such as playing advergames and taking part in online marketing surveys. Prior to the arrival of the NC Mall, it contributed to 60% of the revenue from the site with paying Fortune 1000
Fortune 1000
Fortune 1000 is a reference to a list maintained by the American business magazine Fortune. The list is of the 1000 largest American companies, ranked on revenues alone...
companies including Disney
The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...
, General Mills
General Mills
General Mills, Inc. is an American Fortune 500 corporation, primarily concerned with food products, which is headquartered in Golden Valley, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis. The company markets many well-known brands, such as Betty Crocker, Yoplait, Colombo, Totinos, Jeno's, Pillsbury, Green...
, and McDonald's
McDonald's
McDonald's Corporation is the world's largest chain of hamburger fast food restaurants, serving around 64 million customers daily in 119 countries. Headquartered in the United States, the company began in 1940 as a barbecue restaurant operated by the eponymous Richard and Maurice McDonald; in 1948...
.
It was a contentious issue with the site with regard to the ethics of marketing to children. Half a million of the 25 million users were under the age of eight in 2005 and children under eight have difficulty recognizing ads. It draws criticism from parents, psychologists, and consumer advocates who argue that children may not know that they are trying to be sold something, as it blurs the line between site content and advertisement. A psychology professor at Georgetown University
Georgetown University
Georgetown University is a private, Jesuit, research university whose main campus is in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic university in the United States...
stated, "It's self marketing, selling to kids that don't know they are seeing anything". Dohring responded to such criticism:
"Over 60 percent of our audience is 13 and over, so it is not like we are dealing with four- to six-year-olds that may not quite understand the difference between content and advertising. And of the 40 percent of our users who are 12 or under, the ages start at around seven or eight years old and go up from there. The preschoolers are not really our audience, because you have to be a pretty fluid reader to navigate the site."
Others criticised the functionality of the site. Susan Linn, another psychologist and author of Consuming Kids: The Hostile Takeover of Childhood said, "The whole purpose of this site at this point is to keep kids in front of products". Kalle Lasn
Kalle Lasn
Kalle Lasn is an Estonian Canadian author, magazine editor and activist. Near the end of World War II his family fled Estonia and Lasn spent his childhood in a German refugee camp. He was then resettled in Australia. In the 1960s, he founded a market research company in Tokyo, and in 1970, moved...
, editor-in-chief and co-founder of Adbusters
AdBusters
The Adbusters Media Foundation is a Canadian-based not-for-profit, anti-consumerist, pro-environment organization founded in 1989 by Kalle Lasn and Bill Schmalz in Vancouver, British Columbia...
magazine, said the site was "encouraging kids to spend hours in front of the screen and at the same time recruiting them into consumer culture", which was "the most ingenious mind-fuck ever". Neopets executives have stated in 2004 and 2006 that paid content comprised less than 1% of the site's total content. Children are not required to play or use sponsor games and items.
Consumer advocates also argue that immersive ads should be clearly labelled as advertisements. Dohring has said, "We're not trying to be subliminal or deceive the user. We label all the immersive ad campaigns as paid advertisements."
Reception
Neopets has been compared to the antecedent virtual pet fad TamagotchiTamagotchi
The is a handheld digital pet, created in Japan by Akihiro Yokoi of WiZ and Aki Maita of Bandai. It was first sold by Bandai in 1996 in Japan. As of 2010, over 76 million Tamagotchis have been sold world-wide...
and the Pokémon
Pokémon
is a media franchise published and owned by the video game company Nintendo and created by Satoshi Tajiri in 1996. Originally released as a pair of interlinkable Game Boy role-playing video games developed by Game Freak, Pokémon has since become the second most successful and lucrative video...
franchise. It has been described as an online cross of Pokémon and Tamagotchi. The website maintains high "stickiness" rankings, which is a measure of the amount of time a user spends on the site. Neopets has been praised for having educational content, such as word games and an HTML
HTML
HyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages....
guide. Its popularity spawned real world plushies, a magazine, book series, cereal, and merchandise in other media as well.
A press release from Neopets in 2001 stated that Neopets.com led in site "stickiness"
Sticky content
Sticky content refers to content published on a website, which has the purpose of getting a user to return to that particular website or hold their attention and get them to spend longer periods of time at that site...
in May and June, with the average user spending 117 minutes a week. Neopets also led in the average number of hours spent per user per month in December 2003 with an average of 4 hours and 47 minutes. A 2004 article stated that Nielsen//NetRatings
Nielsen Ratings
Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...
reported that people were spending around three hours a month on Neopets, more than any other site in its Nielsen category. By May 2005, a Neopets-affiliated video game producer cited about 35 million unique users, 11 million unique IP addresses per month, and 4 billion web page views per month. This producer also described 20% of the users as 18 or older, with the median of the remaining 80% at about 14. Neopets was consistently ranked among the top ten "stickiest" sites by both Nielsen//NetRatings and comScore Media Metrix
ComScore
comScore is a Internet marketing research company providing marketing data and services to many of the Internet's largest businesses. comScore tracks all internet data on its surveyed computers in order to study online behavior....
in 2005 and 2006. According to Nielsen//NetRatings, in 2007, Neopets lost about 15% of its audience over the previous year. In February 2008, comScore ranked it as the stickiest kids entertainment site with the average user spending 2 hours and 45 minutes per month.
