Neopets.com

Screenshot of the front page taken on 3 April 2012.

'Neopets' redirects here. This article is about the website. For the inhabitants of Neopia, see Neopet. For other uses, see Neopets (disambiguation).

Neopets.com is a virtual pet site founded on 15 November, 1999. It is set in the world of Neopia, a planet where creatures called Neopets live. Players can create and adopt Neopets, build and furnish a home, earn currency by playing games, purchase items, participate in a variety of events/feature, and interact with other users via the Neoboards and Nemail. Neopets can be painted different colours and customised with different clothing.

The site is free to play, supported by banner advertising and sponsored games. However, users may sign up for Neopets Premium, introduced in 2004, for $7.99 per month, which hides the advertising and provides access to special features including access to beta versions of developing games. Between 2006 and 2009, a subscription-based mobile phone application was operated that allowed subscribers to access an exclusive area of Neopia and care for their Neopets from their mobile phone. Additionally, in 2007, The Neopets Team introduced Neocash, which can be bought for real money and used in turn to buy special wearable items for Neopets. It functions as a separate economy: Neocash and Neocash items cannot be traded for Neopoints.

Company history

Development of the site began in 1997 and lasted up until late 1999 by then-College students Adam Powell and Donna Williams. During this period, the pair began to program, illustrate, and plan the foundations of Neopets still seen today.

The site officially launched on 15 November, 1999.

In-dependency (1999-2005)

Shortly after it's launch in November 1999, Businessman Doug Dohring, founder of the The Dohring Company, immediately purchased the site from Adam and Donna for a disclosed amount. With the introduction of "immersive advertising", in which the site generates revenue through ads at no expense to the user, the site was both successful in profitability and use.

During this time, Neopets, Inc would begin to launch several divisions, such as a marketing team, and eventually move on to sell a line of Merchandise including Toys, Clothing, Video Games, and briefly food. In it's ever expanding realm of popularity and promotions, it would even move on to sponsor Pokemon in various campaigns and host a line of plushes through McDonalds in 2005 and 2006. The Neopets Team, who was also established during this period, would also see several of it's iconic and faithful members join.

From it's establishing as a company, up until it's eventual sale to Viacom in 2005, the site, and it's staff, established many of the iconic characters, locations, events and functions Neopets is known for today.

Viacom (2005-2014)

On 20 June, 2005, Doug Dohring, CEO and owner of Neopets, Inc sold the company to Viacom for a total of $160 million USD. Doug, who planned to stay with the company even after the purchase, commented on the purchase, saying: "We have the ability to create properties with their own hero and villain characters that can be merchandised,".

Upon it's purchase, Neopets, Inc. became Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds Group, with the several additional departments opening in the company and that which still pertained to Neopets became known as NeoStudios. Successfully launching a spin-off site Petpet Park, and linked site Monkey Quest, Viacom would later move on to introduce additional services such as Neopets Premium, Neocash and the short-lived Neopets Mobile.

Planning to fully marketize Neopets, plans were announced to launch a new lines of Merchandise, including toys and movies. Marketing campaigns such as Key Quest and Neocash were created as a result of Viacom's ownership, with an array of of other merchandise such as Trading Cards, Playsets, and videogames such as Puzzle Adventure and Quizara's Curse. In vein of past promotions the Neopets had with McDonalds, Burger King was also used to host a variety of Neopets-themed plushes and figurines included with meals.

Unfortunately, past Neopets' 10th Birthday in 2009, Viacom began to cut all external merchandising and focus primarily on the sales of Nick Cash, a pay-to-own virtual currency which seemingly 'succeeded' NeoCash. During this time, the number of Site Events, content and features "lulled", with the company's focus shifting to the impending launch of Monkey Quest.

On 17 March, 2014, it was announced that Viacom had sold Neopets.com and related properties to gaming industry JumpStart.

JumpStart (2014-Present)

On 17 March, 2014, The Neopets Team announced the site's departure from Viacom after closing a deal with gaming company JumpStart for the purchase of Neopets.com and Petpet Park.

Though the details remained slim, users were assured that all sites features would be kept intact, and that both Neopets and Petpet Park would be "disconnected" from Monkey Quest at a later time after all of the site's assets are moved to JumpStart's servers. Users were given 150 Neocash and two items, a Plushie Kiko representative of Viacom's Spongebob Squarepants ( Cheerful Sponge Kiko Plushie), and a Plushie Gelert JumpStart's mascot ( Friendly Brown Gelert Plushie).

Gameplay

Players of the site must sign up for a free account. This allows them to own Neopets and participate in the world. Each account can own up to four Neopets, a shop, a gallery, and a Neohome each. A player may also sign up for up to four additional "side" accounts to own more Neopets, but they may not use these additional accounts to earn Neopoints. Players are expected to care for their Neopets, including feeding them, playing with them, and curing them of any diseases they may catch. Players can use the Quick Ref page to keep track of their Neopet's needs.

