Neopets

For the company of Neopets, see Neopets, Inc.

Neopets
File:Neopets logo.png File:Neopets-homepage.png Screenshot of the Neopets homepage as of December 3, 2007.
Developer(s)	Neopets, Inc.
Publisher(s)	Neopets Inc.; Viacom Inc
Platform(s)	Cross-platform
Release	November 15, 1999
Genre(s)	Fantasy
Mode(s)	Single-player with multiplayer interaction.

Neopets (originally NeoPets) is a virtual pet website launched by Adam Powell and Donna Williams on November 15, 1999. Six months after the web site was launched, Adam Powell and Donna Williams successfully sold a majority share to a consortium of investors led by Doug Dohring. On 20 June 2005, Viacom bought Neopets, Inc. for $160 million (USD). Neopets consistently ranks as one of the top stickiest sites.

Neopets is based around the eponymous 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 a virtual currency called Neopoints. Neopoints can be earned through playing games, investing in the stock market, trading, winning contests and making your own shop. Users can explore the world of Neopia with their Neopets and interact with each other through the NeoBoards, Neomail, and guilds.

In addition to the main site, Neopets also operates a pay-to-play version known as Neopets Premium, which offers additional features and benefits for a monthly fee of $7.99 (USD). Several issues with the site, such as immersive advertising, gambling-based games, and hacks and glitches have garnered criticism.

History

See also: Neopets, Inc.

Neopets was launched by Adam Powell and Donna Williams on November 15, 1999 from an idea Powell had in 1997. By Christmas of that year, they were receiving 600,000 page views and found themselves running out of money trying to maintain 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 then created by Dohring in February 2000. The website was later made profitable after he brought in its first paying customers for an advertising method known as "immersive advertising", touted as "an evolutionary step forward in the traditional marketing practice of product placement" in television and film.

Media conglomerate Viacom later bought Neopets, Inc. on June 20, 2005 for $160 million. The entire neopets site was revamped on April 27, 2007, referred to as Neopets 2.0 in the Neopets FAQ. On July 17 2007, the NC Mall was launched in a partnership with Korean gaming company Nexon Corporation. On July 18 2007 Viacom announced on their website that by the end of 2008, Neopets would be changing to NeoStudios, "which will focus on developing new virtual world gaming experiences online, while continuing to grow and evolve the existing ones."

After the changes in ownership, the site still retained its British English spellings. 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.

Gameplay

Neopets is a Family site. Visitors to the site can create a free account. After creating an account, a user creates a Neopet, choosing the name, gender, colour, species, stats,where the pet likes to live and personality of the Neopet and may own up to four Neopets per account. A newly created pet comes with randomly rolled stats, used for battling in the Battledome. Players need to feed and care for their Neopets, as Neopets can grow hungry and get sick, although they will not die if they are neglected. New users start out with a newbie pack which includes various items. Users can get more items for their Neopets by earning Neopoints, the site's currency, through various activities including playing games and selling items.

Users can interact with their Neopets by reading books to them and playing with them. Players can train their Neopets to be fighters in the Battledome, customize them or collect items for their own collections. The Battledome is where a player's Neopet can fight against another player's Neopet or non-player characters (NPCs). Petpets also have a similar battle arena where only NPCs may be challenged. Each NPC has a different difficulty. Awards such as trophies can also be won for fighting in the Battledome against NPCs.

A Neohome that can be customized

Players can also choose to build a Neohome for their Neopets. Neohomes can be built after a user buys a plot of land, which vary in price depending on the location, neopia central being the cheapest and Shenku being the most expensive. Each room costs Neopoints to build, and furniture may be put in and arranged. Players may also build gardens and furnish them. Extensions such as lighting, flooring,wallpaper, and insurance can also be purchased. Players may try to win awards for their Neohomes or collections. The address of a Neohome can only be changed after demolishing all rooms and/or gardens and selling the address back to the bank.

Players can choose to collect certain virtual items and display them in a gallery. They may also collect collectible cards, trading cards (not to be confused with the actual Neopets trading cards), stamps, coins, and sea shells, and display them in albums. In addition to items, players can also collect avatars and site themes, although there is no function to display all of them.

Users found breaking the rules set in the Terms and Conditions may have their account suspended or "frozen", a temporary or permanent block.

Site content

The site itself includes a navigation bar along the top of the page with links to various sections of the site. The navigation bar also includes an in-game clock set to Neopian Standard Time. When logged in, there are pet and Neofriend modules on the left side of the page, which display the current status of a player's active pet and which Neofriends are online, respectively. By default, the site theme is "Neopets Basic" and users may customize this with other default site themes or site themes they unlock as they explore the site.

The content of the site is updated frequently, almost on a daily basis, with the addition of new games and items, weekly content, and other things. In addition to the site content updated by Neopets, players also add to the content of the site. Player contributions come in the form of contests, spotlights, and editable content.

