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Post by June Scarlet on Jul 27, 2015 13:14:57 GMT -5
What I thought was interesting about the article was how it seemed to focus on the early years of Neopets, talking about old plots and wars. I don't think they even mentioned NC, which I would think would be an important aspect of discussion when talking about Neopets commercialization.
My conclusion is that the author used to be a Neopets player back in the day, but hasn't visited recently, or at least not until the Neoboard meltdown. So they relied on both their old knowledge, and research of current Neopet discussion to bridge the gap as to what's happening. They missed a few points along the way, but I did appreciate all the works cited links throughout the article, you can tell research was done on the matter.
And bonus points for having someone illustrate the article.
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Post by PFA on Jul 27, 2015 14:15:14 GMT -5
My conclusion is that the author used to be a Neopets player back in the day, but hasn't visited recently, or at least not until the Neoboard meltdown. So they relied on both their old knowledge, and research of current Neopet discussion to bridge the gap as to what's happening. Yeah, that's the vibe I usually get from these types of articles—like they played it back in the early 2000s, but then moved on to other things and are only commenting from an old nostalgia POV. XD |
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Post by Patjade on Jul 27, 2015 20:27:39 GMT -5
I never minded the sponsored games. In fact, I went out of my way to play each one at least once so that Neopets would get credit and a little income from it. Several had become dailies as it was a way to earn some easy NP.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 27, 2015 20:40:18 GMT -5
I never really had any strong feelings on sponsor games. Some were pretty fun, though.
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Post by Coaster on Jul 27, 2015 21:34:17 GMT -5
I have fond memories of a few of the sponsor games (the Lilo and Stitch one with the surfing seemed pretty unique, for instance). And since they were sponsor games, they were appreciated for being an easier source of NP than the main games, back before stuff like Key Quest and the Habitarium were a thing (...and of course, now both of those are gone as well as the sponsor games). And of course, everyone was super into whatever event was going on at any given time (even if there was complaining, sometimes justified).
I think it had a lot to do with people just leaving gradually as the fad started dying down (perhaps a problem was more in the shift towards branded merchandise rather than building up the core site, not so much the prevalence of sponsor games), and a number of users were probably driven off by big changes thanks to Viacom and the site interface overhaul and customization and NC and the like. And when the staff was laid off and the site itself started to crumble, well...
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Post by Geodude 🌻 on Jul 29, 2015 11:27:25 GMT -5
Was the idea for Neopets: The Darkest Faerie conceived prior to Viacom or post Viacom? The game was super glitchy but fun nonetheless. I guess they can't make more games like that unless they fix the core site. Still looking for a modern Neopets RPG where you don't have to click a button and watch the entire page refresh just to move one step on a grid. (Doesn't mean Neoquest wasn't fun...it's just aging). Yeah, there needs to be innovation...
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Post by Killix on Jul 29, 2015 12:01:13 GMT -5
Was the idea for Neopets: The Darkest Faerie conceived prior to Viacom or post Viacom? The idea for that game was definitely around way before Viacom purchased Neopets. Neopets: The Darkest Faerie was originally planned as a Playstation (one) title, but that project was cancelled. They started over from scratch and TDF became a Playstation 2 title instead. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 29, 2015 12:08:20 GMT -5
Essay: I found the article interesting in a "so this is what the mainstream Internet thinks of Neopets these days" sort of way. It presents all of the same cries of alarm we've heard raised against the site in the past (bad economy, too commercialized, the site is doomed) and seems to have been written from the viewpoint of someone who played Neopets when they were 8 and stopped playing when it stopped being cool. Now they're a hipster writing for an online magazine who needed a quick, sensational story, heard about JS's Neopets acquisition, read Donna's Reddit thing, and popped back on the site to see how much they could lambast about it. I thought it was amusing how much they managed to misinterpret and/or skew to make it sound like the site is much worse than it is.
Advertising has always been a necessary evil, and I think most of us understood that even when we were younger. It's misleading to cater to critics who declare that advertising indoctrinates children and subverts their consumer choices without consumer-end evidence to back that up. The article has a number of statistics on advertising input but none on output, which would be an interesting study to undertake, asking people how much advertising on Neopets when they were children actually affected what they bought/their opinions on products.
