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Neopets

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Neopets
Company typeWebsite (Owned by Viacom)
IndustryInternet
FoundedNovember 15, 1999
HeadquartersGlendale, California, USA
Key people
Doug C. Dohring, Chairman & CEO
Lee Borth, COO
Adam Powell, Site Founder
Donna Williams, Site Co-Founder
Rik Kinney, Executive VP
Stephanie Yost Cameron, General Counsel & Executive VP
Tad Czyzewski, CFO
Billy Shum, President
Bill McCaffrey, CTO
Jeff Snetiker, Senior VP
Joshua Strathman, Corporate Counsel
Chris Davis, VP
Eric Greenwald, VP
David Longley, Director
Revenue$30 million USD+
Number of employees
150+
Websitewww.neopets.com
File:Neopets-homepage.png
Screenshot of the Neopets homepage viewed with Internet Explorer

Company information

In May 2004, Nielsen/Net Ratings reported that people were spending around three hours a month on Neopets, more than any other site in its Nielsen category.[1] 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. [2]. More recently, in 1 August 2006 Neopets reported over 124 million accounts, and over 183 million pets (each account can have a maximum of 4 pets and some users have several accounts). Updated statistics may be found on the Neopets "Pet Central" Page[3].

On June 20, 2005, Viacom stated that it had bought Neopets in a deal that has been valued at approximately $160 million [4].

Basics

Players can have up to four different pets per account. Multiple accounts (up to five, according to the rules) can be created in order to have more pets, but using these accounts to gain an unfair advantage (such as claiming once-per-day privileges) is not allowed.[5]

Neglecting a Neopet will lower its happiness level, which may have negative consequences such as the pet's turning blue via a random event if it is sad,[6], or red if it is angry [7], no matter which colour the player had made it. Other activities include talking on the message boards with other players,[8] completing quests, entering contests,[9].

Some colours cannot be obtained from a paint brush. "Ice", for instance, can only result from using the Secret Laboratory Ray or completing a rare Fountain Faerie Quest.[10]

If a Neopian is caught breaking the rules as stated in the Neopets Terms and Conditions,[11] their account will be "frozen" or "iced". This is where an account is no longer accessible to the owner, and all items, pets and NP are stored on the Neopets database. (Accounts suspected to have been scammed are also sometimes frozen to prevent additional damage.[12])

Environment

See also: List of Neopian worlds

As of July 2006, "Jelly World" (www.neopets.com/jelly) is the only world in Neopia that is inaccessible via the main world map. The existence of Jelly World is consistently denied by the Neopets staff, as a joke, despite all of the references to it such as a Jelly World board (http://www.neopets.com/neoboards/boardlist.phtml?board=18) that can't be acessed regularly and Jelly World related games (Jelly Blobs of Doom and Bouncy Supreme) that are hidden.

Gameplay

Flash or Shockwave games

File:Xtream hearder.png
"Extreme Herder," one of many Neopets games
File:Korbats lab.png
"Korbat's Lab," one of many Neopets games
File:Meerca chase.png
"Meerca Chase," (Retired game, replaced with Meerca Chase II) one of many Neopets games

There is a different game featured everyday. When a player achieves a score with the Featured Game, the amount of Neopoints usually given for that score is doubled. The usual maximum winnings is also doubled, allowing players to win up to 2,000 Neopoints each time they play.[13]

Quests

But, after the user completes her quest, the Fountain Faerie allows one of the pets to be changed into any species and almost any colour (with the exception of Ice,[14] MSP, Royal, Sponge and Robot).

The Esophagor, Edna the Witch, the Water Chef, the Brain Tree, and the Snow Faerie also give quests upon request. The Shop Wizard can be used to find items for these. Users often only do the quests when the required items are within a certain range, to avoid spending more than their potential reward. [15]

Avatars

In addition to the default avatars, there are more than 300 secret avatars that can be collected.[16]

Merchandise

On the description of the Jelly World game "Jelly Blobs of Doom", a movie is to be released Winter 2006. [17]

Controversy

Groups of people believing that Neopets treats users poorly and who are also against the immersive advertising have formed anti-Neopets websites expressing their views. These groups have bought domain names for their movement, talked about their movement on the Neopets forums, and have even reported Neopets for what they believe to be potential copyright violations. [18]

Advertising and revenue

Neopets is sometimes seen as a liberal placement and promotion of their sponsors' products, a technique sometimes dubbed "Immersive Advertising". [19]

In the editorial for Issue 12 of the Neopian Times, Neopets stated, "We do not want to start charging people for any activity on the site as it is not fair to those that do not have access to credit cards or cannot afford to pay for it... and don't worry as you will NEVER have to pay for anything on NeoPets!" [20]

Accuracy

On "very rare" occasions, the Neopets staff clean out frozen accounts[21], such that many frozen accounts are never deleted.

