Again in July, the world’s Neopets practically received despatched to a farm upstate. The edutainment firm that maintained the 24-year-old digital pets webgame was shuttered by its proprietor, NetDragon, and all of the Kortbats and Wockys and Blumaroos may’ve gone with it if a administration buyout hadn’t saved the positioning alive.
Now, for the primary time in nearly 20 years, Neopets is unbiased once more, and its new overseers hope it could actually climb again up the web hierarchy—at its peak in 2005, Neopets had over 35 million month-to-month energetic customers.
The 1st step within the Neopets revitalization challenge: ditch plans for a Neopets Metaverse NFT sport.
Funnily, the CEO of the brand new, unbiased Neopets firm, Dominic Legislation, was the very particular person accountable for that Neopets NFT challenge again at NetDragon. The second Neopets went unbiased, nevertheless, he and the brand new firm canned it.
Chatting with PC Gamer on a current name, Legislation did not rule something out for the long run, however informed me that NFTs are “not what the neighborhood needs” proper now, and that the brand new, unbiased Neopets is not exploring something blockchain associated.
Property initially made for the canceled Neopets Metaverse NFT challenge are actually being recycled to be used in an upcoming “social life-simulation sport” referred to as World of Neopets. It will be a cellular sport, however might turn out to be a multiplatform sport someday after it launches, Legislation informed me.
That is “at the least one other yr or two” away, although. Within the close to time period, Legislation says that the corporate will use its assets “to assist actually repair the Neopets web site first, and construct issues that our neighborhood cares most about.”
Neo-Neopets
Legislation hopes to ‘flip Neopets right into a a lot bigger leisure IP.’
The Neopets web site was in a poor state earlier than the buyout. “Beset by ageing web site options, a waning person base, and an absence of assets, [the Neopets team] needed to work tirelessly simply to barely preserve the positioning afloat,” learn a press release attributed to the positioning employees. The library of minigames was notably rundown: They’d been made in Flash, which was deprecated again in 2020 after which blocked in browsers for safety causes.
Already, the brand new Neopets firm has used Flash emulator Ruffle to carry again over 100 video games, and its efforts are having an impact: The location simply hit its highest month-to-month customers determine in 5 years.
A lot of these customers are 30-to-40-year-olds pushed by nostalgia for the outdated sport, which is now in its twenty fifth yr of operation and nonetheless very a lot appears to be like prefer it comes from the 2000s. However many are additionally youngsters being launched to Neopets by their millennial mother and father, says Legislation, who describes the positioning as a “residing relic” of the web: a spot the place youngsters can discover out what the online was like 20 years in the past, and the place adults can relive that period.
Legislation himself grew up enjoying Neopets, and in some respects, sees operating the positioning as much like sustaining a historic constructing. He plans to maintain the traditional Neopets look and “DNA” alive on the web site, and says that the corporate is engaged on integrating fan initiatives that search to protect the Neopets expertise of the early days, from 1999 via the early 2000s.
Once we’re working with a historic relic, we’ve to verify we’re doing innovation whereas doing the preservation on the identical time.
Dominic Legislation
However the brand new Neopets house owners do not simply need to function a historic exhibit: Legislation hopes to “flip Neopets right into a a lot bigger leisure IP.” I hadn’t seen it till he talked about it, however traditional toy manufacturers are having a second: Barbie simply had its massive film, there is a new Furby line, and there is apparently been a Care Bears resurgence. In the meantime, different old-school video games like RuneScape appear to be thriving. Perhaps this is the precise second for a Neopets comeback?
That in-development World of Neopets life sim is a part of the Neopets international domination plan, however earlier than that, the corporate will relaunch a redesigned model of one other cellular sport, Island Builders, early subsequent yr, and plans to introduce a single sign-on system for all Neopets video games. 2024 may also see the beginning of a brand new Neopets storyline and new merchandise—the corporate is mostly “making an attempt to do much more licensing and merchandising offers,” says Legislation—within the leadup to the twenty fifth Anniversary celebration.
To take care of concord between lovers of outdated Neopets and his ambitions for neo-Neopets, Legislation additionally plans to spend so much of time listening to gamers. “It is very completely different from constructing a model new sport,” he mentioned. “Once we’re working with a historic relic, we’ve to verify we’re doing innovation whereas doing the preservation on the identical time.”
Yet another precedence: Ensuring folks can get into their outdated accounts, which can actually have been made many years in the past by individuals who had been youngsters on the time. The account restoration coverage was up to date in September, and Legislation says they have been receiving a lot of help tickets to assist outdated gamers get well their Neopets.
“It is a good time to come back again and say hello to your pets,” he says.
After all, you’ve got been diligently taking good care of your Neopets this entire time, proper? I imply, what sort of particular person would abandon a Neopet for 20 years? Not me, that is for positive.