Environment

Neopets is set in the fictional persistent world of Neopia, which includes the planet Neopia and its surrounding space. Neopia itself has several worlds, similar to continents, which have their own individual themes. Within each world, users will usually find unique shops, games, items, and activities based around that world's theme. Larger worlds may have several regions or levels. Neopia has its own economy based on a currency called Neopoints.

Neopia uses its own Gregorian calendar, and its own time system called "Neopian Standard Time". Neopian Standard Time, or NST, is a fictional timezone that runs concurrent with the real-world Pacific Time. Neopia has special days and events, some with equivalents to special events and holidays from the real world. Special events that tie to the real world include April Fools' Day hoaxes and the month long Christmas Advent Calendar.

Neopets

The site takes its name from its core feature, Neopets, the cartoon-like inhabitants of the fictional world of Neopia. There are fifty-four different species of Neopets, some of which are limited edition or have special criteria for creation. Users are allowed to have up to four Neopets per account. To obtain a new Neopet, users normally can either create a pet, allowing them to choose its name, gender, basic colour, species, and some personality options, or adopt a pet that has been abandoned by another user from the Pound. However, as the Pound is down for maintenance, users are unable to adopt pets, though they can still abandon those they don't want anymore. Once a user has a Neopet, they can use special items, such as paintbrushes, morphing potions, and a special area called the secret laboratory to change their pets colours and/or species. They can also customise their Neopet by purchasing wearable items for them, such as clothing and backgrounds. Users can feed their Neopet, play games with them, and use them to stage battles with another user's Neopet or a non-playable character in the Battledome.

Neopets may own pets called Petpets. Like Neopets, Petpets have levels and can be painted a variety of colours using Petpet paintbrushes. Petpets can be found in petpet shops, in random events, and through combining items and other petpets at the Mystery Island Cooking pot. Petpets can be used to perform a few actions pets can not do, such as attempt to Wake the giant petpet Turmaculus (at the risk of having one's petpet eaten) and to jump into the Mysterious Symol Hole for a random chance at items and an avatar. Similar to the Battledome, Petpets have a battling area called the "Petpet Battle Arena". If a user wants to change their pet's petpet, they can "stop playing with it" to detach it, and then attach a new petpet. Taking the concept of pets ownings pets further, petpets can have their own pets called petpetpets. Found through very rare random events, these bug-like creatures attached themselves to a petpet by refreshing the screen until it chooses to attach, then live on their petpet owners. They vanish if the user removes the petpet from its Neopet. Unlike Neopets, petpets and petpetpets can be sold by users for Neopoints or traded in the Trading Post for other items.

Economy

The Neopian economy is a mixed economy with the Neopoint as its smallest denomination, but mostly a capitalist economy on the player's side with capital gains. There are various other forms of currency used in-game that can be sold for Neopoints. Players can earn Neopoints through playing games, selling items, and other transactions. Once earned, they can be saved in the bank, used to buy items from other players or NPC shops, used to buy and sell stocks in the Neopian stock market called the Neodaq, or used to buy various other things.

Players can buy items from shops found throughout the world of Neopia, which are run by non-player characters that allow haggling. In addition to the regular shops, players can open their own shops to sell items, sometimes after obtaining those items at a lower price from sources, such as other shops. One may also exchange items at the trading post or use the auction house. The worth of an item is not only based on its use value, but also its rarity. Player-run shops have prices fixed by the seller and can only sell items up to 99,999 Neopoints; any items with a price over 99,999 Neopoints must be traded using either the Trading Post or the Auction House.

With the introduction of the NC Mall, players may also exchange real money for Neocash, used exclusively for the NC Mall. However, Neopoints cannot be exchanged for Neocash and vice versa. This was to keep Neopets fair.

Games

There are over 250 active games on the website. Many are similar to older existing games — for example, "Meerca Chase II" is very similar to Snake, while "Korbat's Lab" and "Frumball" are like Breakout and Arkanoid. Before November 22, 2006 the games were divided into three categories: Puzzle, Action, and Luck/Chance. On November 22, the Games Room was revamped and now games are divided into many more categories. Various games and activities include Flash and Shockwave games, PHP games, 3D Life Player games, contests and spotlights, and quests.

Players can earn Neopoints from games, some 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. In addition to this, players may also challenge another player or enter a "World Challenge", competing against random players for a prize piece, for certain Flash games. A monthly competition also exists for multiplayer PHP games with four week-long elimination rounds, but the winners are awarded trophies.

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. Contests include writing contests, such as those for poetry and storytelling, puzzle solving and game contests, art contests, short film contest, and a "Random Contest". In addition to contests, spotlights are where users can showcase their pets, petpets, Neohomes, galleries, and user-made levels for certain games. Winners also receive a trophy and a reward, which varies with the contest or spotlight.