Scientology

Neopets CEO Doug Dohring is closely affiliated with the controversial Church of Scientology. Dohring has been quoted as saying "Having used his technology in every business activity... Mr. Hubbard's organizational concepts are always with me" [22]. In December 2005, a self-proclaimed former Neopets employee said that Scientology had impacted the administration of the company and staff, but had not affected anything on the website itself[23].

Accused plagiarism

There has also been some debate over Neopets possibly stealing games or game ideas from other sites, such as Orisinal. Games, such as "Turmac Roll", "Warf Rescue Team", and "Nimmo's Pond", are similar to Orisinal's "Panda Run", "These Little Pigs", and "Hydrophobia" respectively. The Orisinal founder briefly noted a similarity between his game "It Takes Two" and the Neopets game "Hasee Bounce" on his news section. Some games from PopCap, such as Typer Shark and Bejeweled, have similar Neopian equivalents too.

User criticism

Hacks and glitches

One of the first cheats to be used to any great extent was programs that submit fake scores for Flash-based games on the site. After almost a month of uninhibited use, Neopets finally took action in December 2000 and froze the accounts of at least 200 members[24] known to have been using the cheat.

Neopets has also used legal threats against those creating and using cheat programs, adding clauses to their Terms and Conditions requiring authors of cheats to pay damages of US$50,000, and users of said cheats to pay US$500 per use. [25].

Hundreds, possibly thousands of users were frozen, but accounts were not returned.[26]

On Friday April 4, 2004, a bug in the lost password request form allowed anyone to view the email address and password for any account. Many accounts were logged into by intruders. Neopets did not correct this until Monday, the next business day. The staff tried to fix the problems of stolen accounts and items, but there was still the problem of privacy: some players used the same password for different websites or had their email addresses exposed. [27]

File:Neopetslockedscreenie.PNG
A screenshot of a locked board by a hacked moderator's account
File:Picture2pp.gif
A page from a letter allegedly sent to "InfamousX241" from Neopets/Viacom.

Between November 2005 and January 2006, a hole in the filters allowed users to include JavaScript on customizable pages such as shops descriptons and user lookups. A group of users, spearheaded by a cracker under the alias of 'Kaos', used this to read the login cookies of anyone who viewed those pages, which allowed them to log into those accounts. The hole was patched, but over the next month the group found another way past the filters, and the same attack happened and at one point, took over a moderator's account and abused the forums locking powers .[28]

[29] [30] [31]

A very powerful HTML filter to stop cookie grabbers and other malicious scripts was implemented on April 26, 2006. The filter ensures that HTML syntax is followed correctly by checking things such as brackets and quotes, and makes it impossible to use any code that the staff has not allowed. [32]

Also, on and around the weekend of June 17 and June 18, 2006 a series of glitches occurred. These include auctions that have taken days to process[33] and game scores that would not return neopoints[34]. Also, Neopets has stated in their news page for 20 June that "If you have noticed a few quirks with the site over the weekend, they have been fixed!"[35]


On August 26-27, Neopets was infected with a virus called value[1].wmf and a trojan downloader called bl4ck.com. Last week Neopets was temporarily blacklisted in Australia by some ISPs for the same reasons. All were at least localized to Temp and Temporary Internet Files folders. [36]

User experience

Formatting issues and disorganisation of new features

The newest world release, Altador, was delayed for unknown reasons. In the Neopian Times issue 199 [37] Altador was said to be "The other side of Neopia", and the description was accompanied by a promise that the entire Neopian world map would be redrawn to include the mini-worlds. In Issue 115 [38] a land called "Talador" was described as "The continent on the other side of the globe". Talador and Altador were confirmed to be the same place in April 2006, when Neopets put the name change down to legal reasons[39]. The other side of Neopia has been mentioned several times, and the first detailed notice on its release [40] promised it for summer 2004 along with a major plot, neither of which materialized. In issue 139[41] it was hinted that the other side of Neopia would be released in 2005. In late 2004, Neopets claimed that a completely redesigned map would be released in the coming months. It would allow users to "spin the globe around and see the other side" [42]. In early 2006, Altador turned out not to be the other side of Neopia after all, but rather a small city with shops and a few places designed solely for the accompanying plot. Neopets still claimed, in issue 229 of March 2006, that "the other side of Neopia (and a few other surprises) are coming very, very soon" On June 23 2006, the other side of the world was introduced and the whole map got redrawn.[43]. However, besides Altador, the other side of the world contains an area called Lutari Island, which users can not access unless they pay a monthly fee to sign up with Neopets Mobile.