Most of the users are female, higher than in other massively multiplayer online game
Massively multiplayer online game
A massively multiplayer online game is a multiplayer video game which is capable of supporting hundreds or thousands of players simultaneously. By necessity, they are played on the Internet, and usually feature at least one persistent world. They are, however, not necessarily games played on...
s (MMOGs) but equivalent to social-networking-driven communities. Lucy Bradshaw, a vice president of Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts, Inc. is a major American developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of video games. Founded and incorporated on May 28, 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers...
, said, "Games that have a tendency to satisfy on more than one dimension have a tendency to have a broader appeal and attract girls".
Merchandise
Viacom produces a range of merchandise, including plushies (discontinued) , stickers, books, cereals, Neocash cards for the NC Mall and video games. The merchandise retails at mainstream outlets such as Wal-MartWal-Mart
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. , branded as Walmart since 2008 and Wal-Mart before then, is an American public multinational corporation that runs chains of large discount department stores and warehouse stores. The company is the world's 18th largest public corporation, according to the Forbes Global 2000...
, Target
Target Corporation
Target Corporation, doing business as Target, is an American retailing company headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the second-largest discount retailer in the United States, behind Walmart. The company is ranked at number 33 on the Fortune 500 and is a component of the Standard & Poor's...
, and Limited Too. There are also exclusively online retailers involved, such as Zazzle
Zazzle
Zazzle is an online retailer that allows users to upload images and create their own merchandise , or buy merchandise created by other users, as well as use images from participating companies...
. Each merchandise has a prize code which can be redeemed at the site for an in-game reward. Neopets had planned to "bring the online and offline worlds together in ways that have never been done before". An investment banker at Allen & Company
Allen & Company
Allen & Company is a boutique investment bank based at 711 Fifth Avenue, New York City.-History:Founded in 1922 by Charles Robert Allen, Jr., he was soon joined by his brother, Herbert A. Allen, Sr...
in New York said Neopets was the only online media he had seen "that might have the ability to capture market share in the offline world". Neopets signed a licensing deal with Viacom Consumer Products in 2001 to get the right developers and publishers for their offline content. A deal with Thinkway Toys produced the first merchandise brought to an international market. Offline products expanded in 2005 with film and video game deals. In February 2008, offline products were further expanded when it was announced that Jakks Pacific
Jakks Pacific
JAKKS Pacific, Inc. is a designer and marketer of toys and consumer products, with a range of products that feature numerous children's toy licenses...
and Enterplay would produce a new line of merchandise, including new plushies and trading cards, to tie into Key Quest.
Wizards of the Coast
Wizards of the Coast
Wizards of the Coast is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and science fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail stores for games...
released the Neopets Trading Card Game
Neopets Trading Card Game
The Neopets Trading Card Game, also called Neopets TCG is a collectible card game and a spin-off of the popular virtual pet website, Neopets. Launched in 2003, this game is produced by Wizards of the Coast, a large trading card company that produces a variety of other trading card games...
in September 2003 based on the online characters and setting. In 2004, the cards were promoted in three of General Mills "Big G" cereals and ten Simon Property Group
Simon Property Group
Simon Property Group, Inc. is an American commercial real estate company, ranked #1 in the United States as the largest real estate investment trust. Simon is a fully integrated real estate company which operates from five retail real estate platforms: regional malls, Premium Outlet Centers, The...
malls. The TCG received two different nominations for "Toy of the Year" and two other recognitions.
Neopets: The Official Magazine, published by Beckett Media
Beckett Media
Beckett Media is a privately held company. Founded in 1984 by James Beckett as Beckett Publications, the company focuses on the collectible industries, especially in the area of sports collectibles.-History:...
, was a bi-monthly magazine released in September 2003. The magazine was sold through a subscription service and in stores, with back issues available for order on the magazine web site. The magazine's features included Neopet games, stories, guides to the Flash games on the Neopets site, news on upcoming site events and merchandise, and drawings for readers. It also regularly offered games tied to the site that allowed the reader to receive a prize on the Neopets site. After 26 issues, Beckett sent a notice to subscribers announcing that the January 2008 issue would be the final issue of the magazine and that Beckett would replace the issues remaining in the subscription with their new magazine Beckett Plushie Pals, which would still include some Neopets news, but also news related to various other companies, including Ganz Webkinz
Webkinz
Webkinz are toy stuffed animals that were originally released by the Canadian Ganz company on April 29, 2005. The toys are similar to many other small plush toys, however, each Webkinz toy has an attached tag with a unique "Secret Code" printed on it that allows access to the "Webkinz World" website...
, Disney's Club Penguin, TY Beanie Babies, and Kookeys.