Quests are tasks where the user must retrieve certain items for a non-player character in exchange for a reward. Faerie Quests are given out through random events while browsing the site, while the user may volunteer for other quests.

User-generated content

Users also contribute to the content of the site in forms such as the site's weekly electronic newspaper Neopian Times and their own user lookup.

Several contests and spotlights allow users to submit their own works. The content of these submissions are prescreened for appropriateness before placed on the site. Such contests include creative writing, visual art, and short films. Spotlights also include user-generated content.

In addition to prescreened content, players have several readily editable pages. Every user has a user lookup that they can edit with their own code. Descriptions for their Neopets are also editable and each pet has their own petpage, a homepage for the Neopet. Player-owned shops and galleries also allow customisation. As with other readily editable content viewable by other members of the Neopets community, such as NeoMail, these pages are filtered for inappropriate content.

Community

Neopets has a community in which users can chat with and contact each other by private "NeoMail" (on-site e-mail) or on public "NeoBoards", which are more like chat rooms than Internet forums. Users may also request other users to be Neofriends or block other users from contacting them. Players are represented by small icons known as avatars. Players cannot upload their own avatars and must use those provided by the website.

As with all Internet communities, there is risk in giving out personal information to strangers. Players under 13 years of age cannot access any of the site's communication features. They must fax or mail a document stating parental consent, with the parent's signature, to the Neopets headquarters, to comply with COPPA.

Guilds

Users with similar interests can create or join a guild, which usually revolve around a theme, such as battling in the Battledome, or non-Neopets themes such as those for the fans of real-world celebrities or animal-lovers. Some guilds are dedicated to certain causes or goals, such as helping poor Neopians and/or new players, adopting the abandoned Neopets in the pound, collecting avatars, role-playing, and so on. Players are only allowed to be a member of one guild.

There are message boards inside the guilds, accessible only to their members. Some guilds are private, which makes the guild not show up in any guild searches, and a player would need an invitation from someone in the guild to join. Some guilds also have corresponding external websites (many times on petpages) to share information that usually includes their rules and other things about the guild. Other guilds will make an off-site guild page for everyone to access.

File:Neopetsplotboard.PNG

Screenshot of NeoBoards homepage. Note that this screenshot is taken on 3 July, following the release of the new board layout.

NeoBoards

NeoBoards are public discussion boards. Discussions on these message boards must be Neopets-related and may not involve topics such as dating and romance, politics, and religion. 24/7 moderation is performed by paid Neopets staff members. Users can help moderate the site by reporting messages they believe are inappropriate or offensive. A filter also prevents users from posting messages with profanity or lewd content, though the filter cannot capture typographical errors intentionally placed by spammers and scammers, and some questionable posts still appear. Premium users also have access to a private Premium NeoBoard.

The Neopets forums are infamous for their numerous spammers, abundant chatspeak, and off-topic threads. The Ideas and Suggestions board, which is supposed to be used to suggest improvements for Neopets, has become the host of all off-topic, non-Neopets-related boards, with threads pertaining to real-world situations.

Periodically, new boards will appear and disappear as new plots are developed. Once the plot is complete and prizes for the plot have been awarded the board is taken away.

On the NeoBoards, players can enter 'neoHTML' (Neopets HTML) in their Chat Preferences to use a font on the NeoBoards that is not the default font. These fonts can become very elaborate; designs such as a piano keyboard and a Mootix (a Neopets Petpetpet) are shows of players' creativity. Players often use fonts to match their avatar.

On July 3 2007, the NeoBoards began displaying the active pet of a user with his or her post, and the heading of the page was modified in several ways, including the addition of a new advertisement.

The neoboards are off-limit to users under age 13, however they are allowed to have parents fill out a permission form allowing neoboards use. These have advantages as many users use it to advertise for their contest entries, lend/be lent items, haggle on trades, and much more.

NeoMail

NeoMail is a personal in-game communication system, much like regular email. Players can write messages to other players or make "Neofriends", to whom they can send items from their inventory or make private auctions for. There is an option for users to only receive Neomails from their Neofriends. For many reasons, Neomail messages are monitored, and players cannot write to another player who is under the age of 13. However, if the person under 13 has parental permission to play on the site, users are able to send them a Neomail. Users may also block people who they do not want to come in contact with.

The website automatically "censors" Neomails, and disallows foul and/or inappropriate language. If users include inappropriate language in their Neomail, it will not go through to the intended receiver. They are redirected to a page that explains why their Neomail is unacceptable, also giving them the option of going back to the Neomail and fixing it. Users are also unable to send any Neomails with the word "username", "password", or anything related.