Scurvy Island, a place "where only the nastiest pirates in the land visit" was set for release in 2005 to coincide with the return of Maraqua, but never appeared. In issue 178 of the Neopian Times [44] Neopets made it clear that the island was to be very different from the existing pirate-themed "Krawk Island", and that users "will be seeing quite a bit of it very soon". Scurvy Island was set to be a dark contrast to the light-hearted Krawk Island, and Neopets had insisted there was a need for both. Yet, in issue 180 [45] they announced the scrapping of Scurvy Island due to its similarity with Krawk Island: "It doesn't really make sense to create Scurvy Island as a map when we have Krawk Island already".

"Neoschools" are a believed to be cancelled feature, for reasons unknown to users. The URL for the Neoshools is http://www.neopets.com/neoschool/class_info.phtml. Neoschools are mentioned as early as issue 91 of the Neopian Times, when they were said to be released "Very soon" [46]. In issue 95 [47] (Summer 2003) Neopets added "Very soon we promise... I know its been a while but we are just finalising the artwork and making sure they are loads of fun at the moment." In response to a question about the release date. In issue 106[48] Neopets announced that users would be able to register their pets the following week and that the term would start on "The 8th day of Gathering" (September 8, 2003). In issue 119[49] they claimed to have been too busy to release it in September, despite having supposedly only a week's worth of work remaining, and promised a January 2004 release. Five months later, in issue 139 [50], they said they would be "back on track with it soon". In issue 164 [51] (about 18 months after the first mention), they said that the project was "on hold" and would not happen in the near future, but also that it had not been cancelled. In the Neopets video game for Playstation 2, The Darkest Faerie, a tombstone can be seen which reads "Neoschools."

The colour purple for Neopets has the unusual quality of also including orange. The orange is usually included as spots, but can also be used in manes, stripes, or other features. Some users [52] feel that the color should not have spots, or that the spotted pets should be renamed as another color. The plot that was supposed to explain this strangeness was postponed for the Hannah and the Ice Caves plot, for many users had lost interest in the plot. The plot was to be named "The Return of Dr. Sloth", and there was going to be a war on Neopia's Moon, Kreludor, between the purple and the orange Grundos (an alien-like Neopet). When both groups of Grundos realized they should not be fighting each other, they united to fight their true enemy: Dr. Sloth.[53].

Controversy has arisen from the changing of the addition sign (+) to a "dagger" (†, †) in most of the places for users to post messages. The character can be seen as a cross of the Christian faith, though in fact it is a typesetting character used like an asterisk for footnotes. The change was meant to break any script or exploit that uses the + character, though it is ineffective. The + characters now do not show up at all on most areas where users can type descriptions and the forum.[54]

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 rarer for non-paying users, premium-only boards, a weekly "Space Faerie" scratch card, and access to beta versions of games. Also, 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 perform unlimited 'price-only' searches, which shows the average price of the first 10 results. [55]

To begin Premium service, a player must first be referred by another Premium user, or sign up when new testers are being accepted. There is a free 15-day trial. There are prizes for referring people to Premium if they remain after the trial expires: an avatar, sidebar, a charm which can randomly double a player's Neopoint reward from games, and many bonus item packs. Some prizes are revoked if the referrer stops using Premium service. These incentives make it easy for a player who seeks Premium to receive an invitation. [55]

April Fools

File:Neocharge.jpg
The NeoCharge display along with discussion on the NeoBoards

Neopets is well-known for its April Fool's Day pranks among its users. Some of its jokes include:

  • 2001: "Neopet Makeovers" gave Neopets new names and different looks.[56]
  • 2002: Some users' Safety Deposit Boxes were emptied, since the Pant Devil stole them. [57]
  • 2003: Neopets becomes "Neopetz", a "cooler" website! Now it looks better and no more neopoints, making everything free, including the extremely expensive items found in the Hidden Tower. [58]
  • 2005: Fifty new pets were drawn, and the Neopets staff claimed they were releasing all of them. Also, they claimed from there on, you could own 10 neopets. [59]
  • 2006: "NeoCharge" (pictured) was a Neopoint tax that players had to pay depending on which and how many pages were visited. When players actually tried to pay the charge, they would be taken to a page that said it might take up to 24 hours to process. Some users also said that they got neopoints back after visiting the page on April 2nd, 2006. Many users agree that this was the best April Fool's Day prank of all time so far. Who knows what new A.D.P will be next.......?[60]