Basic care of Neopets can be learned from Neopets Jr., a simple version of the site catering to young players or those new to the website.

Neopets has its own functional economy. Players earn Neopoints primarily from playing games. These Neopoints can be used to purchase items. The main way new items enter the economy is when they are bought from NPC shops. Items can be sold between users in player-owned shops, and many users turn a profit from buying up cheap items, that have a high resell price, when shops restock. Items can be bartered for other items in the Trading Post or auctioned off at the Auction House. Some rarer items - such as paint brushes and Treasure Map pieces - are only given out by random events or as prizes from plots.

Plots are story lines that occur in the Neopets world. They often involve the release of new themed worlds, and users can follow the story and participate by solving puzzles or fighting in the Battledome - a game where trained Neopets are equipped and fight turn based battles against other competitors. They are the main means that events effecting the whole of Neopia transpire.

Players may set themselves other goals, including collecting certain items to display in a gallery, or filling their Stamp Album or Neodeck. They may train and arm their Neopet for the Battledome, seek to paint and customise their Neopet, or decorate their Neohome. The most well decorated Neohomes can be entered into the Neohome Spotlight, which awards trophies to the players with the best Neohomes. Other spotlights include the Art Gallery, to which the player may submit their drawings, the Poetry Contest, and the Gallery Spotlight. The website also operates weekly contests like the Lenny Conundrum and the Caption Contest.

The site also operates the Neopian Times, which publishes player authored stories, articles, comics and series of long stories. It features an editorial where The Neopets Team answer players' questions too.

Community

A large portion of the site is given over to community interactions. Users can view other users' profiles (called user look-ups) and their Neopets and trade with them. Players over the age of 13, or those under 13 who have returned a parental permission form - in accordance with the USA's Children's Online Privacy Protection Act - can send messages to each other, talk on the site's chat boards, and can form themed guilds with their friends.

Certain games, like the Battledome and Kacheekers, can be played with other players over the internet.

Rule breaking

The Neopets Team have several systems in place for dealing with rule breaking. Minor infractions may often receive a warning at the discretion of the staff, whereas repeated or more serious infractions can be dealt with by suspension: this prevents a user from accessing their account or anything associated with it - e.g. its Neopets, its Neopoints, its shop - until the suspension has elapsed. Suspensions can be issued for different lengths of time, and subsequent suspensions tend to be longer.

For very serious or continued rule breaking, the player can be frozen. This permanently locks the user out of their account, and any other user who searches for that player will just receive a message that the account in question is frozen. If a player believes they have been wrongly frozen, they can submit a frozen account ticket in the Help section to have the case reviewed and submit extra information about what happened. All the details of the account remain saved, so if the review finds in favour of the player the account can be restored in its entirety.

For rule breaking specifically relating to the Neoboards or contacting other players, a user may be silenced for a period of time. While silenced, they can still play the site but cannot communicate with other players at all, nor modify their user or pet look-ups.

None of these actions are carried out by automatic systems: an employee of Neopets reviews each case before acting.

Merchandise

Neopets produces a range of merchandise, including plushies, stickers, and stationary. The merchandise retails at many mainstream outlets such as Wal-Mart, Target, and Limited Too (which was the first outlet for Neopets merchandise). There are also online retailers involved, such as 99dogs and Zazzle.

In September 2003, the Neopets Trading Card Game was published by Wizards of the Coast. The trading cards are a collectible card game based on characters and settings from the website. As well as being collected they can also be used in a two-player card game. In addition to the base set of cards, there have been nine expansions mostly set around the site's plots. The last expansion was released in 2006.

Several off-site video games have also been released, starting with Neopets: The Darkest Faerie in 2005 for the PlayStation 2 then Neopets: Petpet Adventures - The Wand of Wishing in 2006 for the PlayStation Portable. In 2008, Neopets Puzzle Adventure was released for the Nintendo DS, Wii, and PC, and in 2009, the Leapfrog Didj exclusive title Quizara's Curse was launched. Five types of electronic handhelds have been released: four types of Mini Pals, a keyring sized accessory where the player cares for a Neopet, and a Zizzle toy featuring ten games in one.

Between 2003 and 2008, Beckett Media published a bimonthly magazine called Neopets: The Official Magazine. Twenty six issues were published before the magazine was discontinued.

In 2005, it was reported that a Neopets film was in pre-production, but nothing has materialised.

Trivia

• A Google search feature was added to the basic Neopets search on November 21, 2006.
• Neopets was re-modeled on April 26, 2007

See also

• Neopet Species
• Neopia
• List of terms in Neopets
• List of Pop Culture References in Neopets
• Faeries

External links

• Neopets Official Website
• Neopets Jr. (defunct)
• Premium Portal
• Editorial: #51, #52, 221
• Selected Petpages: Leto's Premium Neopets FAQ
• Introduction to the site
• Official Neopets Press Kit