Neopets also has a "limit" on the number of Neomails that can be sent in a day, or more so, in a certain span of time. This is to prevent the server from slowing down and spamming. Users can save up to 100 Neomails in their inboxes. Users may also save Neomails for up to ninety days in a save folder. This is to make sure the database can handle the amount of users and mail.

Pay features

There are certain features on Neopets that require a user to pay some amount of real money, including the Neopets Premium, Neopets Mobile, and use of the NC Mall.

Neopets Premium

Neopets Premium is an extended version of the site, for which members pay $7.99 (US) a month, or $69.95 (US) a year. Different packages may be purchased which include Premium, such as dial-up internet service. With Premium membership, external ads are removed and certain benefits are added, like extra Neopoints (2,500 NP for signing up and 1,000 NP for each additional month), a neomail.com e-mail address, a customizable portal, more random events, a special message board avatar that is unavailable to non-Premium members, Premium-only boards, a weekly "Space Faerie" scratch card, and access to beta versions of games. In addition, Premium users have access to a Super Shop Wizard that searches the entire site for the cheapest items in user-run shops instead of only a portion of the site, though they can only use it a certain number of times per hour. Premium users can also use 'price-only' searches, which show the average of the top ten items available, provided there are more than three on the shop wizard. Because of previous abuse from some users, 'price-only' searches are no longer unlimited.

Neopets Mobile

Neopets Mobile is a simpler version of the site. Initially released to Cingular/AT&T, it allows access from a mobile phone for $2.99 (US) a month, where users get exclusive access to Lutari Island and other exclusive content. It is a web-to-wireless application developed by IN-FUSIO. Other service providers include T-Mobile, Verizon, and Sprint.

NC Mall

The NC Mall is a mall for buying items used in the customisation of a Neopet with Neocash. The Mall was created through a partnership with Nexon, which also handles the sale of the similar NX Cash used in the analogous "Cash Shop" of MapleStory. It was initially released for beta on June 28 2007 and then fully released the following month on July 17. The items from the Mall are bought with Neocash, which is obtained by buying it with real world money through a PayPal account or by purchasing a NeoCash card, from Target stores in the U.S.

The NC Mall has a variety of wearables grouped into categories: Clothing/Shoes, Accessories, Backgrounds, Trinkets, Superpacks, and Other Items. These items are permanent, but it has been stated that some items DO expire. On September 20 2007 a new game, called "Qasalan Expellibox", was released. This luck game has a potential to give away Neocash along with Neopoints and virtual items.

Neopets: The Official Magazine

Neopets: The Official Magazine, published by Beckett Media was released in 2004. 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.

Key Quest

In February 2008, Neopets announced that Key Quest, a new feature to be introduced in the spring, will engage users by having them buy Neopets merchandise at Target and using a virtual code to redeem tokens for their user accounts. The merchandise includes trading cards, plushies, and Neocash cards.

Immersive advertising

Immersive advertising is a term trademarked by Neopets for the way Neopets ran advertisements after Doug Dohring bought the site. Instead of running banner ads, immersive advertising integrates advertisements into the site's content in several forms, including games and items. Prior to the arrival of the NC Mall, it contributed 60% of the revenue from Neopets. Companies that have bought into the concept include Disney, General Mills, and McDonald's. It is arguably the most contentious issue with the site. Consumer advocacy groups, such as Commercial Alert, argue that children may not know that they are trying to be sold something and that immersive ads should be clearly labelled as advertisements. Adam Powell stated that children are not required to play or use sponsor games and items, and in a 2002 article, Dohring stated that advertisements are clearly marked as such.

Reception

Since its inception, Neopets has been compared to the antecedent virtual pet fad Tamagotchi and the Pokémon franchise. It has been described as an online cross of Pokémon and Tamagotchi.

A press release from Neopets in 2001 stated that Neopets.com led in site stickiness in May and June and the average user spent 117 minutes a week on the site. 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 remains to be consistently ranked among the top ten stickiest sites by both Nielsen//NetRatings and comScore Media Metrix.

Its popularity spawned real world plushies, a magazine, future film, book series, cereal, and merchandise in other media as well.

Criticism

Off the website, issues have been raised about the site's immersive advertising methods and gambling-based games.

Gambling-based issues

A cross-promotion with McDonald's in October of 2004, with McDonald's promoting Neopets plushies in their Happy Meals and Neopets featuring a McDonald's related content, led to a nationwide controversy in Australia. A story on the Australian tabloid television show Today Tonight that featured a nine-year-old boy claiming 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 a 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, poker, betting on race animals, and even lottery scratchcards. Neopets has prohibited users under the age of 14 from playing most games that involve gambling.

External links

• Official Neopets Website
  • Neopets Jr.
• Official Neopets Press Kit
• Beckett Official Neopets Magazine
• Template:StrategyWiki