See also

References

  1. ^ Eckstein, Sandra (2004-05-13). "The next generation of toys play with interactivity". Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Retrieved 2006-08-04.
  2. ^ Gamespot interview, see "Neopets: The Darkest Faerie Developer Interview 1" video
  3. ^ Neopets "Pet Central" Page
  4. ^ Viacom agrees to buy Neopets, Reuters
  5. ^ http://www.neopets.com/terms.phtml
  6. ^ http://www.neopets.com/ntimes/index.phtml?section=editorial&issue=228
  7. ^ http://www.neopets.com/newfeatures.phtml?arr=2004-11-08
  8. ^ http://www.pinkpt.com/neodex/index.php/Neopets#Neoboards
  9. ^ http://www.neopets.com/contests.phtml
  10. ^ Petpage on the Fountain Faerie
  11. ^ Neopets Terms and Conditions
  12. ^ http://www.neopets.com/ntimes/index.phtml?section=editorial&issue=232
  13. ^ http://www.neopets.com/ntimes/index.phtml?section=editorial&issue=211
  14. ^ http://www.neopets.com/ntimes/index.phtml?section=editorial&issue=213
  15. ^ http://neonewsnow.com/neopets_guides/quests.htm
  16. ^ AvatarLog
  17. ^ Jelly Blobs of Doom game page
  18. ^ AntiNeopian
  19. ^ http://www.dailycal.org/article.php?id=15532
  20. ^ http://www.neopets.com/newnt/index.phtml?section=editorial&week=12
  21. ^ http://www.neopets.com/ntimes/index.phtml?section=editorial&issue=235
  22. ^ Hubbard College of Administration
  23. ^ Inside the Cult of Neopets - Kotaku
  24. ^ Neopets' New Features for Dec. 2001
  25. ^ Neopets' Terms and Conditions (See "Miscellaneous")
  26. ^ PinkPT forum, "Item Duping"
  27. ^ Neopets News for the Week of April 5 2004
  28. ^ Thread from PPT on the cookiegrabbing issue
  29. ^ Third page of legal letter sent to "InfamousX241"
  30. ^ The apology letter written by "InfamousX241"
  31. ^ Sound clip of conversation between "InfamousX241" and the angry father of a 15-year-old girl
  32. ^ Help page on the HTML filter
  33. ^ PinkPT Thread for auctions that would not process
  34. ^ PinkPT Thread for game scores that would not give NP
  35. ^ Neopets News for the Week of June 19
  36. ^ News post from PPT on the infected virus issue with links to screenshots
  37. ^ http://www.neopets.com/ntimes/index.phtml?section=editorial&issue=199
  38. ^ http://www.neopets.com/newnt/index.phtml?section=editorial&week=115
  39. ^ http://www.neopets.com/ntimes/index.phtml?section=editorial&issue=233
  40. ^ http://www.neopets.com/newnt/index.phtml?section=editorial&week=117
  41. ^ http://www.neopets.com/newnt/index.phtml?section=editorial&week=139
  42. ^ http://www.neopets.com/ntimes/index.phtml?section=editorial&issue=165
  43. ^ http://www.neopets.com/ntimes/index.phtml?section=editorial&issue=229
  44. ^ http://www.neopets.com/ntimes/index.phtml?section=editorial&issue=178
  45. ^ http://www.neopets.com/ntimes/index.phtml?section=editorial&issue=180
  46. ^ http://www.neopets.com/newnt/index.phtml?section=editorial&week=91
  47. ^ http://www.neopets.com/newnt/index.phtml?section=editorial&week=95
  48. ^ http://www.neopets.com/newnt/index.phtml?section=editorial&week=106
  49. ^ http://www.neopets.com/newnt/index.phtml?section=editorial&week=119
  50. ^ http://www.neopets.com/newnt/index.phtml?section=editorial&week=139
  51. ^ http://www.neopets.com/ntimes/index.phtml?section=editorial&issue=164
  52. ^ http://www.neopets.com/ntimes/index.phtml?section=editorial&issue=169
  53. ^ Neopian Times Issue #217 Editorial
  54. ^ PinkPT forum, "Argh, Neopets messed up my profile AGAIN..."
  55. ^ a b Premium Neopets FAQ
  56. ^ Neomakeovers
  57. ^ [1]
  58. ^ Neopetz
  59. ^ [2]
  60. ^ NeoCharge

Official

Selected fansites

Template:Neopets/sfansites

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