Neopets signed a deal with Warner Bros. Pictures in March 2005 to produce films. The unreleased first film was announced to be written by Rob Lieber and produced by Dylan Sellers and John A. Davis
John A. Davis
John A. Davis is an American film director, writer, animator, voice actor and composer known for his work both in stop-motion animation as well as computer animation...
in February 2006 by Variety. The film shelved
Shelved
In politics, the term can be used for policy drafts, that have never been officially brought into legislation.In the film industry, a film is considered shelved if it is not released for public viewing after filming has started, or even completed....
production in early 2008.
In November 2005, Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc. released Neopets: The Darkest Faerie
Neopets: The Darkest Faerie
Neopets: The Darkest Faerie, released on November 15, 2005, is a single-player PlayStation 2 action-adventure game based on the popular Neopets universe.-Setting:...
, for the PlayStation 2
PlayStation 2
The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan...
. A second game, Neopets: Petpet Adventures: The Wand of Wishing
Neopets: Petpet Adventures: The Wand of Wishing
Neopets: Petpet Adventures: The Wand of Wishing, released on March 14, 2006, is a single-player PlayStation Portable action/adventure game based on the popular Neopets universe.-Gameplay:...
, was released March 14, 2006 for the PlayStation Portable
PlayStation Portable
The is a handheld game console manufactured and marketed by Sony Corporation Development of the console was announced during E3 2003, and it was unveiled on , 2004, at a Sony press conference before E3 2004...
.
A very popular form of merchandise for Neopets was their set of toys in 2005 at McDonald's, which brought many people in to Neopets. A second release of Neopet toys occurred at McDonald's
McDonald's
McDonald's Corporation is the world's largest chain of hamburger fast food restaurants, serving around 64 million customers daily in 119 countries. Headquartered in the United States, the company began in 1940 as a barbecue restaurant operated by the eponymous Richard and Maurice McDonald; in 1948...
because of the success of the last promotion. These toys have been released in countries such as Australia, USA, Singapore, and the U.K. In September 2008, Neopets toys came to Burger King
Burger King
Burger King, often abbreviated as BK, is a global chain of hamburger fast food restaurants headquartered in unincorporated Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. The company began in 1953 as Insta-Burger King, a Jacksonville, Florida-based restaurant chain...
in the United States and Canada. There were complaints in the U.S. when some Burger Kings were not supplied with the proper Kids Meal bags (with virtual prize codes).
Neopets Puzzle Adventure
Neopets Puzzle Adventure
Neopets Puzzle Adventure is the latest Neopets video game. Published by Capcom, the Nintendo DS version of the game was developed by Griptonite Games and the other two platforms were developed by Infinite Interactive...
, a video game developed by Infinite Interactive
Infinite Interactive
Infinite Interactive was a video game developer with headquarters in St Kilda, Victoria, Australia. The company was founded by Steve Fawkner in 1989. After a long alliance with SSG, resulting in the development of the Warlords series of games, Steve moved on to make Infinite totally independent in...
and published by Capcom
Capcom
is a Japanese developer and publisher of video games, known for creating multi-million-selling franchises such as Devil May Cry, Chaos Legion, Street Fighter, Mega Man and Resident Evil. Capcom developed and published Bionic Commando, Lost Planet and Dark Void too, but they are less known. Its...
, was made available for Windows PC
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
, the Nintendo DS
Nintendo DS
The is a portable game console produced by Nintendo, first released on November 21, 2004. A distinctive feature of the system is the presence of two separate LCD screens, the lower of which is a touchscreen, encompassed within a clamshell design, similar to the Game Boy Advance SP...
and Wii
Wii
The Wii is a home video game console released by Nintendo on November 19, 2006. As a seventh-generation console, the Wii primarily competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Nintendo states that its console targets a broader demographic than that of the two others...
on November 25, 2008. The game is similar to the video game Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords
Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords
Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords is a game developed by Australian company Infinite Interactive and published by D3 Publisher. The game combines role-playing with strategy and puzzle elements...
.
Neocash Cards are sold in many stores around the US, most prominently at chain stores such as Target
Target Corporation
Target Corporation, doing business as Target, is an American retailing company headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the second-largest discount retailer in the United States, behind Walmart. The company is ranked at number 33 on the Fortune 500 and is a component of the Standard & Poor's...
or Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. , branded as Walmart since 2008 and Wal-Mart before then, is an American public multinational corporation that runs chains of large discount department stores and warehouse stores. The company is the world's 18th largest public corporation, according to the Forbes Global 2000...
, and come at different prices (e.g. $10 and $25). They are used at the NC Mall (released in July 2007) which is a large shop full of clothes, Neohome items and other assorted items for Neopets; many of these items are animated and very popular. The price of the card is directly related to the amount of Neocash received; a $10 card would provide 1000 Neocash. Since these cards are not available in all countries, sites have been created to sell the neocash cards to international users.
Neocash Cards were released in 2009 in the UK. To date, only £5 cards (750NC) and £20 (3000NC) are available. One is able to purchase these at Sainsburys, WHSmiths, Game and Gamestation, although he or she may only find them in shops of a certain size. Sainsburys offers the biggest range, offer all four NeoCash cards, while the other 3 companies seem to currently only stock the two £5 giftcards.