I was 14 when I started playing Neopets, a little older than most advertisers' target demographic, and the ads didn't faze me at all. I actually shied away from the sponsor games, despite their high payout, for the specific reason that I didn't enjoy having to stare at a screen full of product imagery and was actually embarrassed by it. And based on a number of responses here, even people who actually actively played and enjoyed the sponsor games did not get their impressionable little minds confused into thinking Cheetos were the meaning of life. Contrary to the critics, I think that anyone with the reading and reasoning skills to be able to play Neopets on their own (and thus without someone hovering over their shoulder clicking away from sponsor games) has the ability to discern when something is an advertisement.
(And come on, they're treating Neopets like it's some evil brainwashing scheme--kids are exposed to advertising constantly, not just on the Internet. It's on TV, in magazines, on billboards--heck, they're exposed to a tsunami of advertising just by tagging along with a parent to the grocery store! The only way to completely shelter your kid from ads is to raise them out in the middle of nowhere with no television, Internet, or contact with other people--or, you can teach your child about why advertising is a thing and why they don't have to buy into it [and I'm willing to bet a lot of kids innately understand this, they're smart].)
Which brings me to a related topic: the article's ignoring other user demographics. It states that 39 percent of the user base circa 2005 were younger than 13. And goes on to talk about that 39 percent as being the most valuable to potential sponsors. Which means it neglects the 61 percent of users older than 13. In fact, the article does not even mention the makeup of that 61 percent, or that Neopets was originally targeted at college students, it just keeps going on the pretense that Neopets is a website intended for young children--a pretense inaccurate by the article's own statistical admission.
The writer complains that 8-year-olds can't afford Draik Eggs--but (most) 8-year-olds also can't (at least not on their own) solve complex plot puzzles, complete a game of Plushie Tycoon, obtain the Escape from Meridell Castle avatar, get a series published in the Neopian Times, win the Beauty Contest, etc. Just because the site's aesthetic is bright and cartoony, it automatically gets lumped in with PBS Kids, and that's not the site's mistake, that's parents'.
Neopets has never stated itself to be a children's site. It is (or was) popular with children, but adults love it too (and they're actually the ones who stay with the site the longest). Presuming that Neopets is a kids' site because of its aesthetic, and then criticizing it when it does not meet one's standards of approval for exposure to young children, is like criticizing Disney movies for being too scary for 2-year-olds when they were never targeted to 2-year-olds, or complaining that the old Nickelodeon cartoon Rugrats is a bad influence on very small children when it was actually meant for older children--and includes a lot of cultural references that only adults would get. "All-ages" does not mean "this thing was made for your child", it literally means "this thing was crafted with the intent that children, teens, and adults enjoy it". That's why Pokemon, Mario, and Kirby games are rated Everyone, not Early Childhood, despite how bright and cartoony they are.
(For the record, my infant niece loves Disney movies.)
Another way the article misrepresents site demographics is by placing undue focus on the site economy. Yes, I completely understand that there's a sizable restocking and moneymaking culture on the site. I acknowledge that the economy is nowhere near viable, and many are frustrated by inflation and things that I don't know enough about economics to articulate.
But, here's where I become self-centered: I think that kind of thing only really matters to people for whom making NP is the main draw of the site. I don't know how the statistics balance out, but I know for sure that there are a good number of people for whom other things keep them coming back to Neopets, and making money is just one of many activities that gets people hooked. Comparing the site to an elaborate gambling scheme, somehow trying to scrape together enough to keep your babies fed, is not only inaccurate (free omelette, anyone?) but ignores the appreciable segment of the Neopian population who does not actively try to earn money and yet generally can make sure their pets are fed and they can splurge on the occasional avatar- or plot-related buy.
The article says nothing about the site's creative contests, its mountains of lore, customizable pet pages that can host anything from artwork to pet directories, the number of games that are fun beyond their NP-making capabilities (I'm slightly addicted to Attack of the Gummy Dice) or the ability to collect anything from avatars to Bottles of Blue Sand to one's heart's desire. When it mentions plots, it only talks about them in terms of agitating the economy as people rush to buy better Battledome equipment--completely ignoring the fact that plots also include non-battle-related puzzles, gorgeous artwork, and fun new characters, settings, and ideas. (And some plots don't even involve a battling element.) Maybe that's what the writer best remembers Battle for Meridell and Curse of Maraqua for, but that doesn't mean everyone else feels the same way.
