Early ’00s icon Neopets is attempting a comeback, announcing a new management team, new funding, and a new direction that will hopefully help it ride the Y2K nostalgia wave back to the top. And yes, that includes fixing its games.
Detailed in a Medium post(opens in a new tab) on Monday, The Neopets Team (TNT) revealed it has raised $4 million from investors to fund an overhaul that will hopefully restore Neopia to its former glory. They’re also under new leadership, headed by former Chief Metaverse Officer Dominic Law after a management buyout deal. Neopets is now owned by newly-formed company World of Neopia, Inc., with its previous owner JumpStart Games having shut down last month.
“The Neopets Team is, for the first time in over a decade, equipped to make meaningful changes in pursuit of a Neopian renaissance,” wrote TNT. “The funding raised from our management team and external investors will allow us to revive the brand as a whole.”
Neopets has hit hard times(opens in a new tab) since its heyday. Though the virtual pet game boasted 25 million users at its peak(opens in a new tab), by 2017 it had shrunk to just 100,000 daily active users worldwide.(opens in a new tab) The site has limped along at a loss for over 10 years, lacking the resources to fix broken elements much less rework them. TNT admitted as such, noting that the site has been rife with “bugs, unconverted pages, broken games, and a lack of new content.”
While a few dedicated Neopians have continued to cling to their Shoyrus and JubJubs, common opinion has long been that the website has been in dire need of an overhaul. Neopets’ infrastructure has visibly struggled to keep up with the times, and was particularly hard hit when Adobe Flash Player’s demise in 2020 made many of its games stop working.
Fortunately, bringing back the Neopets’ games is one of the first things on TNT’s list, with the company hoping to utilise Flash Player emulator Ruffle.
“We have begun exploring the use of Ruffle to resolve the issues caused by the end of Flash in hopes of speeding up the process of bringing functionality back to our beloved games,” wrote TNT. “We’re also working our way through numerous page conversions and bug fixes, tackling the mobile browser compatibility issues, and making improvements to our customer support protocol.”
Despite its new CEO’s experience with the metaverse, Neopets also seems to be backing off its heavily derided crypto efforts(opens in a new tab). TNT announced it is “transitioning away” from Neopets Metaverse, a poorly-received 3D game that attempted to jump onto the crypto and NFT bandwagon.
Instead it will focus on building a brand new mobile app called World of Neopets, “a social life-simulation game in which you live your ideal Neopian life from the perspective of a Neopet.” Significantly, TNT has assured Neopians that World of Neopets will have no NFTs, and “is NOT built on a crypto model [emphasis original].”
“TNT is committed to continuing a two-sided conversation with the community that addresses user concerns head-on,” TNT said in its blog post. “Moving forward, TNT will begin releasing monthly updates, hosting regularly scheduled AMAs, and launch an exciting new brand ambassador program.”
Neopets’ revitalisation efforts will start with the launch of a new homepage on July 20. TNT will then focus on repairing over 50 games from July 25, and hopes to eventually convert some of them to HTML5.
But matter which way you slice it, they have their work cut out for them if they want to get Neopets in shape for its 25th anniversary next year.