(As an aside, the somewhat non sequiturial mention of Gaia Online leads me to believe that the writer plays [or played] Gaia and mentioned that site's tanking economy in order to be able to say "see, it happened here, and Neopets is next!" Gaia's situation is actually somewhat different, in that that site, when I left it, was experiencing massive hyperinflation, on a scale and at a rate much higher than Neopets's, because Gaia was actually selling site currency for real money, something that Neopets has the decency not to do. So I don't think the situations are quite comparable.)
I also just don't like how the tone of the article was so ominous, like "remember that fun website you played in sixth grade? Well, it's actually terrible, and it's doomed". People have been saying that about Neopets for oh, the past ten years or so? Yes, it's not the juggernaut it used to be in the early 2000s, but it's still hanging around and it's still fun in its own ways. There is a lot that can be improved about it, but despite everything that's been shaken up with the JS acquisition, it's not over until it's over, and until the site actually dies I will remain confident that things will get better.
(Besides, I still have a copious list of stuff I want to write and draw for the NT, so it can't die yet.) TL;DR: The site's not doomed, ads are a thing that happens on the Internet, 8-year-olds don't RS Draik Eggs, and the writer is making a mountain out of a Symolhill. |
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Post by Zoey on Jul 29, 2015 14:24:23 GMT -5
I agree with your points, surfersquid. I'm pretty sure people who come to Neo to make millions of NP alone tend to leave fairly quickly; the oldest players are the ones who stay for the creative aspects: the stories, plots, art, etc.
I, too, remember being rather turned off when Neopets opened up the NC Mall, and the ads slowly started popping up everywhere (this was back when Chrome didn't exist yet and neither did adblock). I think that was when I started my 8-year hiatus. But after playing other games, I've become pretty accustomed to advertising and shops that use real-life currency, so I kind of wish I had not deleted my original account; but starting new and fresh is also exciting, too. ^.^
And oh gosh, Gaia Online is another can of worms... I remember playing that site casually for a few years, back when it had first started and inflation was an issue but it wasn't -that- bad. When I saw prices rising exponentially and how the site was very limited in creative aspects, I dropped my account faster than a lump of burning coal. half a decade later, upon moving in with my new roommate, she reported that she used to play Gaia Online, and when she quit she had about 20 million gold. I was playing back when one million seemed like an unfathomable amount unless you continuously used real-life currency to pay for items. coming back to Neo, I can say that despite the 50k from ghoul catchers, higher game NP ratios (I played back when making 4k took about thirty minutes), and now Trudy's, most items seemed to have actually DE-flated. I'm not complaining, of course; it was a pleasant surprise and I am now taking full advantage of it... LOL!
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Post by Geodude 🌻 on Jul 29, 2015 14:57:32 GMT -5
I wouldn't say the site is doomed but if nothing changes, it will head for a slow demise. Just reiterating...Adobe Flash is insecure and firms like Facebook, Google, and Apple have all called for it to be discontinued. We are all one massive hack away from Adobe discontinuing it entirely. JS will need to start creating non-flash games or we will effectively lose part of the site.
JS will also need to start creating some original content such as a plot. The last real one was TFR. Without plots, I'd argue that much of the older demographic will get bored of the site.
JS needs to better communicate with site users, including posting about glitches.
JS needs to adapt quickly to glitches and exploits such as cookie grabbers. Old TNT had a quicker response. JS let it go on for a while.
There might be other things but if JS doesn't go beyond just keeping the site online, the site will suffer a slow demise. Not everyone will be gone but even a slow and steady decline will be damaging. Also I don't know JS's record but do they have a habit of just pulling the plug on projects? I hope not.
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Post by Zoey on Jul 29, 2015 15:47:08 GMT -5
Personally, I wouldn't too sad if the flash games suddenly went kaboom. Call me Negative Nancy or Debbie Downer, but I'm pretty tired of the games at this point... but I would miss the nostalgic classics like Meerca Chase and DOM II. It would be sad for the programmers who made them, and for the players who play Neopets for the game trophies... and of course, that would lead to the problem of "how do newbies make NP", but I'm sure they can figure out some solution that won't break the economy entirely...
I definitely agree with the plot thing. I'm not sure how big of a plot they can create since we have so few programmers now, but hopefully there'll be one that doesn't require NC to participate.
And yes to the communication thing. I'd like to hear about glitches/exploits from the source, not from word of mouth.
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Post by Geodude 🌻 on Jul 29, 2015 15:57:24 GMT -5
JS has lots of work to do. It just remains to be seen if they are willing to do it. The site won't go belly up overnight. It probably won't do so in a year or even two, three years. That's enough time to right the ship I think.
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